I was crossing El-Tagneed Street one morning, it was ten minutes to 7:00, when suddenly, a man driving past in a car spanked my behind.

“Come to Alexandria and I’ll do anything you want.
Come over to my place, or to the lovers’ den,” he said.
gender violence, harassment

I was subjected to derisive comments on an almost daily basis.
The one I got the most was a quote from one of Mohamed Saad’s movies: “Possibly a boy, possibly a girl”.
I got that practically every day.
At the beginning, I’d usually yell and fight with the person who said it.
Until one time, I got into a fight with a guy who made fun of my hair.
masculinity, bullying, gender violence, harassment, social stigma, the street

When I was in middle school, I went to a school in Al Mandara, and there was a girls' school across the street from ours. We used to finish school at the same time.

My friend was taking a walk at a sports club.
A guy she’d known for a long time came over and said,
“Come over here.
I want to tell you something.”

I was going home after practice dressed in sports clothes.
Two men were checking me out in the street:
“Is that a girl or a boy?”
“It’s a girl, man.”

I hate you.
I hate everything about you.
Your skin tone, your size, all your little details.

Trust me when I say that I’ve tried to accept you so many times, but I just can’t.
I can’t keep fooling myself.
body image, body shaming, beauty standards, harassment

I was there when the catcalls on the streets started changing from “Hey, honey” to “I want to put my **** in your ****”!
I was there when they silenced everyone, and no one spoke,
I thought I was experiencing these things alone,
I hated my body, my femininity, and my life.

I was in highschool at the time.
It was inappropriate to tell mama about this sort of thing,
She never said so,
But I had a feeling that what happened could not be talked about.

I was on a bus with my mother and older sister.
The bus was empty, but there was a man standing next to me.
I found his penis next to my shoulder.
gender violence, sexual violence, harassment, the street