Smash the Patriarchy with Rage and Risk: Lessons from Mona Eltahawy
If you're still waiting for someone to save democracy, Mona Eltahawy has news for you: you are the one you’ve been waiting for.
A fearless Egyptian-American journalist and author of The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls and her latest book Bloody Hell!: Adventures in Menopause From Around the World, Eltahawy is no stranger to authoritarianism. While covering Arab Spring protests in Cairo, she was seized by Egyptian security forces and sexually assaulted and beaten, her arm and hand broken. Now, she warns, America is slipping toward the same strongman rule in Egypt. And too many are sleepwalking through it.
Eltahawy's prescription is feminism that terrifies, carried out by both women and men. Because anyone can be a feminist. This is feminism as revolution. As she puts it, “There is no revolution without rage, and there is no revolution without risk.”
Her work urges women to embrace power, ambition, anger, and militant self-defense, not to provoke, but to defend. And for their allies to support them. Learn to protect yourself. Teach your daughters common-sense self-defense and how to take up space.
Her hope is that more of us, especially white women in the U.S., will stop cosplaying resistance and start embodying it. “The Handmaid’s Tale is not a documentary,” she says. “Get out of the TV and into the streets.”
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Show Notes
Journalist On Being Sexual 'Prey' In Egypt https://www.npr.org/2011/11/29/142895349/journalist-on-being-sexual-prey-in-egypt
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Andrea Chalupa (00:20):
Welcome to Gaslit Nation. I am your host, Andrea Chalupa, a journalist and filmmaker and the writer and producer of the journalistic thriller, Mr. Jones, about Stalin's genocide famine in Ukraine. The film the Kremlin does not want you to see, so be sure to watch it.
(00:37):
We are so excited to smash the patriarchy and the oligarchy all over the world. There's nowhere they can hide, and we're going to do that with the help of our guest this week. Mona Eltahawy, a fearless Egyptian-American journalist through her powerful newsletter, Feminist Giant, and her acclaimed books, including The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls, Headscarves and Hymens, and her latest book out now, Bloody Hell, Adventures in Menopause from Around the World.
(01:16):
Mona champions Women's liberation globally. During the Arab Spring, she returned to Cairo where she was arrested, beaten both of her arms, broken and sexually assaulted, but that did not break her spirit. She emerged even more defiant. Mona's voice is a rallying cry for rebellion, truth, and the audacity to demand freedom on our own terms. And while she says that violence is not the answer, she advocates for common sense self-defense, because the patriarchy is not going to smash itself.
(02:02):
Welcome to Gaslit Nation.
(02:04):
So every strong, terrifying woman in my life reads you, depends on you. You are like the gynecologist of the resistance. You're getting us all through pre menopause, menopause, Mona, the Patron Saint of Vaginas. I think about all the time going to a Trump rally and just doing man on the street interviews and asking these mouth breathing white men, do you know what a clitoris is? And just seeing how many of them say no. I read you and I think about the fact where we're up against these Christian nationalists, these Islamic nationalists, and they all want to put, they all want to bury women alive. They want to chain, imprison, bury women alive, and yet they all worshiped God, a male God. And I'm thinking, look at this natural world of such endless infinite wonder, and don't you think the wisdom that unites all creation is a wisdom we should all bow down to? And that wisdom bestowed women with over 10,000 nerve fibers concentrated in the tiny little clitoris of a pleasure palace. And shouldn't we bow down to that wisdom?
Mona Eltahawy (03:21):
I endorse all of the above.
Andrea Chalupa (03:23):
I just had to get all of that out as a fan girl of your work. And just to thank you on behalf of all women out there for all that you do for us.
Mona Eltahawy (03:31):
Thank you, Andrea. I'm so excited to talk with you. I am a huge fan of yours and of, oh my God, Gaslight Nation. And I haven't had enough coffee this morning. Of course there's much fuckery happening.
Andrea Chalupa (03:42):
I know. It's the fascism. No one's sleeping.
Mona Eltahawy (03:44):
You honestly. Oh my God. Here are people who get it. Here are people who understand the threat of fascism. Here are people who understand the importance of feminism in standing up to fascism. And I wish every person in the United States had your manifesto. You can save this country and so many others, but I just wish everyone in the United States understood the urgency of the moment and the magnitude of the moment in the way that you and do. It's just incredible. Why don't they?
Andrea Chalupa (04:11):
I don't know. It feels like everyone is sleepwalking and they are luling themselves with normalization and the media is helping massively. CBS is about to settle possibly for a massive case of multimillions. So what does this feel like? Does this feel familiar to you for what you've lived and witnessed in Egypt?
Mona Eltahawy (04:33):
Yeah, I moved to the US in 2000, so I've been here for 25 years and I've been saying for several years now, but especially more recently, that I've spent the past quarter of a century watching the United States turn into Egypt, the country that I left behind in 2000. And whether it's the political overreach, whether it's the overreach of the president and presidential powers just accruing, just accruing or the growing impact of white Christian nationalism in the same way that we saw Muslim nationalism or Muslim fundamentalism, specifically in Egypt. I'm like sitting there going, oh my God, what the fuck is happening right now? I left all that behind, and here it is happening here, but the more I tell people about it happening here, what was kicking into place was this American exceptionalism of, oh, no, no, no, no, we're not like that. That's not going to happen here.
(05:23):
That was you over there. And I'm like, why? What makes you so special that it won't happen here? And I've taken more recently as well to telling people that people in the US who do begin to realize what's happening, look at Russia and Hungary and other countries in central and eastern Europe as a way to say, okay, we can see these white people like us going through it, but they never want to see what they're going through was what through so many black and brown people have been going through. So they'll stop there. So even in their assessment of the danger of fascism, there is still a racism underway. They're like, okay, I can see how we resemble Russia, but Egypt, fuck that. Zimbabwe. No way. I'm like, why do you think your whiteness is going to save you? Is that what it is? So I think this is why people are asleep walking through it and the media is playing, is trying to, this normalization game is because no, no, no, can't happen to us. Oh no. Why can't it happen to you because you're white? Hello, welcome to the rest of us. It's driving me insane that they can't understand how dangerous this moment is. They don't want to understand.
Andrea Chalupa (06:28):
No, absolutely. And they're all making compromises and devil's bargains thinking it's not going to come around for them. And I have to ask you, what advice do you have for Americans? I mean, when you look at the Arab Spring, when you look at the horrific pre surrendering that went on in Egypt with LCC taking it all over, what advice do you have for us in this moment? How do we wake each other up?
Mona Eltahawy (06:52):
Well, I think the first thing to realize is that it's dangerous every day. There isn't this one thing that comes around like revolution. People think revolution happens overnight. It doesn't happen overnight. And fascism too does not happen overnight. It is the steady growth of the presidential overreach, the growing power of white Christian nationalism that isn't met with enough force. And I also think it is the numbing effect of people who look like you and you don't recognize their danger because it's like looking into the mirror. And so in Egypt, Egypt is a much more homogeneous society than the United States. So it was like, oh, my uncle, my aunt, they think the Muslim Brotherhood are okay. Oh, my grandfather, my father, my mother think that the military are okay. Oh, okay, then they must be okay. These are people that I know. And here in the United States it's not so homogeneous because you have clear racial inequalities. You hear, you see very clearly how different ethnic groups are handling this moment and are being affected by this moment. But I think that the reason that I make a difference here is that because US newsrooms are still mostly white, that the majority of newsrooms are white journalists.
Andrea Chalupa (07:59):
White male along with big tech programming or algorithms.
Mona Eltahawy (08:03):
Definitely. So when it's white male, whether it's the tech world or the newsrooms, and they see the growing power of these incredibly dangerous white men in Silicon Valley and also South Asian men who belong to upper the so-called dominant caste of Hinduism, because there are very powerful South Asian men in Silicon Valley, and we see them in Kash Patel. We see them in Usher Vance because I think some people use them. This is what the right wing do. They surround themselves with women and people of color who agree with them. So they get that plausible deniability, oh, we're not racist. We've got Kash Patel. Oh, we're not misogynist. We've got UshaVance, or we've got fucking Kristy Noem, or whoever. And so I want to remind them that just because someone looks like you and you feel like you're looking in the mirror, it doesn't mean they're not dangerous.
(08:49):
And so I think this is what happened in Egypt too, I think because in Egypt as well, we also had the only two that were presented to us were the military or the Muslim Brotherhood. And the two options that were presented to us in the US are the Democrats or the Republicans. And I'm like, hello, you can have more than two options. Because the way the military stepped in and said, oh, we're going to save you from the Mubarak regime, excuse me, a one in the same, the Mubarak regime was always the military. And I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of Egypt, but that's what allowed a lot of people to think that he claims to be the enemy of Mubarak, then he must be my friend. No, he is not under no circumstances are the military, your friends ever. So this is what I want people in the US to recognize that just because someone looks like you and sounds like you, they are not you when it comes to your politics. And they can be just as dangerous as the people you think you are fighting.
Andrea Chalupa (09:39):
Absolutely. And I think people are lulled because they have Thanksgiving in America with these racist fox news brainwashed aunts and uncles, and they think, oh, they're not a threat to me directly. But it's the constant chipping away day after day. That's the real violence.
Mona Eltahawy (09:57):
Absolutely. And I think I stopped watching the TV show Handmaid's Tale. I'm sure many people have at this stage. I don't know, but...
Andrea Chalupa (10:05):
I don't know why it's still going strong. I'm like, how are people watching this all these years later when we're living it?
Mona Eltahawy (10:10):
I know. And so it then became this kind of anthropological exercise for me to continue watching until this current season. My hard red line and the anthropology had to go out the window was when June stopped women on the train fleeing Gilead to Canada from attacking Serena. Now in the last season or two seasons ago, June led a whole bunch of women in killing Commander Fred. And I'm getting into the nitty gritty of this TV show because I think it speaks to the moment, and it speaks to the moment in that, and I'm directly addressing white women in the US now, white women can see the danger of white men. They can see the misogyny of white men and them like fat that I'm a feminist, but they can't see the danger of other white women. And it was really represented in that moment in the Handmaid's Tale.
(10:57):
And I bring it up and I think the TV show continues because I think the makers of the show are cosplaying revolution and their cosplaying revolution in a country that is not ready for revolution even though it needs revolution and it's not ready for revolution because white women are not angry enough, they're not rage filled enough. And so they watch this TV show and it allows them, it gives them this catharsis of fuck yeah, you see what June is doing? That's me. I'm like, dude, it's a fucking TV show. Get out there and put the rage on the streets, not in the TV show. So it's allowing them this revolution that isn't happening yet. And the rest of us who have either abandoned the show or who are black and brown and don't have the luxury of this white woman, white man dynamic to just sit back and watch and are you not seeing what's happening to the rest of us?
(11:43):
So I think this is the danger both of, even though I love the book for a really long time, I think what it has allowed specifically white women in the US to do is hold this horror at arm's length and say, oh, we're not Gilead, but I'm like, you are. And it has been happening. They killed abortion rights. You think they're not going to continue and kill all the other rights? Why? So I think that it's really important to also pay attention to the culture that we're consuming. So it's not just the media that we're reading and following, it's the culture we're consuming who's making it and why? Because if it's cosplaying revolution, and if it's allowing you to feel this catharsis that then dampens your rage, turn it off and take that rage away from the screen and into the streets and really threaten those white Christian nationalists and the fascists who are coming for us all.
Andrea Chalupa (12:34):
A trillion percent. And so how do we do that? Let's talk about your book, The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls. So from your book those sins, how can we leverage your book, your manifesto to create real meaningful revolution in the streets and not cosplay it, women?
Mona Eltahawy (12:54):
Thank you. Exactly. Real, become a real threat to the patriarchy. So the reason that I wrote the book is because I would often hear anger as being the only emotion that men were allowed and the only emotion that women weren't allowed. And so I put that as what I call the junior sin. I was like, okay, let's talk about anger and why anger is important, but anger alone is not enough. And so I began to think about that's how I've created Mona's basically Bible or religious manifesto or whatever you want to call it, Mona's doctrine. Obviously I took the seven deadly sins and made them necessary. So you've got anger, you've got attention and profanity, ambition, power, violence and lust. And I ordered them in that way in growing importance and difficulty because anger is the easiest to tap into, and lust is the hardest to tap into.
(13:46):
And along the way, you have to go through all of these others. And these are all traits that specifically for cisgender women. So those of us assigned female at birth. And of course I try to be as inclusive as possible, and I talk about trans people and I talk about gender fluid people or non-binary people in my book, but it's specifically because I am a cisgender woman. I'm not heterosexual, I'm queer. And so in many of the things I don't abide by heteronormativity or mono normativity, but I am a cisgender woman. So it specifically addresses other cis women. And these are traits that we've often been told are unladylike or we're not supposed to do, or we're not supposed to want to be like, stop saying this and stop doing that. You just want attention. And I'm like, what's wrong with attention?
Andrea Chalupa (14:30):
Exactly. Thank you.
Mona Eltahawy (14:32):
And so I arranged it in that way and I just wanted it to get out there as a manifesto, not a peace treaty, because I think so much feminism in the United States recently, and I think this is one of the reasons Trump succeeded, not once but twice. I know a lot of people say white feminism, but I think feminism generally in the United States has been an attempt to reach some kind of impasse with patriarchy, some kind of peace treaty with patriarchy. And I'm like, fuck that shit. Let's destroy patriarchy. This is a manifesto that is like a Molotov cocktail that you ought to throw at Patriarchy's guts. I'm not interested in peace with patriarchy. I'm interested in terrifying the patriarchy and destroying it because it's too late now. There's no peace to be made. Let's fucking destroy it.
Andrea Chalupa (15:15):
Well, patriarchy is a prison. There's no negotiating with sadist prison wardens. And so I want to ask you about the violence in the seven necessary sins for women and girls because I understand a trillion percent where you're coming from. I'm raising two little girls. I want them to grow up to know how to kill a man with their hands. They should know that it's a basic skill. They should know how to balance their budget. They should know how credit works in America. They should know how to not get preyed on by men at bars or even real estate agents if they're trying to get their first apartment. And they should know how to kill a man with their bare hands should they need to not prowling the streets looking for trouble, but just self-defense. I understand completely that we're all about nonviolence. We're all about let's come to the table and let's build a better world together with our allies who are real true men that care about equality and understand how it benefits them. Because the reality is misogyny is killing everybody. Misogyny is killing everybody. So could you talk a little bit about your view on how violence is useful in building real resistance with the big debate in America right now that we're outgunned the pro Christian nationalists, they want us to go violent because they want to cause play Rambo in the streets. They want to live out their cop city, wildest fantasies on us. So in terms of this asymmetrical warfare, where do you see violence in terms of a very practical, sustainable way that it's impactful?
Mona Eltahawy (16:51):
Right? So I understand that violence is probably the most controversial chapter in the book, and it's gotten, I was on a TV show in Australia a few years ago where I talked specifically about the ethos of that chapter and the episode in Australia and Ostensible democracy has been banned because usually this TV show that I was on is on replay. You can watch it any time. But the network in Australia banned it specifically because of my talking about, because I asked, how long must we wait until boys and men stop hurting and murdering us? How many rapists must we kill? And Australia, a country not known for the newness suddenly went ballistic and they banned it and they discussed it in parliament and oh my God, it just went completely berserk. The importance of violence is so there are many parts to this, and I will make it as neat as possible.
(17:39):
I classify patriarchy as the oldest form of occupation in the world or colonization in the world. And we know because we're talking about decolonizing and all of these post-colonial theories that it took a while, but we now understand that occupied people across the world and throughout history, my country, Egypt, was occupied by the British for such a long time and so many other countries, we now know that people want to liberate themselves from occupation and colonization have the right to liberate themselves through violence. And that violence often includes men and women rising up to liberate themselves from forms of occupation and colonization. I consider patriarchy the oldest form of occupation colonization. Therefore we have a right to rise up against it and use any means necessary. Yesterday was Malcolm X's centennial, the centennial of his birth by any means necessary Malcolm X. And yet somehow when women take part in anticolonial struggles or to liberate themselves from occupation, we recognize that violence is legitimate.
(18:38):
But when we want to use that violence against patriarchy, suddenly it's like, oh my God, no way. So we understand that violence is a language that patriarchy uses, but it will only allow us to speak that language when we are fighting on behalf of patriarchy. And by that I mean women joining the military and the armed forces across the world. That kind of violence by women is okay because it's in the name of patriarchy, but fighting patriarchy is not okay. And then I'm not nonviolent. And this all really came to a head. Two things happened during the debates on kavanaugh's confirmation in the United States. I remember seeing a video of women crying, literally crying in Congress, trying to get men fucking, what was his name? Jeff Flake, Jeff, whatever the fuck he think,
(19:23):
And all these other senators. And they were basically metaphorically cutting their veins open and saying, look at all the terrible things that have happened to me. Do not confirm this man. And they're crying, and these fucking men are just like, go away, go away. And going up in the I'm like, we need more than tears. Tears are not enough here. We need to terrify patriarchy. How do we do that? And then shortly before or after, I can't remember the actual dateline now because so much has happened, including lockdown. I was in a club and it been, it was after about a week of me, I had just launched something called hashtag mosque. Me too. Tarana burs incredible me too from back in 2016 that then all these actors had revived in 2017. So this went out at 2018 and I launched something called hashtag most MeToo about Muslim women being sexually assaulted in sacred places like Macka and mosques and things like that.
(20:14):
And I had been inundated with all these Muslim women and some Muslim men sharing their experiences of being sexually assaulted in sacred places. And I was like, oh my God, this is so heavy. I need to go out dancing. So I went out dancing with my beloved in a club in Montreal in Canada, and we're dancing. I'm wearing a tank top and jeans, I had just been talking about in my writing full on hijab in Mecca during pilgrimage where you could only see my face and hands when I was 15 years old. I'm now 50 years old, and I was sexually assaulted in Mecca at 15 years old and I'm now 50 years old in a club, and I feel a hand on my butt after this week of just getting all this experiences from Muslim women and some men. And I'm like, are you fucking kidding me?
(20:56):
At the age of 50, when does this fuckery stop? Unlike when I was 15 and I burst into tears. I didn't know what to do with this violence. I tracked down the man who sexually assaulted me in this car in Montreal. I tugged at him from behind. He fell because he wasn't expecting this woman. He had sexually assaulted to come at him. And I sat on him and I punched him like a dozen times. And every time I punched him, I was like, don't you ever fucking touch a woman like that again? Don't you ever do that to a woman again? And then I stopped and then he got up, he looked at me. He wanted to see this woman who had just fought back, and I smacked him so hard across his jaw. I thought I'd broken my hand and he ran away and I was like, fuck the shit.
(21:40):
This is what we need. And I wrote about it on Twitter, but it had taken me years to get to this point. I wasn't beaten men up when they first started sexually assaulting me and my thread on what was then Twitter went viral and my beloved thread went viral. And the turning point for me, other than beating this man up was this law professor called Maryanne Franks. She wrote to me on Twitter that night and she said to me, what you did is what I call an example of optimal violence. Now this is a law professor, and she sent me a paper that she wrote that formed the crux of that chapter on violence in which she makes the case. Again, a law professor in which she says, there is too much of an imbalance of violence in our society, in our society for men against women.
(22:23):
She calls that unjustified violence. And she said, in order for our society to recalibrate itself, we need more justified violence from women against men. And to summarize all of this, an end, she says, when a man walks down the street and he sees another man, he thinks twice before he even thinks about picking a fight with him because he is like, can this man take me on? He probably can not going to fight with him. But men don't do that calculation with women because women are not socialized to fight against men. So she says, we need a society in which a man thinks twice before he assaults women, and how do we do that? She says, we need more justified violence from women against men. And she said, what you did in that club is a way towards that. So non-violence is not working, and I understand that they have a lot of guns, but we need them to understand that we are ready to fight back.
(23:16):
Is it going to cost us? It's already costing us because people are saying to me, Mona, people say two things to me. Women aren't big enough to fight against men. This is just going to go bad for women. I say to them, first of all, I want any individual woman to assess her own level of risk. If you are alone against this man and no one is going to help you in this scenario, obviously I don't want you to risk your life fighting against this man. I want you to survive, but if you think you can take this man on, take him on. And then people say to me, doesn't violence beget violence? I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? Do you hear yourself right now, centuries of male violence? What has that begotten us other than women getting killed and raped and murdered and beaten? It is time now to flip that switch and make men understand the consequence of their violence against women. This is what I want, understand that they will be consequence. That's when we can start leveling up what's happening in society. That's why violence is important.
Andrea Chalupa (24:10):
All you're doing is talking about self-defense. I mean, any man out there, any white man, Democrat, republican, who is raising a little girl in this world that is going to objectify their daughter and just see her as an instrument for their own sexual gratification, walking down the street at her job, getting sexually harassed, all of the shocking statistics that women go through that no one prepares them for including the enduring trauma. So any white man, democrat, Republican, will want their doctor to know how to fight back. That's all you're saying.
Mona Eltahawy (24:51):
And yet it's taken as an incitement. I've been accused over and over again of inciting violence. I'm like, I am addressing the violence that has already been there for centuries.
Andrea Chalupa (25:03):
Exactly right. I mean, every single little girl should be raised just like little boys on how to throw a punch.
Mona Eltahawy (25:11):
Totally. I understood the importance of that because like I said, it took me years to get to the point where I beat up that man. And I remember when I first started fighting back against sexual assault, the most I could do was yell because we are not socialized to lay hands on men. And then I promoted myself from yelling to shoving them and spitting on them, and then I started hitting back. I often tell people in those films where women take self-defense classes and their teachers offer a man who's dressed from head to toe in protective gear, and then he tells the women in the self-defense class punch me, and the women don't know how to punch him because we're not socialized to punch anybody.
Andrea Chalupa (25:51):
Right. And that's all you're saying is just socialized little girls to know these things. Basic skills.
Mona Eltahawy (25:57):
Exactly. Because one of the things I learned when I was researching my book, and I include this in a chapter on anger, was this thing called the Global Adolescent Survey. And they studied children across the world and not just in conservative societies so-called or liberal societies, it was across the world. And they found that by the age of 10, girls across the world had accepted that they were weak and vulnerable. And by the age of 10 boys had learned and been socialized and happily accepted that they were basically immortal and they could do whatever they want. And this is why you see as boys turn into teenagers, they engage in incredibly risky behavior like speeding while driving drugs, all that kind of stuff. They believe they're immortal, and girls begin to shrink. And you see the prevalence of disordered eating, depression, self-harm, all of this because all of that that's supposed to go out there is internalized in girls. And the opposite happens with boys. So we need to do the opposite socialization. We need to teach boys that you are mortal, and if you engage in risky behavior, you will die. And we need to teach girls that you are invincible in the way that we teach boys. We have to stop telling the all girls, be careful, be careful, be careful. And we have to teach the all girls go out there and fight these...
Andrea Chalupa (27:13):
Take up space.
Mona Eltahawy (27:14):
Exactly.
Andrea Chalupa (27:15):
I love this so much, and I want to share with you that in college I got in a bar fight with a frat boy football player, and the next morning in bed, I noticed his skin hair underneath my fingernails.
Mona Eltahawy (27:28):
Well done, Andrea.
Andrea Chalupa (27:29):
Oh yeah. And that was the beginning of my career as a podcaster. But yeah. So I want to ask about the Middle East Trump's first trip abroad, straight to Saudi Arabia, straight to Qatar to get his plane. What do you make of that? And do you see Trump in these tyrants across the Middle East?
Mona Eltahawy (27:47):
Yeah, so what I saw from all the images that came out, including those white billionaire tech bros who were there, so if you take a picture of Trump and MBS from Saudi Arabia and the leaders of Qatar and the UAE, which are the three countries he went to, and the tech billionaire bros that he took with him, the headline is This is what the patriarchy looks like. You know that one of my least favorite chants when I go on protests in the US is this is what democracy looks like. I'm like, fucking shut up and start actually saying something dangerous. And so in my head, now, the chance is this is what the patriarchy looks like. Because what these men are, they represent power, they represent men. I mean they
Andrea Chalupa (28:25):
Do represent men.
Mona Eltahawy (28:26):
They do totally. All of them are men. So they're power, money, misogyny, all of that stuff. This is what they are. And the message too is you were saying earlier about Christian nationalism and Islamic nationalism, my message to all of these men is stay the fuck out of my vagina unless I want you in there. Because whether it's Elon Musk, impregnating a thousand women because he wants babies everywhere, all white women, of course, or it's the Gulf or it's Trump, they are the patriarchy. They represent the worst of patriarchy, and that's what Trump wants. He doesn't care when people were able to see how ISIS which we call Dash, because we hate the fact that they take over. We being people of Muslim descent, they've taken over this Islamic nation stuff, whether it's armed Muslim militants or armed Christian militants or armed Jewish militants or armed Hindu militants.
(29:22):
All of these men represent the same thing, which is controlled specifically of the control of the body that is not a cisgender heterosexual male because depending on where they are, they're not all white if they're Hindu or Muslim, et cetera. But they all represent that control. And sometimes you'll find tension among those men. Like a lot of right wing Christian nationalists are Islamophobic and racist and hate everything that Muslims represent, but from researchers that the one thing that they do love and that they envy is what they see the ability of Muslim men to control their women. And I've read this from researchers who go on the dark web and they follow the right wing. They often say that these white Christian nationalists or the white right wing, they hate Muslims, they hate Muslims coming to Europe or the US or whatever, but they're watching carefully what Muslim men do to women.
(30:12):
And one side of their mouth is condemning it and saying, do you see what they do to women? We can't let them into our culture. They're going to ruin our culture. And from the other side of their mouth, they're saying, see what they're doing to women. That's what we need to do to women. We need to get our women to make all these babies like they are. We need to get our women to behave and obey and shut up and stay at home and not vote and not go to school, see what the Taliban are doing, bad, bad, bad. See what the Tata are doing. We need to do that. Do you know what I mean? So the hypocrisy involved in Trump going over there, this is the same Trump that justified the Muslim ban on. We don't want these men to come over here and hurt our women in the same way that he's justifying what he's doing to the brown men that he's sending to concentration camps in El Salvador. So that's one side of his mouth. We are protecting white women from these dangerous Muslims and dangerous brown men. And the other side of his mouth is we need to control our white women and get them to stop voting and stop going to school and stop working and make more babies for us. But if these brown men are going to give us money, I am their best friend. That was my conclusion of the whole trip to the Gulf.
Andrea Chalupa (31:15):
Absolutely. And in terms of Americans today talking to each other and saying, do we stay or do we go? What are your thoughts on that?
Mona Eltahawy (31:25):
Oh my God, I just wrote an essay called Should I Stay Or Should I Go. I think this for me, this is all encapsulated with those three experts in authoritarianism who were at Yale University.
Andrea Chalupa (31:37):
Marcy, Tim, and Jason
Mona Eltahawy (31:39):
Who have all now gone to the University of Toronto. And when I first heard about how they're leaving and their experts on authoritarianism, I thought, wow, it must be so bad in this country that these experts in authoritarianism have left. And then I watched their interview with the New York Times, they had a video opinion piece in which each of them described their reasons why they were leaving. And I was like, wow, if these people are among the first to leave, this country is fucked at the end of the day, honestly, I never tell people how they should vote or how they should protest or any of that stuff. At the same time in the United States where the people who have the most to lose green card holders, students, activists who are fighting to stop the extraordinary rendition of brown men to concentration camps in El Salvador, these people on the frontline have the most to lose the not in cushy positions.
(32:28):
They are literally abducted from the street, and we can see it from cameras and taken it and held as political prisoners in immigration, jails, hamud, kil, og, so many other people. At the end of the day, I know what risk is because I have felt it literally on my body, and I know what it is to confront a regime. I know all of this. I'm not speaking metaphorically, I'm not speaking from my phone, I'm not speaking on social media. I have felt the consequence of fascism. Literally, I have a titanium plate that fixed one of my bones here. I know what it is to fight fascism physically. I have paid that cost at the same time. I can't tell anyone else what risk that they should take, but what I can say is there is no revolution without risk, and there is no revolution without rage.
(33:14):
And right now in the United States of America, the people who can most afford risk and rage, and that is white people are the last people who are out there full of rage and risking. And it's just upside down to me. The people who can least afford it are the ones who are out there with rage and risk. And the people who can most afford it are like until it basically comes to their front door and takes them away, and then they go to the universe. I don't even know if it's went to the front door of these three professors, but they're in Toronto already. What message does that send to people? Just get out if you can. What about if you can't, what then who fights then? So as long as I'm a naturalized citizen, and I'm saying until the regime of Donald Trump de naturalizes me, I am staying. I am here in New York City to fight for as long as I can, and I understand the risks that come with that fight
Andrea Chalupa (34:08):
Without question. And so in terms of how we get through this, let's say we get through this and I think people are just in this dreamy state that the midterms are going to come and we're going to show him at the midterms, the big blue wave. And if that doesn't happen, I think that's going to be a big wake up call for where we are as a country. And then 20, 20 eight's going to come and everyone's like, okay, we're going to show him with a big blue wave. And next thing you know, Trump is still president, come 20, 29, 20 30, and he's just going to live out his life in office. And then JD Vance is going to take over. And I think Americans are just in this horrible emotional holding pattern of weight and see, but let's say we do get through this or pockets of our country get through this like the so-called blue states. What should we do to not commit the same mistakes that Biden and Merrick Garland and Christopher Ray did? There was zero accountability. There was zero 14th amendment of the US Constitution. I could have barred Trump and a lot of his squad and Marjorie Taylor Greene from the January 6th terrorist group from running for office. They didn't do it. So it just total pre surrender during the Biden years. What to you does real accountability look like and how can we start building that now?
Mona Eltahawy (35:28):
You know how I said earlier when you asked me, what does it feel like to live here coming from where I do Egypt, right? When I said, I've spent the past 25 years in the United States watching the US turn into Egypt, here's a big major difference that I think begins to address your point. In Egypt, there is no one who can pretend that people freely and daily chose the regime that basically has Egypt in a stranglehold right? Now. We would hear so often, Arabs love the strong arm dictator. Arabs love their Saddam, their Gaddafi, their Mubarak, and according to who, please, there are no free and fair elections. So according to what do you figure out that we love this dictator because when we could, we rose up in revolution. But these regimes armed and financed by the United States crushed our revolution. So there's no free and fair elections.
(36:15):
In the United States, however, up until quite recently, there were free and fair elections, 77 million people in the United States freely and fairly chose Donald Trump, who loves their strong arm dictator, who loves their regime, clearly here, people here, right? Because we've seen the election, we need to recognize this now. We need to recognize that 77 million people chose Donald Trump. What are we going to do with them even if we do make it through this? What are we going to do with them in the next election? This is where white people come in Now, because the biggest voting block in this country is white people. They're the ones who are responsible for Donald Trump winning. I know that the majority of Latinx men voted for Trump, but the Hispanic vote is only 6%. The white vote is by and far, much, much larger. So the real fight here is among white people. So I want to know what are white people doing to fight their relatives who keep voting for these fascist folks?
(37:08):
So that's number one. What are you willing to do to fight your relatives who keep voting for fascist folks? Number two, I find that too many white Democrats, white liberals are very comfortable when it's a Democrat in the White House when Congress is dominated by Democrats, but as soon as it becomes Republicans, they suddenly get upset. I'm like, excuse me, who armed and financed the genocide of Israel against Palestinians in Gaza? It was Biden. And that's one of the reasons I believe that Kamala Harris did not win, is that so many people did not go out to vote for her who voted. These are Democrats now, specifically young Democrats because she continued Biden's policy on the genocide. So let's have real accountability among Democrats as well. So there's accountability between white people who know that they know people that vote for Republicans, and then we need accountability among Democrats.
(37:57):
Instead, I'm a registered independent. I'm an anarchist. I barely believe in any of the shit, but I'm not a registered Democrat. But I see the dynamic among white Democrats. They're very happy when a Democrat's in place, and I say this because as an Egyptian, that regime that is armed and financed by the United States that has crushed the revolution in Egypt is armed and financed by Democrats and Republicans. So when it comes out to politics outside of the us, it matters little to me, whether it's a Democrat or Republican in the White House. This is what I want people in the US to start thinking. Now, I don't care who's in the White House, and I don't care who runs Congress. I do care about stopping fascism. And so whether it's a Democrat or a Republican who's not doing enough, we need to hold them both accountable. So Republicans, Democrats, all of that. And then this rage and risk start to learn to become more. Where's your rage? Tap into your rage. And I think also one of the other things I've learned in this country is the anthem and the land of the free and the home of the brave, or I'm probably mixing it up, but this.
Andrea Chalupa (39:02):
Oh you're right.
Mona Eltahawy (39:03):
Yeah. Okay. You nailed it.
Andrea Chalupa (39:04):
I'll let you stay now.
Mona Eltahawy (39:05):
Thank you. Don't take my passport. Fuck that. No, I think for a lot of people, again, this is specifically white people in the United States. They really do believe they are free. But this notion of freedom when it was really challenged during lockdown and with masking and with vaccinations, what freedom are we really talking about? It is the freedom to be this incredibly selfish individual, but it's not a freedom that is liberation for all. It is. I'm free. You're not the boss of me. Fuck you. I'm like, that's it. Freedom begins and ends with you. What is freedom? And so when I saw that Trump was reelected again after January 6th, I was like the majority of white people in the United States truly live under this fallacy of freedom. They really believe they're free. They're not. They're not free. They have this individual pocket of freedom that they believe is freedom with a big F.
(39:57):
They live under freedom with a small F. So I want people to start thinking about freedom with a big F. That means liberation for everyone, not just you in your whatever house, apartment that you own. And you're like, I'm fine. Everything's great, economy's great. I'm okay. Or we're going to show him in 20, whatever, 20, 26, who is really free. And the reason I keep harping on about white people is because I believe that they are naively trustworthy of government and institutions in a way that black and people of color and indigenous people in the United States are not.
Andrea Chalupa (40:30):
A trillion percent
Mona Eltahawy (40:32):
Because those of us who are not white in this country are often harmed by government and institutions. But white people are often, they benefit from government institutions. And now that they're seeing that government and institutions are rolling back their benefits, I hope they finally wake up and go, hold on. But a lot of them are like, that's not supposed to happen to me. That's the problem. This is what all these trumpists who are the leopards eating my face, I didn't think they would do it to me. They're waking up because they're like, excuse me, you're not supposed to hurt me. You're supposed to hurt the black and brown people. And I want everyone to wake up whether they have freedom with a small F or not.
Andrea Chalupa (41:09):
Yeah. We need to unite and build freedom from capitalism.
Mona Eltahawy (41:12):
Yes. Can we all become anarchists, please?
Andrea Chalupa (41:14):
Yes. Well, anarchists are just people that take matters from their own hands and help each other. It's a collective movement. It's like there's no leaders. It's not top down. It's like all of us chipping in. That's anarchy. Orwell and his wife were anarchists.
Mona Eltahawy (41:28):
Yeah, I think people think anarchism is anarchy in violence and free for all. And I think we need to impress upon the more that it's non-hierarchical. It's not about domination. It's fighting militarism. It's fighting patriarch, it's fighting capitalism, and ultimately it's creating the kind of society that we saw for a brief moment during lockdown when people were actually helping each other. Does my neighbor need something? Mutual aid community, all that importance, and everyone has just pedaled, many people have pedaled away from that, and it's become just what works for me. And as long as they're not hurting me, I'm okay.
Andrea Chalupa (42:03):
Exactly. In Ukraine, their Euromaidan revolution, example of anarchy, and then there's a whole history of anarchy in Ukraine that goes from all the way before the Bolshevik period that was independent of the Bolsheviks. So anarchy has been there throughout history in just fighting for better for your world. So I want to ask you in this shit show, what is giving you hope right now?
Mona Eltahawy (42:25):
Feminism, honestly, I think this moment is the moment for feminism, but it is a feminism that does not appease. This is a feminism that terrifies a feminism that terrifies patriarchy, feminism, that terrifies fascism because I often say fascism is to control what feminism is to liberation. But I know someone who is a writer and a philosopher from Ghana who refuses to identify as a feminist because she sees feminism as a specifically, she actually says, I don't like feminism because for me, it's like a white woman arguing with her husband. And feminism is beyond that, and this is a feminism that just focuses on misogyny. I want a feminism that focuses on patriarchy, not just misogyny. And for me to define patriarchy, it is a system of oppressions that privileges male dominance. It's not men. It is a system of oppressions that privileges male dominance. And feminism isn't anything a woman does simply because she's a woman.
(43:21):
Feminism is the destruction of patriarchy. So this is why I say what gives me hope right now is feminism, because I think this is the moment where we as feminists who want to terrify can get our message across to people that whether you are a fascist in the Gulf, whether you are a fascist in Italy, where Georgia Maloney is the first female prime minister, but she's a fascist or a fascist in the United States or Argentina, feminism is the way to fight that fascism because it tackles everything that patriarchy represents. And for me, patriarchy is misogyny, capitalism, homophobia, ableism, all of those things that hold up what I call the octopus of patriarchy. For me, patriarchy is the head of the octopus is patriarchy, and each of the tentacles is one of those oppressions. So the rage that feminism fills me with, and it's a rage that I welcome is what gives me hope right now because like I keep saying rage and risk.
(44:12):
I want people to see feminism as not something that just fights so that we can help women fight their husbands. Like my friend from Ghana says, it is a feminism that dismantles all of those systems of oppressions that have helped white Christian nationalism, that have helped Islamic nationalism or Islamic supremacy that helps supremacy and of any kind co-opt people by bringing them in and saying, I can benefit you. Because if someone looks at Trump's cabinet right now, they will say to me, do you not see how many women he has? His White House press secretary is a woman. Doesn't that mean that Trump is a feminist? I'm like, first of all, fuck off. Second of all, these are foot soldiers of the patriarchy.
Andrea Chalupa (44:53):
They're all plastic Barbies. The Kremlin does this too. They surround themselves with all these plastic barbies.
Mona Eltahawy (44:59):
That are there to give them that plausible deniability. You see how many women we have, but what is Karoline Leavitt it's job really? She's a foot soldier of the patriarchy. She's a mouthpiece of fascism. She wears her cross necklace that the New York Times, the fucking New York Times calls a hot accessory combining faith and culture on faith and politics.
Andrea Chalupa (45:19):
The New York Times loves glam Nazis. They're running so many, look at these sparkly Nazis and cocktail dresses throwing these glamorous parties in New York City. That's all they cover now.
Mona Eltahawy (45:31):
It's horrendous. And the milk made phenomenon and the tread white phenomenon, the New York Times has lost its fucking mind. The number of features that
Andrea Chalupa (45:39):
They help make this happen. And now they're cashing in.
Mona Eltahawy (45:42):
Exactly. And I don't think they can ever catch up because they have, just like you said at the beginning, they're sleepwalking their way into all of this. And I'm like, you fucking, you know what I'm doing now? I'm collecting pictures of these triad wives and milkmaid dressed white women foot soldiers of white Christian nationalism for my before and after, because with the Taliban and with the I to in Iran, people in white people specifically in the US love to do, oh my God, look what women in Iran used to look like before the 1979 revolution. And they have their pictures of mini dressed women, and I'm like, oh my God.
(46:13):
Look what women in the US before the white Christian nationalist takeover, before all of these sexy extras from, I call them the sexy extras from the little house on the Prairie, milkmaid dress with cleavage spilling out, but only for her husband, please, because she's a good woman. It's fucking unbelievable. I'm like, how can you see this in Iran and Afghanistan, but you can't see it in the United States? Why? How can you see women in Iran rising up and literally burning their hijab because they see the forced hijab as a symbol of theocracy and you not burning down the Supreme Court because their symbol of theocracy is destroying your reproductive rights. How do you not connect the two theocracy theocracy? Do you know what I mean? What do I get white people in the us? How do I get them to see that the theocracy over there has already taken over here and it is the most powerful country in the world, and it is impacting and influencing everybody. Danger alarm bells here.
Andrea Chalupa (47:10):
Absolutely. And I think a form of protest should be, instead of just marching, we need those who know self-defense skills to just do a flash mop. Meet me on the square. I will teach you how to bring a man down with your bare arms. That's what we should be doing is just self-defense trainings out in the street, like thousands of women, and just practicing that, learning these skills and helping each other. That's it. We just show up and learn skills.
Mona Eltahawy (47:33):
I love that. Do it very publicly and set something on fire. Have some symbol of your rage where you show people that you are willing to go beyond this is what democracy looks like. Please enough. Actually, we need action. We need rage. We need risk.
Andrea Chalupa (47:49):
Yeah. That's the only way we've ever gotten any progress in America. Please. Right. Exactly. Let's flip to the Nazi World War II victory thing again.
Mona Eltahawy (47:58):
Absolutely. Thank you, Andrea. I'm so, so glad we had this conversation. Thank you.
Andrea Chalupa (48:03):
Our discussion continues and you can get access to that by signing up at the Truth teller level or higher on Patreon. Discounted annual memberships are available, and you can also give the gift of membership all summer long. Gaslit Nation created with Love and Anger has been presenting a special series featuring leading experts on how to smash the patriarchy and the oligarchy to make the world safer for everyone. Trump didn't happen overnight. Let's plant Seeds of Hope together for the hottest of hot takes. Join the conversation at the Gaslit Nation salons every Monday at 4:00 PM Eastern. I'll be there with our global community of listeners. Come for deep dives into the news. Learn from fellow listeners and share what's happening in your corner of the world. Can't make it live. Recordings of our Monday salons are available on Patreon, along with our monthly Gaslit Nation book Club, access the Salons bonus shows.
(49:08):
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(49:43):
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