• Books
  • Film
  • Media
    • Daily News Egypt
  • Music
  • Politics
  • Religion
  • Sirgo’s
  • Social
  • Sport
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • Writing
  • By Me
  • About

Sirgo’s Labyrinth

~ On Egypt news & other things on my mind

Sirgo’s Labyrinth

Tag Archives: Fe-mail: Trials and Tribulations of Being a Good Egyptian Girl

Galal Amin on Sexual harassment and religion

27 Tuesday Oct 2009

Posted by Ssirgany in Books, Religion, Sirgo's, Social

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

affair, Amy Mowafi, Azhar, Cairo, class, consensual, Egypt, Enigma, Fe-mail, Fe-mail: Trials and Tribulations of Being a Good Egyptian Girl, femail, Galal Amin, haram, harassment, hell, Islam, logic, marriage, Media, physical, preacher, priest, Religion, right, sarah el sirgany, sexual, sexual harassment, Sheikh, sirgo, Social, sociological, sociology, unregistered, urfi, verbal, Whatever Happened to the Egyptians, wrong

Sexual harassment is definitely an issue in Egypt but it’s relatively tame, especially when compared to other countries; mainly due to religion; it stops people from getting too far. That was more or less was Galal Amin’s initial response to a question about sexual harassment during a discussion of his book Whatever Happened to the Egyptians this month.

Galal Amin

Galal Amin at his house in Maadi, October 2007. By Sarah El Sirgany.

But what I like about Galal Amin – who I hade the pleasure to interview twice – is that he’s willing to reconsider his opinions if presented with new evidence, factors or arguments. And that’s exactly what happened at the discussion.

Amy Mowafi, Enigma editor and author of Fe-mail: Trials and Tribulations of Being a Good Egyptian Girl, interjected, comparing London to Cairo. While catcalls are rare in the former, they are abundant in the latter. And it has nothing to do with clothes or neighborhood. Crossing the street to get coffee, she said, is an adventure.

After a bit of back and forth, with Amin saying that difference in social class could also be a factor in harassment, he finally agreed acknowledging that he might not have the full picture when it comes to sexual harassment.

However, the reason why I’m writing this is that I completely disagree with his initial answer. While I didn’t get the chance to discuss it with him that day and might do that later, let me explain it here first.

First of all, sexual harassment here isn’t tame, whether we are talking verbal or physical harassment.

Secondly, religion, or rather skewed religious discourse propagated by some ignorant “preachers”, is largely responsible for harassment.

Recently, many ‘sheikhs’ have become apologetic and reasonable about harassment – not in a good way. Suddenly, many have become sociological experts who can give many reasons why men resort to sexual harassment: decadent video clips, the internet (in the broad sense of the word), and most importantly what women are wearing. I remember reading an interview for one specifically blaming “jeans el mohgabat” (veiled women who wear jeans, presumably tight ones).

But rarely do I hear sheikhs saying harassment is haram, forbidden, un-Islamic, you do it you go straight to hell, etc.

What’s appalling is that many of these sheikhs frown on a handshake between a man and a woman. Some go as far as saying it’s haram. Well, a handshake is pretty much consensual and quite harmless, but there aren’t a lot of those spouts of reason or sociological analyses there.

Even if we go beyond the handshake to the issue to which pages of magazines and newspapers have been dedicated, the issue responsible for many bad Egyptian films that plagued the screens throughout the 1980s and the 1990s: urfi (unregistered) marriages.

Again, it’s consensual and has a well of social factors behind it. But there are no sociologist sheikhs here, trying to find reasons, or rather excuses for the young men and women involved. For the most part, there is a consensus that urfi marriages are haram, forbidden, un-Islamic, you do it you go straight to hell, etc.

Although such tone hasn’t brought down the number of such marriages or affairs, but still I can’t help but when wonder: Where’s this clear cut tone when it comes to harassment?

The logic is: if consensual non-sexual physical contact is haram or frowned upon (best case scenario), then non-consensual, sexual physical contact must be hell-material, right?

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • More
  • Reddit
  • Print

Like this:

Like Loading...

مذكرات التحرير

BUY I Diari Della Rivoluzione

Top Posts

  • The addictive cycle of TV news
  • عن الفقدان والأمل
  • Jumbled memories of loss and hope
  • Realizing death
  • هو أنا بقيت بأشتم ليه
  • Five months in news

Pages

  • About
  • By Me

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 89,169 other followers

RSS Feed RSS - Posts

RSS Feed RSS - Comments

Recent Comments

steel panther tour on Kahk: It’s not about eating; i…
kshihabi on عن الفقدان والأمل
car rims on Sexuality, Eroticism &…
cleaning chrome rims on Spinning the flotilla story as…
إبراهيم علي on هو أنا بقيت بأشتم ليه

On Twitter/Ssirgany

  • RT @LinaAlhathloul: Public prosecutor and Loujain can still appeal. 2 weeks ago
  • RT @LinaAlhathloul: BREAKING : Today @LoujainHathloul was sentenced to -5 years and 8 months in prison - A suspension of 2 years and 10 mo… 2 weeks ago
  • RT @tamaraqiblawi: Health Minister announces new covid strain is here in Lebanon — arrived on a London flight on Dec 21. Daily tally has su… 3 weeks ago
  • RT @hossambahgat: Part of my interview with @camanpour together with @Jeky_Kelly on the campaign to #freeEIPRstaff twitter.com/camanpour/stat… 1 month ago
  • RT @stephenfry: A good person very wrongly imprisoned. Find out more here – FreeKarim.com #FreeKarimEnnarah #FreeEIPRstaff @EIP… 1 month ago
  • Gasser has refrained from being a public figure, and might find this article too divulging, but he would perhaps to… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 month ago
  • EIPR director Gasser Abdel Razek told lawyers today he was in solitary confinement, his head was shaved, his belong… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 month ago
  • RT @ExtSpoxEU: Egypt: EU conveyed to Cairo significant concerns about arrests of members of @EIPR who provides important services to 🇪🇬peop… 1 month ago
  • RT @hackneylad: Karim Ennarah - a ferociously smart researcher and advocate for the basic rights and freedoms of his fellow citizens - is t… 1 month ago
  • RT @ACLU: Because President Trump has cozied up to strongmen leaders across the globe, the Egyptian government believes it can jail the cou… 1 month ago
  • RT @hossambahgat: Today I go back to leading @EIPR till the release of its leaders. Founding #EIPR in 2002 and managing it for 10 years is… 1 month ago
  • RT @MadaMasr: Security forces arrested Gasser Abdel Razek, the executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, from his… 1 month ago
  • RT @katie_polglase: We're still waiting on a response from the Nigerian authorities to our investigation. We have examined hours of footage… 1 month ago
  • Karim is a brilliant researcher doing much needed work under stifling restrictions on human rights defenders, lawye… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 month ago
  • RT @SimonaFoltyn: When you're recording a segment about the planned US troop drawdown in #Iraq and a rocket, followed by CRAM projectiles,… 1 month ago
  • RT @ayaelb: Drugs for diabetes and blood pressure, anti-depressants and fever pills used in COVID-19 treatment have disappeared from shelve… 2 months ago
  • RT @jmhansler: NEW: @SecPompeo announced Tuesday that the US had formally notified Congress of its intent to sell approximately $23 billion… 2 months ago
  • The Husband-and-Wife Team Behind the Leading Vaccine to Solve Covid-19 nyti.ms/32wbPVS 2 months ago
  • RT @munaluqman: Jannat is a smart young girl from #Taiz #Yemen studying & supporting her family I had a video call with her we surprised… 2 months ago
  • السعودية الوحيدة خليجيا لم تهنئ بايدن بالفوز وسط تساؤلات مغردين arabic.cnn.com/middle-east/ar… via @cnnarabic 2 months ago

Flickr Photos

S OP Anti SH_1487F OP Anti SH_1510S OP Anti SH_1469F OP Anti SH_1508F OP Anti SH_1457F OP Anti SH_1450F OP Anti SH_1451F OP Anti SH_1415F OP Anti SH_1409F OP Anti SH_1382
More Photos

Blogroll

  • 3arabawy
  • Al Khan
  • Backpacking to Babylon
  • bigHead
  • Cairo Freeze!
  • Chatoyant Crumbs
  • CHLOÉ & CLEO
  • Egyptian Chronicles
  • Inanities
  • Kirmalak
  • Ma3t
  • Manal and Alaa's bit bucket
  • Moftasa.net
  • Nadia El-Awady
  • Paging Mr Driftwood
  • Poetechnique
  • Rantings of a Sandmonkey
  • Sibilant Egypt
  • The Arabist
  • The Boursa Exchange
  • The Traveller Within
  • لستُ أدرى
  • وَيلك دوت نت
  • أسد
  • جبهة التهييس الشعبية

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Pages

  • About
  • By Me

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
%d bloggers like this: