Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution

Now, this weeks book of the week joined my library a few years ago on recommendation of my friend Joana Saahirah, and I bought it, put on my shelf, and promptly forgot about it. Until last month when I read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights, and in that book she mentions author Mona Eltahawy. So I looked Eltahawy up on Amazon, and realized I already had her book, Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution. So of course, that immediately went on my read soon list.

I am not at all sure what I was expecting when I started this book, but what I got were a series of feminist essays. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, given the perspective she’s providing. So this one I think I’m going to break down into what I “liked” about the book, and what I didn’t like. And please understand, “like” is entirely relative. I did not LIKE like the information she was reporting on, and I’ll be going in to that a bit more, but I did like her presentation. I liked the clarity of voice and the passion with which she expressed it. But the information being presented is a veritable shit show of shitty humanity. Which I most decidedly did not like. Here we go.

She starts by expressing why they hate us. They being the men in the middle east. And I’m honestly not sure she answers that question. But she does provide multitudes of examples that make it very clear that the extremely conservative branches of Islam that run the various middle eastern state’s unequivocally despise women. And they use every means at their disposal, usually a bastardization of the Quran, to express that contempt and keep women in the middle east in a perpetually subservient and second class role.

Everything from preventing women from driving because it upsets their ovaries to a rigid enforcement of headscarves is covered. The enforcement of headscarves is typically enforced by women on the other women. And assault. So many stories of sexual assault. From the author’s own experience of being groped while praying in Mecca…yes, the heart of Islam, where she was on pilgrimage with her parents and siblings…she was groped there. To actual rape. And rape used as a weapon in Islamic countries and during times of war. And the descriptions are brutal and heartbreaking. She describes how women have no rights to children in Islamic marriages, and how one 5 year old child, after being taken by her father, was essentially raped to death by that father, because he was convinced she was impure.

She talks about how virginity belongs to your father, until you are married, and then it belongs to your husband. Women truly are nothing more than property. And Eltahawy discusses how even just walking down the street in any number of middle eastern countries can result in assaults. Repeatedly. And how the assaults go unreported. Feminists in America like to scream about victim blaming…in the middle east they don’t just blame the victim, they sometimes kill her. Literally.

And she discusses the ongoing prevalence of female genital mutilation and all the horrors that entails. She said one thing in that chapter that I had not been aware of, which is that FGM was practiced in America until the 1960’s. Which I did not know. But I looked it up, and yes, it was practiced medically as a form of treatment for nymphomania and other mental health diseases for women. Which is pretty much why it’s practiced in the middle east. The only difference was timing of treatment. In America, they waited until there was a “problem.” In the middle east, they do it to prevent “problems.” Was even covered by insurance until 1977, according to Wikipedia. All of which is horrifying. But while it is wholly outlawed here in these United States, carrying a penalty of up to 5 years in prison, it continues unabated under the control of Islamism Salafists and sharia law, which allows for this.

So these are some of the things I learned that I “liked”…again not that I liked them as this information is horrifying and sobering to read about. What were some of the things I think could use improvement or could be done better?

Some things I didn’t necessarily care for but understand the necessity of including are things like the above information on FGM. It’s important because there is a real tendency to think “well that could never happen in my country…it’s only in countries were those Islamic extremists exist that that sort of backwards thinking takes place.” And that belief is ESPECIALLY prevalent among the ultra-right wing conservatives here in the United States, where they are already prone to thinking the worst about Islam, with no quarter given for some of the beauty I am sure is to be found in Islam. Hell, most of those I know who slant heavy heavy to the right…not just slightly right of center but the “better red than dead” voting block, would be just as happy to nuke the middle east until it’s nothing more than an obsidian parking lot populated by shadow people. And so I do understand the need to provide some perspective of how these practices have existed even in the more “enlightened” west.

But she cuts far too much slack to her political allies, even at one point accusing the right of cultural relativism. Which I have not seen. Ever. The right is not particularly well known for saying “well, that’s how they do things in their country, so it’s not for us to say.” The screaming right is more known for “we should not be letting Islamic immigrants in, because we don’t want sharia law over here.” Which they’re not wrong, to be fair. Based on this book, I want sharia law exterminated. With extreme prejudice.

The people I know who lean toward cultural relativism are the fucking post-modernists, those bastions of intellectual elites who are quite sure they know what’s best for everyone. I remember seeing one Instagram post from a fairly well known belly dancer gleefully describing how she schooled an ignorant student in her class about the beauties of headscarves and hijab, and how we shouldn’t be judging the cultures in the middle east because they live life differently from us. I feel like she should probably read this book before tooting her own horn.  Because I sure as hell am judging. And harshly. Based on the information in this book.

So, the things I disliked. Lack of citations. And I understand some of it, there are no citations. It’s anecdotal based off conversations, always very personal and private conversations, with women who have been victimized and traumatized by a society and world that has been designed to beat them down and keep them submissive. But she’ll say things like “according to the World Health Organization…” but not include anything resembling which report she pulled from. Or a link, or bibliography. So unless I am actively sitting in front of my computer to start immediately researching for more information, I would basically have to reread the book to find what she referenced. And the website she cited for FGM in the United States. I did look that one up, but could not find what she was referencing. Google to the rescue, and Wikipedia pulled up the information immediately. So as I read more non-fiction, I find greater appreciation for well cited sources.

And I disliked how there is literally nothing I can do to help. Which she basically says in the book. And she’s not wrong. I mean, I can root for and cheer on the women of the middle east from my safe, suburban, neighborhood in middle class America. But I’m not middle eastern. I’m not muslim. Hell, I’m not even Christian. I have no dog in this fight. Beyond being a woman, and thinking it’s awful what’s going on over there.

I can’t even petition my congressmen and senators to help out over there. Because our congress critters don’t give a shit about the plight of women in the middle east. They care about the bottom line. And if the regime in power will help them prop up their own failing policies, that is far more important to congress than whether or not women are systemically abused in the middle east.

I can’t say that I LIKED this book. It was a good book. It was excellently written, and her voice screams in rage from every page. It was certainly sobering and provided much food for thought. I do think that women here in America who THINK they are oppressed, should definitely give this a read, to get an idea for what that word, oppressed, truly means. And um, belly dancers should read this. There is a whole host of them who dive deep in to the orientalist belief that Islam contains only beauty and peace. When, quite simply, it does not. I’m sure there is beauty and peace. But you wouldn’t know it from this book.

This review was originally posted on YouTube on April 17, 2022, but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.