Translator: Nevaz Mescioğlu Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
No woman in this room has ownership over her body.
You're either owned by the state,
by the conservatives of any religious institutions or by your family.
I make this statement because UNICEF statistics state
that over 200 million girls and women alive today
in 30 different countries have undergone female genital cutting.
In the year 2000, the United Nations estimated
that 5,000 women are victims of honour killings each year.
The BBC then came out and said
that's in fact 20,000 women that are victims of honour killings each year
but so many of these cases just go unreported.
For those of you that don't know much about honour-based violence,
it's a form of domestic abuse which is perpetrated in the name of honour
usually based around a set of rules
by the male relatives of a family or the males in the community,
and women who do not abide by these rules
are then punished for bringing shame onto the family.
An ideology that goes hand in hand with purity culture,
which is the view of the discussion of anything of a sexual nature
outside the context of marriage as shameful and taboo,
especially for women.
Virginity is no longer a private matter.
It can become political,
and certain regulations can be put in place by the government
such as virginity testing in political situations like revolutions.
The obsession with purity also requires certain regulations to put into place
in order to make women pure, which is female circumcision.
As you may have gathered, it becomes a cycle of violence that we cannot escape.
It also holds us responsible for our own safety against sexual violence,
that we shouldn't tempt boys and men by merely existing.
So I've always been really passionate about this topic,
since quite a young age,
and it's been my main focus for my academic research during my undergrad
and during my postgrad as well.
The case study that I focused on, however, was Egypt
for three reasons: one of them, I'm originally Egyptian.
I was born in Cairo. I was raised in Britain.
You know, your very stereotypical first generation story.
Second of all, I'm a woman, obviously.
And the third point: I have a big mouth.
Tell me not to speak about something and I will definitely speak about it.
I think my parents have finally come to terms with that now.
But during my research I realized that -
and while studying Egypt and women's rights in Egypt,
the discussion surrounding women's rights and overcoming violence against women
has increased after the Arab Spring in the year 2011.
But ironically enough, despite this,
only women in Egypt are still being arrested for inciting debauchery.
FGM still continues even though it's been illegal for a very long time now.
It's still prevalent, maybe not at the same rates but it's still prevalent.
Sexual harassment is one of the biggest issues
that women have to face in Egypt, in the workplace and in the streets.
And sex education in public schools is practically nonexistent.
It's becoming more and more evident
that Egypt doesn't just need a shift in its leaders
but a shift in the way that we view gender and sexuality.
The only solution, however, is also the elephant in the room:
the Voldemort of the Arab world, the one who cannot be named.
Does anyone want to take a wild guess what that might be?
No?
A sexual revolution.
But we have a lot of negative connotations surrounding sexual revolutions
for one primary reason,
and that's because we always associate it
with the sexual liberation movement of the West during the 1960s,
which focused on a lot of sexual morality topics
such as premarital and extramarital sex,
homosexuality, birth control and other related topics.
But Egypt isn't the West,
and in my opinion nor does it have to be,
nor does it have to follow similar guidelines
in order to achieve it's own form of liberation.
Because if we're going to be completely real with ourselves right now,
the West wasn't completely successful either.
Women in this country,
are you still not objectified?
Are you still not shamed?
Are you still not as equal as the men surrounding you?
Especially brown and black women
that have to deal with their own forms of oppression on a daily basis.
But if we achieve this, think of all the happy Egyptians.
Not only does this cater to healthier marriages,
healthier attitudes in everyday life,
but also economic empowerment.
Because believe it or not sexual repression plays a very key part
in why some women in certain areas cannot work,
and for those who do work, why they are exposed to greater hostility.
When focusing on this, it's important to take in certain factors
that might affect the status of women in certain countries.
And this is quite a simplistic sum-up,
but the two factors that I focused on
were conservatism and Egypt being a post-colonial society,
and both of them actually go hand in hand.
When you get rid of oppression in a country,
that oppression is usually then redirected onto its women
as a form of political readjusting.
It's universal, we've seen it in past wars, past revolutions,
past colonial eras as well, and Egypt isn't any different,
it's still exactly the same.
When the British soldiers came into Egypt,
Egyptian women were hypersexualized and exoticized,
which induced humiliation onto the greater society.
Certain religious communities tend to deal with this by reverting to conservatism
and fundamental values.
Women were confined to the private sphere
and those who were in the public sphere were exposed to greater hostility.
But what can we do as a way of dealing with that?
Well, first of all, sexual rights needs to be established as a human right,
and not just with this certain topic, as a whole.
A revolution without a sexual evolution is futile.
You cannot be liberated as a whole
if you are not liberated in the most intimate aspects of your life.
That doesn't just mean sexually, it also means spiritually, it also means mentally,
and all the other hippie points that go with that.
But it's very important to think of this because -
It's quite ironic for me to say that because I'm definitely not there yet,
I don't think anyone is,
but as individuals we make a community,
and you cannot have progress if you don't change your own ideologies for the future.
Second of all, it's critical for religious institutions
to jump on board with this movement.
Critical because religious institutions play a very big part
in the decision-making in the Arab world and North Africa.
Without them there will be no change.
They need to support dismantling taboos.
They need to support greater sex education in public schools.
Egypt, like so many of its Arab neighbors,
we're convinced that you cannot accomplish sexual rights within an Islamic framework,
which you can, it's not impossible,
it just requires a lot of alteration of your current ideology.
Third of all, sex can no longer be the Voldemort of the Arab world.
Purity culture creates a life-long of shame.
What you are taught when you are younger has an effect on your physical
and your emotional when you're older,
and there's been correlations
between women who have been brought up in purity-motivated communities
to women who were then diagnosed with vaginismus in the future.
It has a long-term effect, it's not just a minute thing.
Finally, we need to support the small movements.
These small movements can be from cyber movements to theatre.
Those cyber movements, examples of those in Egypt currently,
are private groups being created online on social media
for women to speak about their intimate life
in a very safe environment.
What they do is they post anonymously issues that they're dealing with,
and professionals will then respond to that,
such as gynecologists or other professionals in that field.
They will explain to them what their issue is, and they will get a response.
And it's a very safe environment,
where they can speak about stuff that they would not speak in the public eye.
Second of all, you can never underestimate the power of the arts.
Literature, poetry, theatre.
Theatre plays a very big part in our culture in Egypt.
We love our films, we love our plays, we love our comedy.
It plays a very big part in everything that we do.
And I don't want to say that we have the best in the Arab world,
but we also have the best in the Arab world.
(Laughter)
But it's very important for us to utilize that.
And in certain rural areas now what they're doing is they're showing plays.
And one of the plays that they focused on was a play about the wedding nights
and dismantling taboos surrounding the wedding nights.
And one of the things that they discussed
was the taboo and the myths surrounding the hymen,
that not all women bleed on their wedding night,
because in some areas and some countries, when women don't bleed,
they have to deal with repercussions from being ostracized to being killed,
even if they have done nothing wrong.
So it's very important to address this in a way that is humorous,
and in a way that is not degrading and not patronizing,
and theatre plays a very good part in that
because it also penetrates all areas of societies
in a way that is very entertaining,
and also focuses on certain areas that have high rates of illiteracy.
In short, we need to change the way that we view sex in the Arab world.
We need to teach the up-coming generation
that the leading faiths in Egypt does not dismiss desire,
it merely disciplines it.
To be sex positive doesn't mean to be promiscuous,
nor is it impossible to understand the boundaries
while simultaneously dismantling the shame that plagues something so natural.
Women have desires, and they will continue to do so.
Those who want to practice the art of self-preservation and self-discipline
should be able to do so without the killing and without the cutting
as a way of regulating it.
For Egypt, we must cater to this sexual revolution
in a way that supports our historical, religious and cultural context.
It's important to realize that Egypt as a whole isn't one.
It's a class-dependent issue,
but repressive mentalities are throughout every household,
no matter how minor or major they are.
One of my favorite writers is called Shereen El Feki,
and she wrote this book called 'Sex and the Citadel',
and in the book she was discussing
the possibilities for us to achieve this emancipation for women in Egypt
or in the Arab world.
But it will not be through a sexual revolution
but through a sexual re-evaluation.
Change in the Arab world will not come with aggression and protesting -
we saw how that turned out with the Arab Spring, unfortunately -
but through negotiation,
be it with religious institutions or political parties.
The fundamentals of this sexual re-evaluation
must lie in establishing proper sexual education and expression
in order to catalyze attitudinal change.
Women worldwide have the right to stand-up and say,
'I do not carry the honour of my father, my uncle, my brother,
or even the honour of my country.
I am responsible for my own honour. I am responsible for my own shame.
They are responsible for their own honour. They are responsible for their own shame.'
Only then we will combatting honour-based violence
not be the law's jobs, with at times its very futile regulations,
but the jobs of those who uphold its culture.
Us, together, unified.
Thank you.
(Applause)