Sunday, October 29, 2006

my life as the molested

after reading forsoothsayers post about the eid gropings/rapes i was utterly unsuprised espeacially after what happened to my sister but incredibly saddened . saddened this society is living a grand pretense . that we are pious and chaste and safe , when really we are no better than cavemen or animals.
here are a few of my memories
I remember the very first time i was physically molested . it was just after my 14th birthday
i was at the annual international bookfair which is a very important part of the year for me
as armed with the entire years savings plus birthday money i stock up on books for the winter
i was bending over a pile of books in the ahram tent when someone pinched my ass .
my god how violated i felt , i spent the rest of that evening with the my hands behind my back
so my hefty plastic bags of books would protect my derriere . i made a rather silly picture i suppose but it was only in that uncomfortable pose did i feel somewhat safe .
i remember the creepiest verbal molestation i ever got . i was walking abbas el akkad with my best friend Y . then this chap in a battered old ford fiesta yells out to us
if i could get at either of your boobs i'd cut them off !
i remeber us stoping in our tracks unbelieving someone could say such a thing
i remember walking along with my sister and her friend one day when a couple of morons in a car started yelling out the usual bullshit and my sisters friend giving them the finger
they came out and started threatning us because she had the audacity to swear at them

this are a few scenes from my life and they are typical of the life of any girl in egypt

what do i think ? how do i feel

i'll leave you to to imagine what i think and how i feel

5 comments:

Dee-Vine said...

I am so tired of sexual harrasment being part of the daily norm in cairo. I never even walk in the streets anymore, I just can't live with the degrading stares and comments.

by the way, hebe, i totally know who you are ;)

Hebe said...

really? do I know you

Ghawayesh said...

Hi Hebe, Great blog! Thanks for replying to me on the Sandmonkey's blog (I'm Koshari there). Both because of your nice comment AND becasue I got the chance to find your nice blog. You are not alone in this and you know that, but the eid incidents are the last drop, it's war time! It's either us or those s.o.b.s(excuse my French). I will have a link to your blog on mine, if you won't mind. http://ghawayesh.blogspot.com/

Dee-Vine said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Carmen said...

The first time I was ever touched inappropriately was in Egypt. I've lived in NYC for about 20 years and was molested once or twice. I lived in Egypt for five years and was molested over two dozen times.