.I’m a frustrated feminist. I have always
been a feminist of one kind or another, but the frustrated part is rather
recent. It has a lot to do with where I live and what I do. Luckily, I haven’t
reached the point of no return. I still shave my legs and armpits and wear makeup.
And I’m straight. Yet I find myself hating men. Well, many of them anyway. It’s not that I
hate the individuals who happen to be men. I just hate their misogyny and machismo, or whatever it is that drives
them to subjugate women.
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, I
live in an ultra-patriarchal society. This means men have the upper hand in
almost all aspects of life here. They are the leaders, the law makers, the law
keepers, and law breakers. This is true of most of the world, but it is a
little more exaggerated in places like Egypt than in the United States or
Western Europe. That is not to say that Egypt is on par with Saudi Arabia, Iran
of Afghanistan in terms of women-hating.
Nevertheless, misogyny does have its place here. And it takes various
forms. Female genital mutilation (extremely widespread); domestic violence (the
norm); sexual harassment (no comment); honor killings (much rarer but do occur
from time to time). Divorce, adultery and other personal status laws overtly
favor men. And of course, there is the oh-so-prevalent “a women’s place is in
the home” school of thought to which men and
women subscribe. Again, all of these things exist in other countries, even in our
corner of the world. It’s just that they occur with more much more frequency
and much less stigma in this slice of the world.
