Getting to Know Journalist Mona Eltahawy Politan World Citizen

has made her a target. She’s was seven they moved to their daughter to leave home behind men and caring for had repeated warnings the UK, living in and around for school. Fortunately for passels of children. It was from Egypt’s State Security London and Glasgow. At 15 her, their open-mindedness “just like the men and women department in response to the family moved again for extended to her field of study. in Saudi.” This became an- her articles critical of their opportunity, this time settling “I never thought for a second other pivotal moment for her. WOMEN government. She has been in Saudi Arabia. It was a I could study medicine,” “It was in Israel that I learned banned from Saudi press. transition she describes as she says, though she had to become a liberal secular Her critics have used the no less than “shocking.” the grades for it. It was after Muslim,” she recalls. media to argue with her in “My mom suddenly matriculating that her feminist print, and she’s fought back couldn’t drive. Women were ideas took root. Time to Re-Assess publicly. When first contacted covered in black from head “Someone had brought all Eltahawy’s yearning for over email about her experi- to toe. We were the walking these feminist journals that equality did not equate with a WIDE ences, Eltahawy replied: I embodiment of sin.” It was a introduced me to all these desire to live without men. At hate Saudi Arabia so much turning point to realise that ideas, God bless them,” she university she fell in love, but it’s turned into love. the Islam she’d learned at says. “Saved my life.” It also left the relationship behind home was not the same as made her eager to move on. when she moved to Israel. Opinons Hard Won what she saw being prac- She told her parents if she On returning to Egypt, she Eltahawy cut an unmistak- ticed around her. “I saw the had to stay in Jeddah and fell in love again. This time able figure as she strode into way women were treated in longer she “was going to with an American. the restaurant we’d agreed the name of religion and that have a nervous breakdown.” “I thought, right, I put ca- upon. Her shock of short, wasn’t the Islam I was taught Her brother was already reer ahead of relationship the dark curly hair was set off by or the Islam I wanted to hold at the American University last time, and that didn’t work WORLD her trademark rectangular- onto.” in Cairo studying, and her out so well,” she says. “This framed glasses. Dressed She became incredibly parents, having recently time I thought I’d try it the modestly in jacket and pants, self-conscious. When her had their third child, another other way around.” In 2000 her overall look was cosmo- family went on hajj and her daughter, finally relented. she married and moved to mother began to cover, She moved into a house Seattle, and her career as a Eltahawy followed suit. She with an uncle in Cairo and reporter promptly ended. wanted to be a good Muslim, began to study journalism “The Guardian didn’t need I hate but mostly she wanted men at the American University a correspondent in Seattle,” to stop staring at her. “I wore in Cairo. “I found out later it she laughs. It did not help Saudi Arabia a headscarf for nine years,” was the bimbo major,” she her situation that the papers so much it’s she says. “It didn’t help.” says. “But I was quite serious in Seattle were in the midst By 16 she knew she about print journalism.” of financial turmoil and laying turned into wanted to become a journal- After getting her master’s off writers, and they didn’t love. ist, even if her dreams were she became a correspon- need an expert on the Arab not quite the same as they dent for Reuters, on whose world, either. But she didn’t Off the page are now. “I was very much behalf she went to Israel for a know what else to write into the U.K. pop scene,” she year. “I got into huge trouble about. “I’m obsessed with Getting to know journalist Mona Eltahawy politan world citizen. It was says, and so her earliest fan- with the Egyptian govern- the Middle East,” she says. her jewellery that tied her to tasies about writing involved ment for that,” she says. But Her husband tried to help By Lisa L Kirchner she wrote, than their Chris- hands of Al Qaeda terror- with Headscarves, The Pope a place – a region at least interviews with her favourite she remains grateful to this her connect with the Muslim tian or Jewish counterparts, ists, Egyptian-born journalist and Bin Laden, Our Own – rings and a necklace bear- bands. “It was definitely day for the lesson it taught community, taking her to the enazir Bhutto’s but that changed some time Mona Eltahawy would most Worst Enemy – reveals a ing Arabic script. a subconscious desire to her. local mosque he’d scouted posthumous in the 15th century. In her certainly agree. “I became a woman unafraid to take on Her upbringing was escape.” She moved into a neigh- before she arrived. They’d memoir takes on book she argues that both feminist in Saudi,” she says. big issues. A New York City characterised by significant She attended King Abdul bourhood of ultra Orthodox barely reached the building Bmany topics, not the faith and the world at “I never saw that as a contra- resident by way of the UK relocations because her par- Aziz University in Jeddah. Jews, where she saw women when she told him to keep the least of which is equality large would be better served diction.” and Saudi Arabia, her writing ents, both physicians, were “My parents were liberal in covering their bodies in driving. She could see from among the sexes. Muslim by a return to those roots. A quick scan of Eltahawy’s has brought her celebrity- unable to find work in their some aspects,” she says, but dark clothing and masking the people milling about that women were treated better, Depsite Bhutto’s death at the recent headlines – Fed Up status at the same time it home country. When she not so permissive as to allow their hair with wigs, walking this was a conservative sect. july 2008 14 july 2008 15 WORLDWIDEWOMEN I will not be “I wanted nothing to do with he takes the pic- it,” she says. tures, it’s perfect.” told what a Lacking kinship and job Except that she’s Muslim is, prospects, Eltahawy started stepped away thinking about other ways from reporting. either from of approaching her work. “I the muslim really got into essay writing,” Not even she says. “Started reading words are or the non- memoirs.” She knew her black and Muslim voice was under represented white in the media, and when the Eltahawy world.” tells me that she She goes on to provide the attacks of September 11th stressed it was called the prince epilogue, that since the IHT happened, she says she male attention who owned the story the paper “launched “couldn’t pretend at this that had caused paper to ask a campaign” against her in objectivity business any her to cover in why she was no the middle of Lebanon’s war longer.” KSA while in an longer being pub- with Israel. “I was...against She also realised she was article she’d writ- lished directly. religious orthodoxy, against deeply unhappy in her mar- ten elsewhere, it She was not Arab positions, and most riage. She’d never pictured was described as surprised that he particularly against the Egyp- herself marrying, “at least an act of religious sidestepped her. tian regime.” not an Arab man,” but she expression. Compliments on She’s equally quick to thought it would be different Though not mutu- her work were fol- admit how important it is with a Westerner. After two ally exclusive, lowed up with the to her that her work contin- years, she and her husband such statements comment that he ues to appear in her native parted ways. Eltahawy left can be viewed didn’t want her to tongue for Arab audiences, Seattle for a job setting as contradictory. “become one of though she is not interested up the Arabic section of a She’s the first to those writers who in returning just now. She’s website devoted to women’s acknowledge says one thing written elsewhere that in news. Anything to move on. she’s known as a in English and an- Egypt “a rigid hierarchy and When we met again near ‘troublemaker’. other in Arabic.” lack of opportunities sideline her Upper West Side apart- Her by-line first Eltahawy knew young people with ambi- ment Eltahawy was just back came to my atten- exactly what he tion.” Just as it was for her from a month of speaking tion after Asharq was referring to. parents. She is currently a engagements that included al-Awsat stopped She’d written a regular contributor to Doha’s San Francisco, Vancouver carrying her col- Washington Post Al Arab, and is organizing a and Toronto. She’d closed umns, something article criticising speaking engagements in out the itinerary with eight she wrote about a British girl for Bahrain and elsewhere in the days in Cleveland, where for the Interna- missing two years GCC.

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