Being a woman I feel like I am the exception. Walking down the streets of Cairo, thirsty for the culture and all the details that I adore, taking it all in when suddenly the same Egyptian people that I miss remind me why I love to travel. I walk in my moderate dress code, and half of my body is covered with the my big painting that I carried from Safarkhan Gallery (by the way it is the gallery that I show my work in) to my house, and all the different men remind me how captive I am in my feminine body. As I walk with every step of the way I realize how alienated I am everywhere I go. The police security of the embassy has to vocalize his opinion about everything about me. Saying things ranging from : What is this beauty in ramadan? Show me the painting, Beauty, honey, sugar and all the package of compliments that I never fail to be showered by. Every where else in the world compliments are appreciated here they are harassments. I was wearing loose jeans, I was wearing a huge top, my hair was held up, my painting covered most of my body and my bag covered my back, however they managed to make me feel naked!
Big wide dark eyes popping out and slightly open lips and scary comments, making me feel like walking fruit not a person. The same man I give food from the window of my car is the man that scares the shit out of me as I walk two blocks to my house. Zamalek is supposed to be safe, usually the biggest danger is the verbal harassments, however the way the street is lit, the way the men stare and comment from the side walk, the way it is silent all combine to create the perfect setting for a horror movie. If I can not walk in the street and feel safe in my own country that I love from the deepest part of my heart, then where will I feel home? Where will I belong if I am alienated for the way I look and the sex I belong to, in my own country?
I wondered why I keep quiet as he says all these things, like I am a silent apple walking waiting to be eaten. Why do I act like prey and why is it not acceptable that I tell him to behave him self or else I will call the police. I have anger inside me towards the man that scares me as I walk. Many times as I walk in the street I have found men take off their pants, suggesting what I can not imagine. Of course I scream and run and now you understand why I am traumatized. Anything is expected from the men in the street, they smell female pedestrian and they start barking like dogs on heat. It is ridiculous that me and the female population fear the simple right of being a pedestrian in the streets of cairo.
Walking in the street of Beirut a street shout out is more of a compliment that makes you smile, however one freak also took off his pants on his motorcycle when we were walking to the mall there. But that is the exception in Beirut usually they compliment not terrorize. I am sure I am not the only one who experienced the traumatizing vision of man in the street taking off his pants, and I can assure you that when I walk in the street I am not in a bikini. I take care that I do not provoke the masses.
They shout things that offend you to your core as a woman, as a human being, and you are lucky if you are not touched too. They say things assuming you have no ears or no ability to stand up to yourself, like the fact that you are woman deprives you of abilities like hearing, or responding. What is expected of you is to walk faster in fear and they get their satisfaction from watching your fear and smelling it. I wondered what would happen if I asked him what that will get him? No girl will ever stop and smile and give him her number like that, If he behaved like a gentleman then maybe he will have his own girlfriend instead of terrorizing the whole female population and spending his days alone.
They blame the free music channels that have messed up with the desperate single poor men of Cairo. They blamed the lebanese almost naked singers in the video clips who sing seductively, they say it is more like soft porn and the people can not handle it. They say the music videos have frustrated the people and turned them into sex monsters. I disagree, I know media is powerful but it is not an excuse for the men in the streets to act like dogs and expect all girls to shake it for them in the street.
Thank God my days at the American University in Cairo are over, it was in down town Cairo and everyday as I passed the street or tried to reach the scattered campus I would suffer from all the comments and often even quick touches from perverts filling the streets. The new phenomena is also the veiled girls from the public schools they would harass too like lesbian little monsters. And because they are girls they find it easier to grab me too. Play with my hair do anything they please because to them I am not a person who can respond. They steal your voice along with your ability to stand up for yourself as they rush through you like a strong wave that slaps you around and takes away your dignity.
People say it is a conspiracy how some powerful people want to keep the masses occupied by an obsession for sex so they could not get together to question the state of this country. So they do not get political, they deprive them of the basic needs, keep them hungry and horny they will never think beyond that.
I do not know what to say to that, if that is true then these people must have horns and tails and red faces.
Things are falling apart and unless you have a tall metal fence surrounding you and your family, it is not safe!! I was in my car with my two girlfriends at the festive time of year when the hundreds of excited men stormed downtown cairo and harassed girls and took their clothes off. It was a jungle!! Men would stick to the windows of my friend's car and pound with their hands and their big huge eyes staring and their tongues hanging, we were terrified. We were going to a wedding so we had pashminas and scarves on, so we covered all we could of our selves and
locked the doors in panic. I do not know what they expect that we leave the car and hug them like we missed them?
Another time i was with my mother and the famous soccer team won so people stormed the streets like animals and they stopped our car and opened the doors suggesting we go down. I screamed with my loudest voice and the man had to leave the doorknob so his ears wont fall off, we quickly closed the doors and locked again.
They have become aggressive and we have become submissive. I know a girl who took the man who grabbed her ass to the police and filed a complaint. She was a foreigner of course, that is where she gets her guts. I wish I did that too but we are socialized to be scared and silent as things like this happen to us. As girls in Egypt it is shameful to even repeat what happened and the government acts like an ostrich when it comes to harassment.
If only there were strict rules and punishments for harassment, maybe it would not be so bad. In dubai the strict rules and punishments make it perfectly safe for girls to go where they want and do as they please. I think jail or an extremely high fine can stop this, but the bribes will again make it impossible to regulate properly.
In dubai any man who harasses a girl will have his picture in the newspaper and more severe things happen to him. If we apply this here the whole newspapers will be filled with pictures of the people. However fear of punishment and shame can really put this disgusting problem to an end.
I am tired of feeling like I am food, like I am an alien, like I have no way to stand up for my self, like it is perfectly normal that I am scared and that I can not walk in the street.
If I knew anyone in government who has the power to make laws I would beg them to do something about that, millions of Egyptian girls walk the streets of Cairo in fear and they are harassed every day as they go to work or school, who will stand up for them. Can the man who makes the rules worry about them like they were family?
