The Right is incredibly deft at getting earnest about all the wrong things. Mona Eltahawy More Quotes by Mona Eltahawy More Quotes From Mona Eltahawy My family moved to Saudi Arabia from Glasgow when I was 15. Being a 15-year-old girl anywhere is difficult - all those hormones and everything - but being a 15-year-old girl in Saudi Arabia... it was like someone had turned the light off in my head. I could not get a grasp on why women were treated like this. Mona Eltahawy womenfamilygirllight In the U.K., my mother had been the breadwinner. I'd seen my parents side by side. In Saudi Arabia, my mother was basically rendered disabled. She was unable to drive, dependent on my dad for everything. The religious zealotry was so suffocating. Mona Eltahawy driveparentsdadmother As a woman in Saudi Arabia, you have one of two options. You either lose your mind - which at first happened to me because I fell into a deep depression - or you become a feminist. Mona Eltahawy womanmeyoudepression The religious fundamentalists of the Republican party are a mirror image of the religious fundamentalists of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. Mona Eltahawy imagemirrorbrotherhoodparty I like to call the Republicans the Christian Brotherhood of the U.S. so that my fellow Americans recognise the line that connects their mix of religion and politics with their Muslim equivalent in Egypt. Mona Eltahawy egyptbrotherhoodpoliticsreligion Nothing protects women from the patriarchy of military regimes. Mona Eltahawy nothingpatriarchywomenmilitary I believe at the heart of any revolution for social justice and human dignity are consent and agency, the unequivocal belief that I own my body - not the state, not the church/mosque/temple, not the street and not the family. Mona Eltahawy familyjusticeheartbelieve What is satire if not a marriage of civil disobedience to a laugh track, a potent brew of derision and lack of respect that acts as a nettle sting on the thin skin of the humourless? Mona Eltahawy laughskinrespectmarriage It was precisely my love of the First Amendment that made me join sidewalk activists in 2010 to support an Islamic community center's right to open in Lower Manhattan. Mona Eltahawy mesupportcommunitylove Banning hate speech doesn't end racism or antisemitism. Social pressure does that. It becomes socially unacceptable. Mona Eltahawy endhateracismpressure Too many on the Left are earnest about nothing at all, sadly. They've been rendered spineless by snarkiness - not least on Twitter. Mona Eltahawy twitteraboutnothingleft
