Mona Eltahawy’s article “Why do they hate us?,” published in Foreign Policy Magazine’s special issue on women, has a catchy title.  When I first saw it, I honestly thought it was referring to the Egyptian military’s violations of women’s rights by performing “virginity tests” — especially as the military’s aim seemed to be to exclude women from taking part in political life by brutalizing them and showing them as fragile and vulnerable.

But it was not. 

I have met Eltahawy before, attended one of her talks and read some of her articles. I know she presents herself as a feminist before anything else and this is why I am so concerned about the idea she proposes in this essay. Let me start from another point before getting to the article.

When France banned the niqab last year, Eltahawy went on TV praising this decision because she thinks it protects women from being forced to wear it.  I saw the decision as discriminatory and shameful, and this was the most essential disagreement between the two of us. In Kuwait, where I come from, many women wear the niqab because their tribal society forces them into it.  But there are other factors to consider here: