"Wait your turn"

A story that has made the rounds on this side of the Internet has been that of Aliaa el-Mahdy, a 20-year-old Egyptian activist, who posted nude pictures of herself on her blog with the stated goal of exercizing her freedom of speech and denouncing "a society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and hypocrisy."

The backlash has been intense, with her blog garnering several million page views, and a vast number of insults and death threats. Conservatives have glommed onto her as a sign that the secular movement in Egypt has no moral values and will corrupt Egyptian society. In turn, Egyptian liberals have distanced themselves from her, and many ask whether she has hurt the cause.

That social and religious conservatives attack el-Mahdy does not surprise me. That misogynists hurl degrading insults at her does not surprise me. But I was surprised not too long ago to hear a friend of mine vitriolically criticize her, striking a low blow with one sentence:

"Now is not the time for feminist demands, they need to wait their turn."

Ooof.

Egyptians just protest their way out of a 30-year dictatorship. The message of their revolution is that waiting around politely for someone to decide to listen to you is not how you get what you want. You need to be loud, you need to be brave, and you need to not let anyone bully you into shutting up.

El-Mahdy is brave. In a society where the female body is hidden away, a passive subject of shame and denial, I can't think of a stronger statement to make than her body as an act of defiance, eyes staring straight into the camera, not seducing, but daring you to look back. 

With these photos, she is trying to move mountains. Her actions might not accomplish her goal of getting her message across to most people, but if she cracks open the door, just a little bit, to discussions about the patriarchal control over and moral judgment of women's sexuality, she will have accomplished a great thing.

The debate el-Mahdy has started is important to Egypt, to the broader Middle East, and also to the West. Despite our superiority complex back home about the better treatment of women in Europe or America compared to the submissive women of the Orient, the core issues remain exactly the same. We are still restrained in many ways by the the central role men have as the ultimate arbiters of our bodies, what we do with them, and what our worth is beyond said bodies. Western feminists are still told to shut up by supposed comrades in progressiveness in the name of the "greater good"—think the French left's response to DSK's rape allegations... Social progress is slow, and its main pitfall is the reproduction of the same kyriarchic fuckery in deciding the hierarchy of pressing needs for change. This means inevitable deception for advocates who happen to be disabled, women, people of color, LGBT, any combination of the above, etc. This means that if you try to uproot the system, the best you can do is make it budge by a couple of inches.

I am not the person who will make grandiose statements on whether Aliaa el-Mahdy has done something good or bad, or set back her cause with her actions. But I can say that her message truly resonates with me, because I understand the feeling of not wanting to wait for someone to tell you when it is your turn.

In closing, I would like to share a quote on the subject, which I like very much:

The price of freedom is that we must accept not only what we love, but also what we hate. Freedom of speech is not defined by measures of taste or decency; it's not about what is 'right' or 'wrong.' It's about the right to choose for yourself what is 'right' or 'wrong.'