In May, I spoke on a panel at the Oslo Freedom Forum 2011 about the power of censorship. Here’s what I said: And here’s the full panel.

I was on CBC Connect with Mark Kelly to talk about the “Gay Girl in Damascus” blog hoax.

An Egyptian general speaking on condition of anonymity admitted to CNN that that female activists detained on March 9 had indeed been subjected to “virginity tests”, as the women have insisted all along. I talked about “virginity tests” and gender politics on two CNN shows below.  

By Mona Eltahawy The Guardian There’s a thin line between sex and politics, and it is nonsense to keep repeating the mantra that Egypt’s revolution "wasn’t about gender". What revolution worth its salt can be fuelled by demands of freedom and dignity and not have gender nestled in its beating heart – especially in a [...]

Arabian Business magazine recently compiled a list of 100 Most Powerful Arab Women 2011, which placed me at 51 and a list of 500 Most Powerful Arabs in the World, which placed me at 124. It was interesting to compare the Arabic-language bio they’ve posted for me with their English-language one – quite different!

I spoke on a panel on media and popular culture along with Spike Lee, Donna Byrd and Will Griffin at the Aspen Institute’s Symposium on the State of Race in America (our panel starts at 1:21:00). It was a pleasure to introduce Ronit Avni of JustVision and to present her and the team behind “Budrus” [...]

As the ban on niqab (face veil) went into effect in France, I debated the issue – with Sarah Joseph on CNN International’s Connect the World – with Sam Harris and Tariq Ramadan on BBC Newsnight here . – with Hebah Ahmed on CNN’s In the Arena

I was on CNN American Morning on Wednesday and Democracy Now! on Thursday morning to discuss the gang-rape of Eman Al Obeidi by Gaddafi troops. Other uses of sexual violence to silence and intimidate women came up, such as the Egyptian army’s forced virginity testing of female activists detained from Tahrir Square in March. Also [...]

By Mona Eltahawy Toronto Star NEW YORK—As if further proof were needed of the intellectual as well as physical cave Al Qaeda inhabits, their new online magazine “Al Shamikha” (Majestic Woman) is the latest reminder. As women and men, passionate for freedom and dignity, fuel uprisings and revolutions that are sweeping across the Middle East [...]

I spoke about the Egyptian revolution, women’s rights and sexual assault and harassment in Egypt with CNN American Morning’s Kiran Chetry.

I was on CTV and CBC Connect on Wednesday to talk about women’s rights, the sexual assault of Lara Logan and Egypt’s revolution.

CBS Sunday Morning broadcast my video essay on how Egypt’s revolution toppled both a dictator and stereotypes of Arabs I was part of a roundtable on Egypt along with Arianna Huffington, George Will and Robert Kagan on This Week with Christiane Amanpour. When was the last time you saw more women than men on a [...]

I took Egypt’s revolution to Real Time With Bill Maher and continued the discussion on Overtime.

It was a thrill to be featured on Jezebel which described me as “The Woman Who’s Explaining Egypt to the West”. Trying my best to amplify the voices and courage of Egypt’s uprising.

I was on BBC Newsnight to stress that freedom and dignity must win out in the “stability vs democracy” debate as Egypt’s uprising unfolds. On CNN, I urged media to use “revolt” or “uprising” rather than “chaos” and “crisis” when framing events in Egypt and NYTimes.com The Lede picked up on it. And on CNN [...]

By Mona Eltahawy Dec. 26, 2010 NEW YORK CITY – Take one comedian, mix in a beauty queen, throw in some bigots and an exploding crow and you’ll open an unorthodox window into the past year for Muslims in America. It’s been a tough year, so let’s start with the crow. One of the stupendously [...]

By Mona Eltahawy Toronto Star December 18, 2010 NEW YORK CITY The young woman who identified herself as Salma, 17, got straight to the point. “I was walking in the street to get a bunch of friends of mine from a certain pet shop when a middle-aged man stopped with his car beside me and [...]

By Mona Eltahawy Jerusalem Report Jan. 3, 2011 How do you discuss virginity with a class of  American university students without the conversation sounding irrelevant to their lives or, worse, an exercise in exoticizing another culture? Women, sex and culture can be a Bermuda Triangle that threatens to demolish discussion through either defensiveness – when [...]

By Mona Eltahawy Dec. 10, 2010 I’m a Muslim. I’m a feminist. And I’m here to confuse you,” I told attendees at the TEDWomen conference, where I was a speaker, in Washington this week. The conversation on Muslim women usually revolves around our head scarves and our hymens — what’s on our heads (or not), [...]

By Mona Eltahawy The Jerusalem Report I was 23 years old and I was interviewing an Egyptian feminist who had just taken over as editor-in-chief of a women’s magazine of the cooking-and-fashion variety, which she had vowed to turn into the go-to magazine for women’s rights. I was excited to meet her because she was [...]