Laura: Most people think revolutions are fought with guns and protests in the streets. But what if the most important revolution is the one fought in the bedroom? The one that determines who you can love, what you can wear, and whether your body is your own. Sophia: That’s a powerful thought. It reframes everything. We think of freedom in terms of voting or free speech, but you’re talking about a much more intimate, personal kind of freedom. The kind that can be taken away long before a government ever gets involved. Laura: Exactly. And that's the explosive premise of Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution by Mona Eltahawy. Sophia: And Eltahawy isn't just an academic. She's an award-winning Egyptian-American journalist who was on the front lines of the Arab Spring. She was even arrested and brutally sexually assaulted by riot police, an experience that she says 'traumatized her into feminism' and fuels every page of this book. Laura: It absolutely does. You can feel her rage and her hope in every sentence. She argues that for women in the Middle East, the political uprisings were just the beginning. The real fight, she says, is against a trifecta of oppression that operates at every level of society. Sophia: A trifecta. That sounds ominous. Where do we even start with that?

Laura: We start with the forces that Eltahawy says conspire to keep women in their place: the state, the street, and the home. They’re three heads of the same patriarchal monster. Sophia: Okay, let's break that down. The state seems like the most obvious one—laws, government, police. Laura: Right. And Eltahawy’s own story is a terrifying example of how the state wields its power against women. In November 2011, during the clashes in Cairo, she was covering the protests when she was grabbed by riot police. They beat her, breaking her left arm and right hand. And then, they sexually assaulted her for hours. Sophia: Oh my god. That’s horrifying. Laura: It gets worse. The supervising officer, who was watching the whole thing, came over to her. But instead of stopping it, he leaned in and said, "You are a brave woman. We will protect you." All while his men continued to grope and assault her. Sophia: Wait. He said they would protect her while they were actively harming her? That is a level of psychological cruelty that’s hard to even comprehend. Laura: It’s the ultimate gaslighting. And for Eltahawy, it was a moment of terrifying clarity. The state isn't a protector; it's a perpetrator that uses the language of protection to justify its violence. It’s the same logic used to enforce guardianship laws or justify so-called "virginity tests" on female protestors, which the Egyptian military actually admitted to doing. They claimed it was to protect themselves from accusations of rape. Sophia: The logic is so twisted it’s dizzying. They assault women to prove they didn't assault them. It sounds like something out of a dystopian novel, but it’s real. So that’s the state. What about the second part of the trifecta, the street? Laura: The street is the everyday battleground. Eltahawy cites a 2013 UN report on Egypt that is just staggering. It found that 99.3 percent of Egyptian women and girls reported being sexually harassed. Sophia: Ninety-nine-point-three percent? That’s not a statistic, that's… everyone. That means walking outside your door as a woman is to enter a space where you are almost guaranteed to be violated in some way. Laura: Precisely. It turns public space into a constant source of fear and anxiety. And it’s not just catcalls. The same study found 96.5% had experienced unwelcome physical contact. It creates a culture where women are blamed for the harassment they endure. They’re told, "You shouldn't have been out so late," or "Your clothes were too provocative." The responsibility is shifted entirely onto the victim. Sophia: Which, of course, serves the patriarchy perfectly. It keeps women at home, out of public life, out of the workforce. Which leads us to the third head of the monster: the home. Laura: Exactly. The home is supposed to be a sanctuary, but for many women, Eltahawy argues, it's the most dangerous place of all. She tells the story of Manal Assi, a 33-year-old teacher in Lebanon. Her husband accused her of adultery and, in a fit of rage, bludgeoned her with a pressure cooker. Sophia: A pressure cooker… the sheer domestic brutality of that is chilling. Laura: And as she was dying, he called her mother and told her to come over and watch him kill her daughter. He then prevented paramedics from entering the apartment for two hours. Manal died shortly after reaching the hospital. Her daughters later told authorities that their father had been beating their mother for years. Sophia: And no one did anything. It was a "family matter." Laura: It always is. Eltahawy is making a crucial connection here. The police officer on the street, the harasser in the public square, and the abusive husband at home are not separate problems. They are all enforcing the same patriarchal code. The state’s laws often fail to protect women from domestic violence, the street’s culture of harassment pushes them back into the home, and the home becomes a private prison where that violence can continue unchecked. It’s a vicious, self-reinforcing cycle. Sophia: Wow. When you lay it out like that, the word "trifecta" makes perfect sense. It’s a complete system of control, attacking women from every possible angle—public, private, and personal. And it seems like at the heart of all three is an obsession with one thing in particular. Laura: Yes. The female body.

Sophia: It's horrifying. And it seems like all three parts of that system—the state, the street, the home—are obsessed with controlling women's bodies. Which brings us to the title itself, Headscarves and Hymens. Laura: It’s a brilliant title because it captures the two central battlegrounds for a woman's body in the region. The headscarf, or hijab, polices the outside of her body—her appearance, her modesty, her public presence. The hymen polices the inside—her virginity, her sexuality, her "purity." Sophia: Let's start with the hymen. Eltahawy calls the obsession with it "The God of Virginity." That's such a provocative phrase. What does she mean by that? Laura: She means that in many parts of the Arab world, a woman's virginity is elevated to a sacred status. It's treated as the single most valuable thing she possesses—more valuable than her education, her mind, her health, or even her life. She quotes the famous Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi, who wrote, "An Arab family does not grieve as much at the loss of a girl’s eye as it does if she happens to lose her virginity." Sophia: That is an absolutely devastating line. To value a thin membrane of skin over a person's sight… it’s just incomprehensible. Laura: And this obsession leads to some of the most brutal practices imaginable, like Female Genital Mutilation, or FGM. Eltahawy tells the story of Soheir el-Batea, a 13-year-old Egyptian girl whose father took her to a doctor to be "cut" in 2013. She died on the operating table from an overdose of anesthesia. Sophia: And this was done by a doctor? Laura: Yes, which is part of the problem. The practice gets medicalized, giving it a false sense of legitimacy. The doctor and the father were put on trial, but both were acquitted. The message is clear: a girl's life is disposable in service to this "God of Virginity." It’s about ensuring she has no sexual desire, that she remains "pure" for her future husband. It's the ultimate form of control over her inner life. Sophia: So the hymen is about controlling the inside of the body. What about the headscarf? How does that fit into the battlefield? Laura: The headscarf is about controlling the outside. Eltahawy’s analysis of the veil is complex and has drawn a lot of controversy. She herself wore one for nine years. But she argues that too often, it becomes a symbol of surrender, a "white flag" raised to signal compliance with conservative, patriarchal norms. And she tells one of the most haunting stories in the book to illustrate the danger of prioritizing this symbol over human life. Sophia: I have a feeling this is going to be tough to hear. Laura: It is. In 2002, a fire broke out at a girls' school in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. As the teenage girls tried to flee the burning building, they were stopped at the exits by the Mutaween, the religious police. Sophia: Stopped? Why? Laura: Because the girls weren't wearing their headscarves and abayas, their black cloaks. They were considered "improperly dressed" to be seen by male firefighters and rescuers outside. The morality police beat the girls and the men trying to help them, forcing the girls back into the flames. Fifteen of them burned to death. Sophia: Wait, they literally let children burn to death over a dress code? That's… beyond belief. It's a complete failure of basic human morality. Laura: Eltahawy’s reflection on it is chilling. She writes, "You are your headscarf. Your headscarf is worth more than you." In that moment, the symbol of piety became more important than the lives of the girls it was supposed to "protect." Sophia: So the hymen and the headscarf are two sides of the same coin. One is about policing what's inside the body, the other is about policing what's outside. Both are about control. And both can be lethal. Laura: Exactly. The body becomes the battlefield where cultural, religious, and political wars are fought. And a woman's life is often the casualty. This is why Eltahawy’s call to action is so radical. She says the only way to win this war is for women to reclaim the battlefield—to reclaim their bodies and, most importantly, their voices. Sophia: To speak for themselves. Which is the title of her final chapter. It’s about moving from being an object that is controlled to a subject who speaks. Laura: Yes. She argues that a sexual revolution is necessary. It’s about women openly talking about desire, pleasure, and consent. It’s about demanding sex education. It’s about challenging the taboo that says "good girls" don't talk about sex. Because, as she puts it, when your culture ensures you cannot figure out for yourself if, where, and when to have sex, it also ensures your silence when sex is forced upon you. Sophia: That’s a powerful connection. The silence around consensual sex creates the silence around sexual violence. To break one, you have to break the other.

Laura: Ultimately, Eltahawy's argument is that you can't fight for political freedom from a dictator while ignoring the dictator in your own home or on your own street. The fight for democracy and the fight for bodily autonomy are the same fight. They are inseparable. Sophia: It makes you question what 'freedom' even means. If you can vote but can't walk down the street safely, or choose who to love, or even decide what to do with your own body, are you truly free? This book really challenges a Western, politics-first view of liberation. Laura: It absolutely does. And her proposed solution is as controversial as her diagnosis. She calls for a revolution fueled by rage, audacity, and the courage of women to speak their truth. She says the most subversive thing a woman can do is talk about her life as if it really matters. Sophia: Because it does. That feels like the core message. It’s a demand to be seen as a full human being, not as a symbol, not as a vessel for family honor, and not as a collection of body parts to be policed. Laura: Exactly. It's a difficult, furious, and often heartbreaking read. The book has been widely acclaimed but also polarizing, with some critics finding its tone too abrasive or its arguments too sweeping. But it is undeniably essential. It forces a conversation that is long overdue. Sophia: We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. It's a book that's bound to provoke strong reactions. Join the conversation on our social channels and let us know what you think. Laura: This is Aibrary, signing off.