Quotes from Mona Eltahawy

The fight against racism must be seen as a revolutionary one.

Saudi Arabia isn't just a conservative country with different values we shouldn't judge. It is a modern Gilead.

It's one thing to be groped and harassed by passers-by, but when the state gropes you, it gives a green light that you are fair game.

I visited Libya in September 1996 for the 27th anniversary of the 'revolution' - a military coup that a 27-year-old Gadhafi led to topple the monarchy and since which he has ruled. Some were optimistic that Gadhafi's 'revolution' could herald a new Libya, but it didn't take long for his brutality to stamp out any such hopes.

My brother, a cardiologist, was among thousands of Muslims visited by the FBI in November 2001 and forced to submit to special registration fingerprinting, his photo and information forever in Homeland Security's files.

As an Egyptian, I was glad to see the film 'Black Panther' embrace my country with its inclusion of the Ancient Egyptian goddess Bast as the deity of Wakandans. But considering the anti-black racism against the Nubian indigenous community and visitors in my country, I knew Egypt would not return the love.

We are fighting misogynists in every culture. My solution is to listen to the women in each community and amplify their voices.

To say that there is patriarchy in Arab culture is not denying women agency.

Women of color have always been kind of boxed in by the idea that the more you talk about the misogyny of your own community, the more you make that community look bad.

The military belongs in its barracks, not our ballot boxes.

I was born in Egypt, and my family moved to London when I was seven. I grew up mostly in Clapham, where I also went to school after a brief stint in Whitechapel.

Authenticity has never been Barbie's strong suit.

I detest the niqab and the burka for their erasure of women and for dangerously equating piety with that disappearance - the less of you I can see, the closer you must be to God.

Saudi authorities must launch a campaign about the safety of female pilgrims and the determination of the authorities to ensure every woman's safety.

Good riddance, Bin Laden - an unwelcome squatter in the house of my religion who tore down all the walls and was prepared to throw them on a fire to keep himself warm.

I chose to wear the hijab at age 16, soon after my family moved from Britain to Saudi Arabia.

I have chosen not to have children.

I'm a survivor. I'm a messenger.

To write about the hijab is to step into a minefield. Even among those who share my cultural and faith background, opinions veer from those who despise it as a symbol of backwardness to those for whom religion begins and ends with that piece of cloth.

I started off at a local newspaper called 'The Middle East Times,' which is no longer in existence. I remember one of the earliest stories that I wrote for them was a study about domestic violence in Egypt from a government-run research institute think tank.

When we complain to Egypt's Western allies about whichever autocrat is in power, we are asked, 'But who is the alternative?' It is a question designed to frustrate.

I am horrified by the moral amnesia that develops when a dictator dies.

For years, successive Arab dictators have tried to keep discontent at bay by distracting people with the Israeli-Arab conflict.

It is the harassers and assaulters who make us 'look bad,' not the women who have every right to expose crimes against them.