New book calls for sexual revolution in the Middle East

In April 2012, Foreign Policy magazine published a cover story written by an Egyptian-born, UK-raised, American-naturalised journalist by the name of Mona Eltahawy. Titled Why Do They Hate Us?, the essay described her experience near Cairo's now-infamous Tahrir Square in November 2011, when she was beaten and sexually assaulted by riot police during the lengthy populist revolt that eventually brought down the three-decade rule of President Hosni Mubarak.

An outspoken critic of the then-Mubarak (and now-Abdel Fattah el-Sisi) governments, Eltahawy was hampered in writing about her ordeal – both of her arms had been broken. Once her casts were removed, she barrelled into the polemic.

The essay's primary focus was Muslim men's attitude towards women. Eltahawy's story attracted international attention and provided the impetus for her first book, Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution. This provocatively titled tome examines what it means to be a woman in a male-dominated Muslim world and argues for the pressing need to end that world's culture of misogyny.

The book is a personal narrative interwoven with statistics and interviews from her travels. The 47-year-old is adamant that for a political revolution to succeed it has to be accompanied by an end to the oppression of women. "Unless we draw the connection between the misogyny of the state and of the street, and unless we emphasise the need for a social and sexual revolution, our political revolutions will fail," she writes.

Despite the book's subtitle, there's little discussion of the day-to-day realities for women living in Turkey, Iran, and the rest of the Islamic world. Her primary focus is on Arabic-speaking nations, specifically the two countries where she lived – Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Offering an explanation to better understand the prevailing viewpoint in her country of birth, she writes: "Egypt is an important case study in how state and street work in tandem to push women out of public space."

Throughout various cultures and timelines, Eltahawy notes that women have been at the forefront of revolutions only to be ignored after the mission is accomplished. Her sharpest analysis is evident when discussing how women's bodies are anybody's but their own. "Men control every aspect of [women's] lives," she writes. Women are subjected to genital mutilation, male guardians, child marriage, honour killings, veiling, virginity tests, driving bans – testimony to men's "obsession with controlling women and our bodies".

There is no shortage of evidence to support the reality and root of the problem women in the region face, exemplified by Eltahawy's statement: "Families impose curfews on their daughters so that they're not raped or assaulted, and yet is anyone telling boys and men not to rape or assault us?" Declaring that "the battles over women's bodies can be won only by a revolution of the mind", the author enumerates past and present legal and organisational regulations that enable or disable restructure, emphasising "the connection between the personal and the political, the home and the street, and the street and the state".

Sadly, misogyny appears to be a universal condition of the human race. We have seen it throughout history and even today in countries that present themselves as enlightened. In most democratic societies it is almost exclusively male-dominated factions (political, social and ecclesiastical) that are at any given moment manoeuvring to ensure that women have no control over their own bodies. Venturing out alone can put a woman at risk almost anywhere in the world, but especially in the Middle East where, the author states, "a combination of societal, religious, and political factors has made the region's public space uniquely dangerous for women".

Some critics argue that Eltahawy chastises the Middle East and North Africa for social flaws that are certainly local but also global. And why, they ask, does she write in English, if the women who should benefit from its message are mainly Arabic-speaking? To this we must respond that women's shared destiny goes beyond headscarves and hymens; we have been and continue to be marginalised, which may be the thread that connects us.

When women challenge the system, it doesn't take long for the system to demonstrate an aversion to change. The progress and well-being of a country cannot be measured solely by its economy; a close look at its population as a whole is a must. When the demands of elites in positions almost entirely populated by men silence individual liberties, the national voice becomes distorted. Now, more than ever, we need what the author refers to as a "global feminist struggle" to make the clarion call to claim equality for women everywhere, and to do whatever we can to bring about a world where every woman and every man has an equal voice.

Further reading on...feminism

Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World by Shereen El Feki. The former vice chair of the UN's Global Commission on HIV and Law travelled for five years across the Arab region researching on sex.

Women and Gender in Islam by Leila Ahmed. Pivotal book by the first professor of women's studies in religion at Harvard Divinity School.

The Harem Within: Tales of a Moroccan Girlhood by Fatima Mernissi. A feminist sociologist known for her work on the status of women in Morocco and the region.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. The Iranian-born, Paris-based artist's graphic-novel depicts youth during the Iranian revolution and was turned into an animated movie.

The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler. The award-winning piece of political theatre draws attention to violence against women worldwide.