Sunday, March 8, 2009

The end of the Second day

Ain el Mreisse. Yes the Feminists went to Ain el Mreisse! A spot reputed for the harassment taking place so intensively. But the feminists did one hell of a great job!




3an jad bravo everyone.

What funny/sad was that the girls got harassed exactly as they were talking about... harassment. Sara actually had to listen to some misogynist comments and sexist slurs as she was reading the Feminist Collective values.

Some random guy selling coffee on the street came specifically to us to tell us that women only fit in the kitchen, cooking riz bla7m, w tabboule w, w... And then he goes on to enumerate all the great meals that women can cook. And then at the end he also mentions the fact that they can also raise kids. Thank you Mister sexist! Thank you for telling me about all the terrific meals that we can cook.

Another random woman totally tricked us, she came to the sit-in saying this is very interesting and seemed very pro-women's rights. Then as soon as she has the flier in her hand starts wondering "what's the big deal?" then she goes on and on about how her life is awesome and that there is nothing to complain about. I mean of course, if she has her rights then I bet others don't matter do they? Another piece of wisdom that she kindly shared with us was the fact that if a woman is harassed verbally on the streets then she must've given that guy a queue, said something, winked at him... anything to allow him or invite him to harass her, then she turns to some random guy, that had been annoying all the girls and asks him: "if you didn't feel the girl wanted it would you "tlattesh 3laya"". And I don't really need to tell you what he said, we all know sex-predators' mentality, right?

Another interesting form of discrimination was one of gender expression, as a bunch of young men started harassing one of our members because she didn't really look like a "girl"... Interesting, non?

Now you may ask why we chose Corniche for the sit-in, why not some easier region? where people would just agree with us?

The answer is simple, Corniche is OUR Corniche. This was the perfect location, the girls were scared a bit, frustrated at times, but still they stood out for what is theirs, the street are ours and no one has the right to scare us, and we will not be intimidated.

And if you think that we just wasted our energy, then you are greatly mistaken. You just should have been there, as the Feminist Collective values were being said, some predators were just saying sexist stuff behind her, but behind the girls there were women GRINNING! These were not the women that came to us and told us about their stories, they were people who just didn't interact with us, they just sat in their corner but they listened to us and they were smiling. That was priceless!

In addition, there were a lot of women and men that came to us with a lot of positivity, some talked about custody rights, a lot about nationality rights, and so many others too.




We even recruited one tiny feminist into the group, her name is Rahaf and she is nine, as soon as the feminists spoke to her she got all excited and saying that she wants to defend women's rights, women don't have rights and she wants to change that! She sat with us, wanted a feminist shirt, held a Banner, she was just all over the place... Just ask yourself, how does she know she has no rights? Behind every baby-feminist there is certainly a feminist parent an overwhelmingly oppressive society.

Then when all was over and we had to go to the center, all the feminist got into someone cars and we headed to the house where we shared our thoughts, and now as I am writing this the girls are arguing... about villagers and wolves!

P.S.: Villagers and Wolves is actually a party game, so don't worry the Feminist Collective is not really arguing ;)

1 comments:

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