“Why did you choose this topic?”
“I wanted a topic no one’s talked about before and that’s considered taboo.”
“And you think you’re knowledgeable enough to talk about this topic?”
“This is just scientific research.”

Did you see what Miss Hoda did to Sarah?
I was speaking to her from the bus window, and she was standing below.
Miss Hoda came and slapped her.

I was eight years old.
I was playing in the streets,
Where a sixty year old man used to sell honey.
He would get us honey every month.
That time there was no one at home.

Every girl has an Aunt N’amaat in her life.
And every girl receives the same remarks that are repeated on various occasions:
“Come on girl, hurry up!”
“Did all the men go blind?”
“May you be in your own house next year, God willing!”

I was walking down a street with two friends of mine, and a man kept following us, saying,
“I want to fuck you” and do so and so to you. The kind of talk everyone’s familiar with.
One of my friends stopped walking and cussed him out.
gender violence, harassment, social stigma, the street

My cousin keeps turning my family against me.
“How could a girl travel alone?
What is she doing in Cairo?
She can’t travel alone, and she can’t work in Cairo.

I was always very independent,
Ever since I was young.
I never did anything unless I believed in it.
I decided to start wearing the headscarf.
I did so out of conviction.
No one interfered in my decision.
social stigma, hijab, discrimination

This experience made me lose my job.
It made me lose the ability to get my money from the marketplace and give it to people.
It made me lose so many things.
My losses were financial when I entered that place. 
What I learned was to never trust anyone.
prison, work, social stigma

We were listening to music on the beach,
When three guys came and sat in front of us.
We got up and went for a walk,
But they came after us.
I kept yelling at them,
But they kept following us.

I wore the hijab even though I wasn’t really convinced I should.
I was trying to please God, since it’s an obligation for Muslim women.
It was also a way of meeting society’s standards of being modest.