All of a sudden, a car closed in on me, and I fell off my bike.
One of my knees hurt. I decided to walk back to the starting point.
I left the bike with them and turned back.
That’s when the comments started.
“You fell down, sweetheart? I wish I were that bike.”

I was crossing El-Tagneed Street one morning, it was ten minutes to 7:00, when suddenly, a man driving past in a car spanked my behind.

A girl was walking to a supermarket near her house after iftaar  when a kid—no older than 18—said the most disgusting things to her as he fondled himself.

I usually wear an abaya and a veil when I go to work.
I went in, changed, and went out.
“Come, dear. Prepare breakfast for us,” he told me.
I went out to get breakfast.
Later on he said,
“Why are you covering your hair? Take off the veil, dear.”
“I’m from the countryside. I can’t take off the veil,” I replied.
gender violence, sexual violence, work, harassment, social pressure

I was walking down the street one time when a cargo motorcycle full of middle school boys drove past me.
One of them slapped me on my behind.
I screamed in surprise. They mimicked me and laughed.

I wish I could be like the woman in the alley.
The one who takes off her slippers and threatens to beat 14 guys in the metro,
Until they run away.

I was around 7 or 8 years at the most.
All I knew then was that there are parts in our body that "strangers" should not see or touch.
What I came to know later is that most sexual assaulters are people who are very close to you.

I was waiting for the tram,
When I saw them coming towards me,
And calling two others from behind.

Mama was paranoid about harassment.
She thought it was everywhere.
She wanted to protect me.

“Why did you go there?”
Whenever someone asks me that,
I feel as if they only see me as a piece of meat that should be covered.
I get the urge to just cut parts off my body whenever I walk down the street.