Walk like a soldier.
Don’t you know how soldiers walk?
Eyes straight.
Back straight.
No swaying.

I was in highschool at the time.
It was inappropriate to tell mama about this sort of thing,
She never said so,
But I had a feeling that what happened could not be talked about.

The whole time I was walking down the street, I was afraid someone would touch me.
They were going to come from behind and pinch my ass, then laugh and make a run for it!
A repeat of a scenario that happened more than 8 years ago...

You said I was only pretending to be a liberal,
And I turned out to be a conservative woman who had issues,
Just like any other Egyptian woman.
You said that because I refused to do what you wanted.

He was interviewing me. Toward the middle of the interview, he asked me, "Why do you want to work?"
"Because I like working."
"You mean you like the attention!"
Him: “Okay, you'll get the job. This is the school’s phone number, and this is my private office number."

I’m a girl, and I’m bullied every day,
Because I wear a cross.
People give me mean looks.
I try my best to ignore them, but they’re too much.
I’ve never really reacted to anything they’ve done.
But the way they look at me, it’s like they’re asking, “How dare you wear a cross?”
social stigma, harassment, the street

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

The French teacher, Miss Lubnah, was very sweet and petite.
She spoke in broken Arabic,
But her French was perfect.
She was a great French teacher.

I used to work in a landline service store that opened on Fridays.
I would go down to the store on Fridays alone.
All of the other nearby stores would be closed that day and the store where I worked was in a narrow passageway with a dead end.

I never physically harassed a woman.
When I would like a girl, I would go speak to her.
It satisfied my ego.
That was until I saw a girl being harassed in the street.