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’ve been subjected to bad things ever since I was a child.
It started with the bullying I’d get at school,
Because of my thin body and dark skin.

My name is Khadra.
I’m 33 and I’m a middle school dropout,
But I don’t know how to read or write.
My parents passed away, and I have three kids:
Basma, Dina, and Amr.
My husband passed away too.

I’ve been sexually abused since I was 5 years old.
I can still feel his hand on me, his leers.
Without going into more details, the whole thing was creepy.
I was molested by my uncle.

Whenever I was at my grandmother’s, he’d sit close to me, touch me.
And I was stupid and didn’t understand what was going on.
gender violence, sexual violence, child molestation, harassment

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.

We might see things differently,
But the guy on the outside sees my sister, my mother, and my fiance as mere “females”.
A body, a hole to fill, a corpse, a mattress,
A ride, a bang, a screw, a fuck,
A piece of meat everyone wants to tear into with their teeth

Inside me,
Is a man called Mohamed.
He comes out in different situations.
Like when Sara goes out alone,
Or goes out with her girl friends.

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

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...

I was subjected to derisive comments on an almost daily basis.
The one I got the most was a quote from one of Mohamed Saad’s movies: “Possibly a boy, possibly a girl”.
I got that practically every day.
At the beginning, I’d usually yell and fight with the person who said it.
Until one time, I got into a fight with a guy who made fun of my hair.
masculinity, bullying, gender violence, harassment, social stigma, the street