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Mona Eltahawy @monaeltahawy
, 22 tweets, 13 min read Read on Twitter
“And when your son looks at you and says ‘Mama look you won. Bullies don’t win.’ And I said ‘Baby, they don’t. Because we’re gonna go in there, we’re gonna impeach the motherfucker.’” - Rep. Rashida Tlaib
#WhyIsayFuck #116thCongress
“People are like, ‘Rashida, maybe you should put the bullhorn away.’ No! ‘Maybe you shouldn’t wear those gym shoes everywhere.’...I say fuck that.” h/t @rerutled #WhyIsayFuck
“I didn’t change or try to run away from being Arabeyya,Muslimah, Falestenyya &...it’s such an addition on top of that to being a badass organizer.Don’t ever let anyone take away your roots,culture,who you are bec when you(don’t change) people love you & you win” @RashidaTlaib
I wrote this in November after @RashidaTlaib and @IlhanMN became the first two Muslim women to be elected to the US Congress google.com/amp/s/www.nbcn… #UnapologeticallyMe
In 2016, @RashidaTlaib was one of 14 protesters removed for disrupting a Trump speech: “I told Trump that ‘our children deserve better’ & I asked him to provide a better example to our kids. I implored him to read the U.S. Constitution” h/t @rerutled
I am a massive fan of profanity. Fuck civility! I wrote this about the importance of profanity for women in defying, disobeying and disrupting patriarchy google.com/amp/s/www.nbcn… #UnapologeticallyMe #Why
Whenever I stand at a podium to give a lecture,I begin with my declaration of faith:“Fuck the patriarchy.”I could say “dismantle the patriarchy” but I don’t because I am a woman; a woman of color; a Muslim woman. And I am not supposed to say fuck. #WhyIsayFuck #UnapologeticallyMe
Few things match power of profanity delivered by a woman at a podium,unapologetically.Bec how many women-not to mention women of color-are ever even invited to the podium?And of those,how many,when they get on stage,still begin almost as if they’re asking for permission to speak?
I say fuckk because profanity is an important tool in defying, disobeying & disrupting patriarchy and its rules. Patriarchy punishes women for profanity because it wants us to forever remain within the straitjacket of niceness and politeness,despite the violence it subjects us to
We are not fighting on an equal battlefield. The shock and the offense profanity causes are necessary and important. Surely, misogyny and racism and so many other -isms and the violence they visit upon our bodies are more offensive than words? #WhyIsayFuck #UnapologeticallyMe
Once while standing in line at Denver airport security,a white man — another passenger waiting to go through —demanded I “prove” I was a U.S. citizen. “Fuck you!” was my immediate response.Another white man immediately and predictably chimed in: “Language! Language!” #WhyIsayFuck
But what is really more offensive here, 1stman’s xenophobic prejudice or my language? What would the world look like if the energy spent policing language,esp female language, was invested instead into policing the very real harm of patriarchal & racist violence? #WhyIsayFuck
I wrote oped 👆🏽on the power of profanity after a (white male) editor asked me to stop saying “flying fuck” on Twitter. Not in my columns but on Twitter: So of course I wrote (for another outlet) about #WhyIsayFuck - and the editors note explains ironically why they used “f**k.”
There is an ENTIRE CHAPTER on importance of Profanity in my new book.I don’t give a FLYING FUCK about civility or decorum.And I am delighted that women like @RashidaTlaib don’t either.Fight injustice with all that you have including your language. #WhyIsayFuck #UnapologeticallyMe
Using #WhyISayFuck, I asked women what profanity meant to them. One told me“Being a professional from a working class background I struggle w/saying ‘fuck.’”It was reminder of how intersection of class, gender & race & other forms of oppression r used to police women’s language
The less power a woman has, the less freedom she has to curse. The more a woman is caught in the intersections of oppressions, the more her language is policed. Who does civility serve? #WhyISayFuck #UnapologeticallyMe
So: white men tempted to lecture us on civility and decorum? Shut the fuck up and listen. There is a fascist fuck in the White House. There are patriarchal authoritarians across the world. Fuck civility. #WhyISayFuck
RADICAL RUDENESS: read about #Ugandan feminist scholar & activist @drstellanyanzi on trial for using profanity vs her country’s dictator. In colonial Uganda, “radical rudeness” was used vs British occupiers. #WhyISayFuck #UnapologeticallyMe
Be RADICALLY RUDE! Fuck civility. My book The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls is all about that and more and is coming via @BeaconPressBks Fall 2019. #WhyISayFuck #UnapologeticallyMe
.@drstellanyanzi & @RashidaTlaib are heroes.I say “fuck” to defy, disobey & disrupt patriarchy & all forms of power who use “civility” & “decorum” to maintain their authority & privilege.I pay homage to rude & profane women nbcnews.com/think/amp/ncna… #WhyISayFuck #UnapologeticallyMe
#RadicalRudeness: activists in 1940s colonial #Uganda fought power -of British colonizers & local allies- via “a rude, publicly celebrated strategy of insults, scandal mongering, disruption, and disorderliness that broke conventions of colonial friendship” academic.oup.com/jsh/article-ab…
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