supplemental reading!

Also, if anyone is interested in learning more about sexual harassment in the Middle East (in Egypt in particular) and how it relates to veiling and the hijab tradition, this is an extremely interesting and (in my experience) accurate article. It's from August 2008, but in the last two years, the trend toward increasing conservativism in the Middle East has only accelerated, especially in Egypt. Naively, I thought I understood the gender dynamic in the Muslim world before visiting simply because I had studied it and had Muslim friends. But there's nothing like riding the gender-segregated subway deep into Cairo to make you reevaluate everything you thought you knew about the way that men and women interact here (and consequently, the way women interact with each other). The article is here: In Egypt, Some Women Say That Veils Increase Harassment (Washington Post).

Some of you might also be interested to know that Cairo is planning to introduce pink taxis driven by women, for women in the coming months. I was excited to hear about that at first; friends of mine have been harassed and even molested by cab drivers here, and the few times that I've had to ride in a taxi by myself, I've felt uncomfortable. But introducing women-only taxis to complement the women-only subway cars is just treating the symptoms of the wild inequalities and injustices in this society. I would much prefer to see the city's authorities working to make public transportation safe for all people, regardless of gender.