Show it or clothe it . . .

"When a man cannot see a woman, then what is he going to harass her for? Nothing," said Abu Donya, a taxi driver, whose views are shared by many Egyptians. "So imagine if all women wear niqab, things would be better," he said.


Show it or clothe it, men will still wonder about what lay behind the habits of women.

Take a look inside

. . . Mya's story

On the day I was Born

Before anyone could predict her actions, the mistress rushed into the kitchen area of the one room shanty, retrieved a magnificent knife from one of three drawers and returned to my mother’s bedside. Withholding mercy, she plunged the knife into my mother’s rapidly beating heart. Deep, deep down to the handle, exerting a grunt and anguished cry with the effort.

The woman helping to bring me into the world let go of my head.

My birth was delayed to comfort the murderer. My head was in the world while my body was not. My head was in the world while my body was not. My head was in a whirl, in a whirl, in a whirl. My head was in the world. My body was not.

Neither woman considered assisting my mother with the knife buried to the handle in her chest. They raced to the hysterical, screaming mistress, whose hands were covered in blood.

The unnamed midwife rocked the mistress gently like a baby, patting her quivering shoulders with the hands that had cradled my head. “Shhhh, shhhh, shhh”, she shushed while rocking the woman to comfort.

My mother’s eyes, I am told, were wide open, fixed.

Sensing my mother’s demise, I breathed a breath and let loose my first cry.

My head was in the world.