So I’m not saying – I mean there is – It would be ridiculous to suggest that Saudi Arabia’s exactly like Yemen, but what does unify them, again – I mean if you look at, for example, the World Economic Forum publishes annually the Global Gender Gap Index, where they look at things like education and political opportunity and all of that. But I don’t gloss over the differences, because what I do is, I expressed in the essay, and in later interviews, the various ways that the misogyny plays out. Mona Eltahawy: It’s basically the guardianship system, not just the driving ban. It’s a Saudi specific issue, and yet you’re holding it up as an example of Arab misogyny. No other country in the world, in the world, I believe, bans women from driving. But, of course, the driving ban is only in Saudi Arabia and no other Arab country bans women from driving. Morocco, you might say, is a misogynistic country. You say Saudi Arabia is a misogynistic country. You treat Arabs as homogenous, as all the same. Mehdi Hasan: I mean, well, it’s interesting, because that is another criticism that’s been raised and that you’ve had to deal with, is that you treat the Arab world as monolithic. Mehdi Hasan: It’s interesting you talk about the unity, of the 22 members of the Arab League, I mean… So whether you’re incredibly rich or you’re incredibly educated, or you’re incredibly poor and not educated, you’re still suffering as a woman. The thing that unites the Middle East and North Africa, or the Arabic speaking countries of that region, is this hatred for women that plays out differently. Mona Eltahawy: Some of them are as rich as, say, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, Saudi Arabia and some of them are as poor as Yemen and Somalia. Mona Eltahawy: Well, when you look at the countries in the Middle East and North Africa or, just for simplicity’s sake, the 22 countries of the Arab League… You gloss over all that and say it’s them versus us. But when you say that men, quote, hate women, some might say to focus on that feeling is a cop out, because it enables you not to have a much more complex discussion about, say, poverty, tyranny, ignorance, lack of education. Mehdi Hasan: Most people would agree that the status of women’s rights in the Arab world is pretty abysmal right now. There is a hatred for women in the Middle East and North Africa that plays out in these horrific statistics that we hear. I think, and this is why I made the point in my essay, or asked the question, and some people have, have told me, you haven’t answered it, but perhaps we can answer it today, ‘cause it’s my contention that there is a hatred for Arab women. Mona Eltahawy: Well, I think it’s a misogynist society. Mehdi Hasan: So who is waging the war, in your view? I mean when 12-year-old girls are dying giving childbirth in Yemen, when 91 percent of Egyptian girls and women have had their genitals mutilated, when 16-year-old girls in Morocco are forced to marry their rapists so that their rapist can escape conviction, that is nothing short of a war. Mehdi Hasan: Mona, is your view that there is a war being waged on women in the Arab world? Mehdi Hasan (VO): A committed feminist for over 20 years, she’s perhaps the most provocative voice out there on the issue of misogyny and the Middle East. Tonight I’ll be joined by a panel of three experts at the Oxford Union chamber: Dr Aitemad Muhanna from the London School of Economics Middle Eastern Centre and Taj Hargey, a progressive imam based in Oxford and Dr Shuruq Naguib, who teaches Islamic and Gender Studies at Lancaster University. I’m Mehdi Hasan and I’ve come here to the Oxford Union to go head to head with journalist, activist, feminist Mona Eltahawy, and challenge her on whether her rhetoric is helping or hurting the cause of women’s rights in the Middle East. But are critics too eager to brand Arab women as helpless victims? My guest tonight sparked outrage when she wrote an article saying the root of the problem is that Arab men hate women. Mehdi Hasan (VO): How bad is life for women in the Arab world? There’s no doubt the region is far from being a model of gender equality. Read the full transcript of Head to Head – Do Arab men hate women? below:
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