Very interesting article from a true activist

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

I think this point is so very important and unfortunately what makes a lot of articles/sound bites/journalistic stories so difficult. My personal opinion is that having long-form articles or segments on the news more than 1 minute in length almost never exist, never mind the advent of twitter, etc having made discernment of what is going on in the world, regardless of topic, nearly impossible. To be well informed, you need to really and truly put in the time, read numerous sources, maybe try to find talks/lecture series on those topics [with as many views as possible]. Some people do it, some people don't.

So, in the case, here is a complex topic. A super complex topic. Mona has her leanings [self described liberal], her own personal experiences in Tahrir square, she's mad, and told she has X number of words or lines available to her. The resulting piece garners critiques [and in this topic who wouldn't be critical of any argument - someone who came along and said everything is sunshine and roses for women in MENA would be shot down in an instant too].

But, here's my main point, to get a flavor or feel of the whole picture one should be reading all the critiques, listening to the responses [like the interview posted here] and see what else is being said about the issue. And that can be so difficult depending on your lifestyle [screaming babies and screaming bosses come to mind]. Plus, from the journalistic stand point, boiling complex issues down into a easy-to-digest sound bite is currently the goal of a lot of media out there. Therefore, super complex topics can become so polarized that the topic itself seems to get ignored. I personally felt some of the response pieces fell into that camp - people took umbrage being classified in Mona's "us". Ok. That's understandable. But, what about some of the other faces of this extraordinarily complex issue?

Yes - it takes time to sift through all the material, but it is so worth the effort. The subject of women's rights in MENA is an absolutely important issue, but to play into the "MENA men are misogynists" meme is not only a distortion of reality, it fails to address the systematic issues that are huge factors.

That's why I really enjoyed the interview that ihavequestions posted, as it got into some of those wider issues. As Nesrine Malik so astutely pointed out, the practice of FGM is a custom that is perpetuated almost entirely by women - mothers bring their daughters to be circumcised by older women. But nobody asks "Why do these mothers hate their daughters ?"