"Put on trial the artists' models who posed nude for art schools until the early 70s, hide the art books and destroy the nude statues of antiquity, then undress and stand before a mirror and burn your bodies that you despise to forever rid yourselves of your sexual hangups before you direct your humiliation and chauvinism and dare to try to deny me my freedom of expression."
This is Egyptian Aliaa Magda El-Mahdy, and in posting herself naked on
her blog, she is
challenging freedom of expression in Egypt.
Quote:
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El-Mahdy wrote on her blog that the photographs - which show her standing wearing only stockings - are "screams against a society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and hypocrisy." The blog has received 1.5 million hits since she posted the photos earlier this week.
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As Egypt's various political sects rush to condemn her, she's probably in deep danger. And this can't help:
dozens of Israeli women shared their solidarity by also going nekkid for the camera.
Quote:
"Girls, let's give the world a good reason to see the unique beauty of Israeli women," [organizer] Tepler wrote. "Regardless of whether they are Jewish, Arab, straight or Lesbian – because here, as of now, it doesn't matter. (…) Let us show the doubters that our international discourse doesn't depend on governments."
More than 100 women said they would attend. The participants were photographed holding a sign saying "Love without Limits," and "Homage to Aliaa El-Mahdi. Sisters in Israel."
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Here may be the entire root of our cultural clash. The Arab world sees female nudity as deeply morally offensive. The western world is practically used to it. The rise of the equality of women in the western world has not led to more modesty. And so the Arab world decides that the western world is offering moral ruin. The sexuality in it means that a lot of this is coming from deep in our lizard brains.
I would strip in solidarity, but even the western world would demand my image be taken down as offensive.