Mona Eltahawy on the Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls

Intelligence Squared

News, Society & Culture, Arts, News Commentary

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2021

⏱️ 57 minutes

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Summary

Be angry, ambitious, profane, violent, attention-seeking, lustful, and powerful. These are the “seven necessary sins” that Egyptian writer and activist Mona Eltahawy says women and girls are not supposed to commit – but absolutely should. Eltahawy advocates a muscular, out-loud approach to teaching women and girls to harness their power. Eltahawy came to Intelligence Squared to tell the stories of activists and ordinary women around the world from countries including South Africa, China, Nigeria, India, Bosnia and Egypt who are fighting back against these taboos and tapping into their inner fury. Rather than teaching women and girls to survive the patriarchal system, they have found themselves in, Eltahawy uses these stories to show them how to dismantle it. Buy the book with a special Intelligence Squared discount here: https://www.primrosehillbooks.com/product/the-seven-necessary-sins-for-women-and-girls-mona-eltahawy/ Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/intelligencesquared. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Rory Stewart, and I'd like to tell you about an intelligent squared event
0:04.8	I'm doing with the classicist author and broadcaster Mary Beard. Together we'll be discussing
0:10.1	politics and power from the Caesars to Sunack, who gets to Winpar, who is excluded. Does power
0:16.6	always corrupt or other examples of leaders who've maintained their integrity while an authority?
0:22.2	And how does the nature of power vary across different times and cultures? These are just some
0:26.8	of the questions that Mary and I will be trying to answer. In person tickets are now sold out,
0:31.6	but you can still watch online on the 13th of November at 7pm BST. Put your questions
0:36.9	to us live as we discuss power and politics down the ages.
0:56.8	Despite women and girls being taught to avoid these quote-unquote sins, Mona argues why they
1:02.4	should embrace them as an absolute necessity. It's a really fascinating conversation,
1:06.6	and if you do enjoy it, you can find a link for the book in the podcast description. But now let's go
1:10.9	to the episode. Hello, and it's a great pleasure that we are all here for this intelligent squared
1:16.8	event, and as Kona said, I'm Helen Cherskie. Now, we live in a patriarchal society. However,
1:23.8	some of us, perhaps I'd guess, you know, half did not choose to be living under this umbrella.
1:29.4	And knowing we don't want to be here is one thing, but knowing what to do about it. Well,
1:33.8	maybe that's something else. Our guest tonight is Mona El-Tahawi. She is a very highly acclaimed
1:40.0	feminist activist and author, and she knows exactly what she wants to do about the patriarchy.
1:45.6	And she has written a book. Here it is to tell us all about it. It is called the seven
1:49.9	necessary sins for women and girls. It's been out in the US for a while, but it is published in
1:54.8	the UK today. And this is what we're going to be talking about. Now, Mona, it's a great pleasure
2:00.5	to have you join us here. Now, normally I have to say I might start a book interview by giving a
2:06.6	brief overview of the book. And in this case, it does feel like not quite the right thing to do,
	...

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