"brutal & sustained sexual assault & beating"
during last week's egyptian celebration
of the resignation of president hosni mubarak
have been haunting me all week.
to my embarrassment, my primary reaction
is to hide from such harrowing news,
somehow secretly hoping if i don't see it,
then it can't see me.
but like a toddler's inept game of
eye-covering hide-n-seek, i eventually realize
just because i'm not following the story
or reading about it or talking about it
[or, yes, blogging about it]
doesn't mean it's not there.
oh, it's there. it happened.
& in egypt, & hundreds of places like it,
it happens every day.
maybe not to a well-known, high-profile,
60 minutes correspondent.
but to women who, just like her, are
daughters, sisters, wives, mothers.
human beings.
sexual assault, sexual harassment,
even killing of women by male relatives
for perceived violations of
their culture's harsh moral code,
are all common happenings in egypt.
interestingly, during the revolt
against mubarak & his government,
women reported cairo's tahrir square
became a sort of safe zone
free from such patriarchal atrocities.
sadly, once the uprising was over,
the bad behavior resumed.
a new day was dawning for the country,
with the same old cruelties still intact.
the revolution to change egypt's government
lasted 17 days.
the movement to change egypt's culture with respect to women
will last much, much longer.
so, here's the glimmer of hope:
lara logan was rescued from her attackers
by a group of women & about 20 soldiers.
blessings to ms. logan as she continues to heal.
& even bigger blessings to those brave women,
as they continue to rescue & protect each other,
struggling & striving toward treatment
appropriate to mothers, wives, sisters, daugters.
human beings.
image source: people.com.
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