Manju Otis good morning sabaha 5i I have
to say that it’s very unfair to come
after Lauer given how inspirational over
speaker she is so I wonder if I’m going
to be less staying at an equal field but
I go by Muhammad and all this long title
I think should be dropped aside maybe I
can start from where she ended what she
said she talked about the US and them
she talked about crossing a certain
boundary and a certain border starts but
on self so there is a certain in
responsibility here on on us I I arrived
in Europe like ten days ago through
Helsinki where the organization for whom
I work had the annual consultations with
the Finnish government and at the
immigration officers desk representing
my diplomatic passport the schedule of
the meetings that I’m going to have
high-level officials yet he was very
keen to go into a long process of more
or less an interrogation where I’m going
to be staying where I’m going to be
going what other Schengen countries I’m
going to be going to and and he said a
very clear message after maybe five or
seven minutes of interrogation that I
should be leaving the Schengen area on
the day and the date that I specified
for him that he took note of something
that I grew to to accept but also to
deal with every single time I’m coming
to this part of the world or maybe to
North America and why I’m saying that
because now I I represent something and
someone that I hated very much growing
up when I was watching American action
movies back in the 1980s where there was
always a Soviet Russian villain with a
very strong accent
and it’s just that now this villain is
someone who looks like me and sounds
like me and it’s not only in the media
and the movies but also in real world
and you ask yourself why why is it so
definitely the globe the global world
the current politics the political
climate plays a very big role in that
where it’s always characterizing someone
who comes from my region as the villain
who comes with a lot of anger and the
willingness to eliminate the other and
not to include but also it’s about us
and I learned that US is not necessarily
me I grew up in a household where my
father and my mother were working
outside the house and equally shared the
chores inside the house without my
father being shy about it nor boasting
about it it’s a matter of fact I had a
great-grandfather who sold his land back
in 1919 so he can afford sending my
grandmother and her sister to Germany to
get an education Germany being the
country of choice because of the
devaluation of the currency so it was
cheaper than elsewhere so he can afford
sending not only his three sons but also
his two daughters and later on in life
he has bequeathed his inheritance
equally among the five so I grew up in
in in an environment where feminism was
the most natural thing so being a man
being an Arab being a Muslim and yes
being a feminist was not necessarily
something that I would question I
started to question when I got exposed
to the other with a capital o and the
other is the world but also the region
in which I grew up and where I come from
you ask again why and I mentioned media
but I think it’s it’s much more complex
and much more complicated than that it’s
what’s happening politically it’s our
region being home to the largest number
of conflicts in the world the
deteriorating economic situation on
every front the shrinking space for
voice and for choice is definitely has a
very direct correlation between that and
between inequalities in Gaza post the
last war in Gaza domestic violence did
go up by 700 percent
when we asked women and girls in the
region what does a man mean to you
answers along the lines of well if my
husband doesn’t beat me he doesn’t love
me or if my father doesn’t send my
younger brother with me to the mall he
doesn’t care about me or if my brother
doesn’t prevent me from going out of the
house he’s not a man he’s a sissy so
patriarchy is not only the minds of men
and boys it’s also in the minds of women
and girls and Patrick Patrick is still
very much alive in the region so how do
ID concise what I believe in how did I
grow up with the world outside me not
everyone outside in that world because
it was reassuring every now and then
through my work to find people who defy
the stereotypes and the answers that
came from these women girls when we were
doing the focus group discussions women
in Yemen who are covered from head to
toe I don’t I didn’t see anything of
them not even their eyes decided to take
out to the streets and demand a better
tomorrow and they were more fearless and
more determined than many men have met
in my life
young men in who said we do not want to
be the providers and the macho men
anymore we want to share this with our
partners we want a safe space where we
can express our emotions we want a safe
space we can cry young women in Egypt
who said we’re fed up from harassment
and we’re deciding to do something about
it civil society in Tunisia that pushed
the way forward but I’ve also met
Palestinian men who have just gone out
of prison for a longest time who feel
incapacitated and castrated I met Syrian
so I met religious and academics whose
works have been banned it’s is how it is
where I come from so wait to go back to
reconcile this with what I believe in
and to push the agenda forward I call it
the trilogy of education media and
religious discourse we’re not going to
go where I grew up and where I want to
see the rest
believing in until we deal with
education we’ve been so keen to provide
education for everyone but we never
asked what quality of education it is
until now we find sentences in the
region saying my father goes to the
field stays at home to cook or I played
football with my friends and my sister
stated to help my mother this is in the
education curriculum in many of the Arab
countries the media have talked about
media and the real course we’ve been
taught what we see in the media is not
what I read in my Quran is not what I’ve
been taught inside the house
there are so many elements in the Quran
and the religion that gives a lot of
rock to women and I’m not going to be
exhaustive but starting from divorce
rights where women can divorce equally
as their means for many reasons
including that she wakes up one day not
having and not wanting to have an
intimate relationship she can divorce
unpaid care work inside the house we’re
talking about it now in the sustainable
development goals 1,400 years ago it was
given to the woman if she decides if she
decides and chooses not to work inside
the house outside the house she can and
and she has the right to demand a
financial remuneration for her care work
inside the house including raising up
her kids including breastfeeding and if
she forgoes this right then it’s an act
of compassion from her side but it’s
still a right for her inheritance men
get twice as much as women is only one
case in 23 cases in Surat Annisa
the chapter of women in the Quran and it
goes on and on and on so we need to
unveil this we need to reveal this and
this is something that we’ve been doing
in my my job with you and women
partnering with musa well with Roberto
Mohammed Ali and other religious think
authorities in the region to unveil the
true nature of religion that I believe
in I’m proud to belong to and it’s a
religion of compassion of peace of love
and yes of equality and this is where
and why I am here today in the job that
I’ve been working in for the past 25
years and hopefully something that I
will continue pushing for for the rest
of my life because feminism is about
equality it’s about giving space it’s
about rights and it has been dominated
and led by women right
rightfully so and I am very very happy
to be led by women in my job and in my
life but it’s also a space where it
includes the other the other whomever
the other is including an Arab Muslim
man and I am happy to be here today thank you
to say that it’s very unfair to come
after Lauer given how inspirational over
speaker she is so I wonder if I’m going
to be less staying at an equal field but
I go by Muhammad and all this long title
I think should be dropped aside maybe I
can start from where she ended what she
said she talked about the US and them
she talked about crossing a certain
boundary and a certain border starts but
on self so there is a certain in
responsibility here on on us I I arrived
in Europe like ten days ago through
Helsinki where the organization for whom
I work had the annual consultations with
the Finnish government and at the
immigration officers desk representing
my diplomatic passport the schedule of
the meetings that I’m going to have
high-level officials yet he was very
keen to go into a long process of more
or less an interrogation where I’m going
to be staying where I’m going to be
going what other Schengen countries I’m
going to be going to and and he said a
very clear message after maybe five or
seven minutes of interrogation that I
should be leaving the Schengen area on
the day and the date that I specified
for him that he took note of something
that I grew to to accept but also to
deal with every single time I’m coming
to this part of the world or maybe to
North America and why I’m saying that
because now I I represent something and
someone that I hated very much growing
up when I was watching American action
movies back in the 1980s where there was
always a Soviet Russian villain with a
very strong accent
and it’s just that now this villain is
someone who looks like me and sounds
like me and it’s not only in the media
and the movies but also in real world
and you ask yourself why why is it so
definitely the globe the global world
the current politics the political
climate plays a very big role in that
where it’s always characterizing someone
who comes from my region as the villain
who comes with a lot of anger and the
willingness to eliminate the other and
not to include but also it’s about us
and I learned that US is not necessarily
me I grew up in a household where my
father and my mother were working
outside the house and equally shared the
chores inside the house without my
father being shy about it nor boasting
about it it’s a matter of fact I had a
great-grandfather who sold his land back
in 1919 so he can afford sending my
grandmother and her sister to Germany to
get an education Germany being the
country of choice because of the
devaluation of the currency so it was
cheaper than elsewhere so he can afford
sending not only his three sons but also
his two daughters and later on in life
he has bequeathed his inheritance
equally among the five so I grew up in
in in an environment where feminism was
the most natural thing so being a man
being an Arab being a Muslim and yes
being a feminist was not necessarily
something that I would question I
started to question when I got exposed
to the other with a capital o and the
other is the world but also the region
in which I grew up and where I come from
you ask again why and I mentioned media
but I think it’s it’s much more complex
and much more complicated than that it’s
what’s happening politically it’s our
region being home to the largest number
of conflicts in the world the
deteriorating economic situation on
every front the shrinking space for
voice and for choice is definitely has a
very direct correlation between that and
between inequalities in Gaza post the
last war in Gaza domestic violence did
go up by 700 percent
when we asked women and girls in the
region what does a man mean to you
answers along the lines of well if my
husband doesn’t beat me he doesn’t love
me or if my father doesn’t send my
younger brother with me to the mall he
doesn’t care about me or if my brother
doesn’t prevent me from going out of the
house he’s not a man he’s a sissy so
patriarchy is not only the minds of men
and boys it’s also in the minds of women
and girls and Patrick Patrick is still
very much alive in the region so how do
ID concise what I believe in how did I
grow up with the world outside me not
everyone outside in that world because
it was reassuring every now and then
through my work to find people who defy
the stereotypes and the answers that
came from these women girls when we were
doing the focus group discussions women
in Yemen who are covered from head to
toe I don’t I didn’t see anything of
them not even their eyes decided to take
out to the streets and demand a better
tomorrow and they were more fearless and
more determined than many men have met
in my life
young men in who said we do not want to
be the providers and the macho men
anymore we want to share this with our
partners we want a safe space where we
can express our emotions we want a safe
space we can cry young women in Egypt
who said we’re fed up from harassment
and we’re deciding to do something about
it civil society in Tunisia that pushed
the way forward but I’ve also met
Palestinian men who have just gone out
of prison for a longest time who feel
incapacitated and castrated I met Syrian
so I met religious and academics whose
works have been banned it’s is how it is
where I come from so wait to go back to
reconcile this with what I believe in
and to push the agenda forward I call it
the trilogy of education media and
religious discourse we’re not going to
go where I grew up and where I want to
see the rest
believing in until we deal with
education we’ve been so keen to provide
education for everyone but we never
asked what quality of education it is
until now we find sentences in the
region saying my father goes to the
field stays at home to cook or I played
football with my friends and my sister
stated to help my mother this is in the
education curriculum in many of the Arab
countries the media have talked about
media and the real course we’ve been
taught what we see in the media is not
what I read in my Quran is not what I’ve
been taught inside the house
there are so many elements in the Quran
and the religion that gives a lot of
rock to women and I’m not going to be
exhaustive but starting from divorce
rights where women can divorce equally
as their means for many reasons
including that she wakes up one day not
having and not wanting to have an
intimate relationship she can divorce
unpaid care work inside the house we’re
talking about it now in the sustainable
development goals 1,400 years ago it was
given to the woman if she decides if she
decides and chooses not to work inside
the house outside the house she can and
and she has the right to demand a
financial remuneration for her care work
inside the house including raising up
her kids including breastfeeding and if
she forgoes this right then it’s an act
of compassion from her side but it’s
still a right for her inheritance men
get twice as much as women is only one
case in 23 cases in Surat Annisa
the chapter of women in the Quran and it
goes on and on and on so we need to
unveil this we need to reveal this and
this is something that we’ve been doing
in my my job with you and women
partnering with musa well with Roberto
Mohammed Ali and other religious think
authorities in the region to unveil the
true nature of religion that I believe
in I’m proud to belong to and it’s a
religion of compassion of peace of love
and yes of equality and this is where
and why I am here today in the job that
I’ve been working in for the past 25
years and hopefully something that I
will continue pushing for for the rest
of my life because feminism is about
equality it’s about giving space it’s
about rights and it has been dominated
and led by women right
rightfully so and I am very very happy
to be led by women in my job and in my
life but it’s also a space where it
includes the other the other whomever
the other is including an Arab Muslim
man and I am happy to be here today thank you
Please follow and like us: