The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls

by Mona Eltahawy

Overview

A bold and uncompromising feminist manifesto that shows women and girls how to defy, disrupt, and destroy the patriarchy by embracing the qualities they’ve been trained to avoid.

Seizing upon the energy of the #MeToo movement, feminist activist Mona Eltahawy advocates a muscular, out-loud approach to teaching women and girls to harness their power through what she calls the “seven necessary sins” that women and girls are not supposed to commit: to be angry, ambitious, profane, violent, attention-seeking, lustful, and powerful. All the necessary “sins” that women and girls require to erupt.

Eltahawy knows that the patriarchy is alive and well, and she is fed the hell up: Sexually assaulted during hajj at the age of fifteen. Groped on the dance floor of a night club in Montreal at fifty. Countless other injustices in the years between. Illuminating her call to action are stories of activists and ordinary women around the world—from South Africa to China, Nigeria to India, Bosnia to Egypt—who are tapping into their inner fury and crossing the lines of race, class, faith, and gender that make it so hard for marginalized women to be heard. Rather than teaching women and girls to survive the poisonous system they have found themselves in, Eltahawy arms them to dismantle it.

Brilliant, bold, and energetic, The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls is a manifesto for all feminists in the fight against patriarchy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807002582
Publisher:	Beacon Press
Publication date:	09/15/2020
Pages:	216
Sales rank:	189,328
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Mona Eltahawy is an author, activist, and commentator. Her essays and op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Time, NBCNews.com, and New York Magazine, among many others. Follow her on Twitter at @monaeltahawy.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
Defying, Disobeying, and Disrupting the Patriarchy

CHAPTER 1
Anger

CHAPTER 2
Attention

CHAPTER 3
Profanity

CHAPTER 4
Ambition

CHAPTER 5
Power

CHAPTER 6
Violence

CHAPTER 7
Lust

CONCLUSION

Acknowledgments
Notes

Editorial Reviews

07/01/2019

In this fed-up, rage-fueled “big fuck-you to the patriarchy,” activist and journalist Eltahawy (Headscarves and Hymens) thrusts “tools to fight back” into the hands of women and girls: in themed chapters, Eltahawy exhorts her peers to embrace their power through the energy of anger, attention seeking, profanity, ambition, power, violence, and lust. She lets no one off the hook, calling out the Muslims who defended the man who sexually assaulted her while she was on hajj and the racist Americans who vilified Muslim men during her #mosquemetoo response, feminists who accept the crumbs offered to them by the patriarchy and promote milquetoast ideas of “girl power,” U.S. Republican white women complicit in misogyny and racism, and women who call for civility in discourse or who disavow violent responses to violence. But Eltahawy’s arguments come through with as much intelligence and clarity as passion and evocative imagery; they are built on facts about racism, capitalism, and homophobia, as well as her own and others’ experiences. Eltahawy not only gives frustrated women permission, but demands that they “defy, disobey, and disrupt.” This bold, rampaging manifesto is far past the edge of mainstream feminism, but it’s so viscerally motivational that even those more moderately inclined may find themselves intrigued. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

A sharp manifesto for fighting the patriarchy . . . Brilliant and electrifying.”
—Booklist, Starred Review

“A vociferous, highly motivational call to arms for the feminist movement.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Eltahawy’s arguments come through with as much intelligence and clarity as passion and evocative imagery; they are built on facts about racism, capitalism, and homophobia, as well as her own and others’ experiences.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Eltahawy’s book is an enormously valuable accounting of the work of patriarchy-smashers who are not white or rich or famous.”
—The Progressive

“The fierce Mona Eltahawy is back with the feminist manifesto of the year. Inspired by #MeToo and more, this book provides readers with everything they need to launch their latest and greatest assault on the patriarchy.”
—Ms. Magazine

“Incredibly direct and fiercely intelligent . . . . A book for those who don’t wait for permission.”
—Marwa Helal, author of Invasive species

“The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls is an incendiary, searing manifesto by one of the most important feminist activists of our time. Mona Eltahawy writes with urgency and passion about women around the world, calling on us to banish self-doubt and shame—all the traits that so many have been taught from childhood—and heed her battle cry against the patriarchy. She has written a wildly inspiring, brave book that commands our attention.”
—Leta Hong Fincher, author of Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China

“The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls is shocking, brave, gloriously unfeminine, and right on time. This global MeToo is the ultimate and intimate TimesUp for patriarchy. Reading it will free you, and acting on it will free us all.”
—Gloria Steinem, writer and feminist activist

“Mona Eltahawy reminds me that when I was young we called it women’s liberation: she is here for your liberation and that of every woman and girl, from Nunavut to Namibia. The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls . . . exhorts and advocates for more confidence, more clarity, more of a sense of value and rights, more pleasure and joy for women. With its gloriously energetic, rampaging prose, it also inspires those things.”
—Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me

“The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls is a clarion call to action and a declaration of independence from patriarchal oppression. It is an homage to the girls we were and the girls we could have been. Mona Eltahawy writes with bracing wit and fierce intelligence, with unapologetic fury and an expansive heart. In these pages you will find yourself again and again, and you will see who you can become. This book is fucking brilliant.”
—Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King

From the Publisher

09/01/2019

Gr 9 Up—When Eltahawy was sexually assaulted as a teenager, she resigned herself to sadness. When she was sexually assaulted as an adult, she fought. Eltahawy's rage permeates the pages of this book—her manifesto. The seven "sins" she refers to are anger, attention, profanity, ambition, power, violence, and lust. Each patriarchally deemed taboo is a separate chapter that includes current examples of women embracing the sin and what happens when they do not. The overall narrative creates a seemingly bleak picture of the state of women's rights around the world. Unlike many current feminist titles, the author does not position the United States as front and center. Plenty of attention is given to the struggle for equality in the Middle East and around the world. From violence against women during the Arab Spring to the election of Donald Trump, Eltahawy shows just how much women continue to suffer from inequality and how they can take action and bring about change. Admittedly, due to the author's literary style and editorial approach, this book won't be for everyone. Some readers may be uncomfortable with the book's generous amount of profanity. VERDICT Eltahawy is thought-provoking and uncompromising. Young women who especially respond to Eltahawy's voice can use the author's ideas to create their own brand of feminism.—Cathy DeCampli, Haddonfield Public Library, NJ

School Library Journal

2019-07-01
A striking anti-patriarchal manifesto.

Written "with enough rage to fuel a rocket," the second book from Egyptian American activist Eltahawy (Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution, 2015) presents a platform of female empowerment and gender equality supported by seven essential traits (anger, attention, profanity, ambition, power, violence, and lust) every woman should have in her feminist arsenal. The author advises women on how to individually resist and collectively deconstruct society's "universal and normalized" patriarchal hierarchy by employing an interlocking series of "sins," traditionally tabooed beliefs about women's outward expressions of contrary opinion or personal power. Eltahawy's opening is strong, with a chapter on how anger and rage are key components in the fight alongside ambition, sexual expression "outside the teachings of heteronormativity," and an insistence that attention be paid to female voices instead of promoting efforts to silence them. The section on power seeks to engage women in business and social leadership. Eltahawy is at her most controversial when discussing what she believes are the leveling benefits of physical violence in the face of patriarchal crimes. Sprinkled throughout the narrative are moving personal stories, histories, and profiles that further reinforce her plan to dismantle the rampant injustices against women. The author's prose is feverishly enthusiastic and laser-focused, powered by teenage emotional trauma from repeated sexual assaults while on pilgrimages to Mecca, where she was warned to stay silent but ultimately vocalized her outrage. She channels the rage about her violations toward the empowerment of other women in their embrace of feminism that is "robust, aggressive, and unapologetic…a feminism that defies, disobeys, and disrupts the patriarchy." Her urgent narrative encourages women of all ages to resist classic compartmentalization and to raise their voices and demand equality within every sector of society. "Let us always tell girls they can be more than," she writes.

A vociferous, highly motivational call to arms for the feminist movement.

Kirkus Reviews