WOMEN WILL NEVER BE WAR PRIZES, AND MEN LIKE YOU WILL NEVER BE OUR CHOICE.
Out of everything that could come to one’s mind when a war starts and images start flooding all over the internet, many Egyptian men choose to think about sexualizing the situation. With the amount of sexual harassment and rape cases that Egyptian women suffer from, you would think that you would not be surprised by how many men sexualized the war, but some tiny part inside you believed that they would never step that low; they did.
They sexualized war.
Since Russia started their clear invasion and began a war that no one asked for, we all saw what was happening right when it happened. The media coverage makes you feel like you are living the war yourself. You can’t miss a single event, even if you wanted to avoid anything that has to do with the war. So these men have no excuses. If anyone told you that he doesn’t know how bad the situation is in Ukraine, call him a liar without even blinking. Not only are we in an age where everything is covered on the internet, but this war gained a lot of interest because of the results it could have on the world.
The Russian-Ukrainian war is already being seen as one that could pave the way for World War III.
You can’t live on earth and not know about it.
The whole thing is heartbreaking.
No matter where you live, you should be sad about what is happening in Ukraine. You do not even need to be involved politically to have feelings toward the war; you only need to be a human.
People are dying.
Families are getting separated.
Children are becoming orphaned.
People are losing their homes.
You are witnessing an entire nation fighting for their country and dying, and you should be sad or moved or feel anything rather than sexualizing the war.
The term “sexualizing the war” may feel weird when you read it out loud to yourself. You may wonder how can one sexualize a war? How can someone gain pleasure and laughter from a negative thing? Well, a lot of Egyptian men can give free lessons on how to do that.
Sexualizing the war is demonstrated in the way that these Egyptian men followed the news on it only to take pictures of Ukrainian women and post it on their social media accounts, but instead of sympathizing, offering support, or even having an opinion on the matter, they harassed these women.
The word “harassed” is the only word we can use because with the way Egyptian women began speaking up on the harassment they face daily, we no more have this common belief that “it was only a joke,” or “I did not mean what you thought.”
The entire thing is, of course, disgusting, but what is even more disgusting is the fact that they left out pictures of Ukrainian women with blood covering their faces and instead of that, they picked pictures where Ukrainian women were sad or to be more clear, lost. Their ultra ego came out, and they made comments on how
“they can protect them” and “I can see sadness in your eyes.”
"شايف في عينيكي حزن"
The harassment went as far as claiming that Egyptian men should wait for Ukrainian women to come to Egypt so that they can marry one of them and show her off to the world so people will tell them “good job.” How could they not expect that people will tell them “good job” just because they managed to marry a foreign woman, when we saw how Egyptian men celebrated when Mohamed married the Italian Amina?
There is almost no education on how this is utterly appalling because even the Egyptian TV and media, or most of them, interviewed Mohamed, the husband, and asked him with a silly grin on their faces “so, how did you land yourself such a beautiful woman?” They didn’t need to give him a physical pat on the back because their words and grins already did it.
The backlash that some men, who joked about Ukrainian women’s situation, received wasn’t taken seriously. A lot of Egyptian men don’t even know how to take things seriously and this is the result of years and years of establishing the slogan of using comedy as an attitude, that Egyptian people are hilarious, and that the Egyptian man is known for his humor.
Their only response to the attack was, “you are just jealous.” Jealous of what exactly? Their fragile masculinity prevents them from facing the fact that they can no longer have complete control over all Egyptian women because we finally started speaking up. This same fragile masculinity made them hide their anger and lack of power behind, searching for other women whom they can control and ruin.
They saw the Russian-Ukrainian war as their perfect opportunity. A golden chance.
They thought:
- “These women are devastated by what’s happening in their country.”
- “They are losing their husbands and Ukrainian men are dying as they try to fight off the invasion.”
- “A lot of them lost their families, so they are already on their own.”
_”These women could be easily controlled.”
All of these thoughts are what went inside their minds while they anticipated and waited for the defeat of Ukraine and hopefully Egypt taking in Ukrainian female refugees.
This is not the first time. Similar “comments” or to be more clear, similar harassment were made when Syrian refugees came to Egypt. Years and years of justifying harassment and calling it
“humor” had started to show its results. A lot of Egyptians don’t have the capability to sympathize with others because they are only capable of letting their hormones control them.
To put it simply, they can’t keep it in their pants.
While the entire world is waiting for any information about what will happen because of the war, some Egyptian men are waiting for Ukraine to be defeated so that citizens will be refugees. They can’t wait to say more jokes and to sexually harass these women.
But I’m sorry, or not, to destroy their fantasies with the fact that no woman will accept you as a partner. You know why? Because Egyptian women are finally speaking up. Any foreigner who comes to Egypt will know how many men are perverts. They will know how you encourage harassment and abusing women. They will know that you used their country’s suffering as meme material. They will know that you believed that women will be war prizes.
Women will never be war prizes, and men like you will never be our choice.
To end this article, ask yourself if World War III happened, will these men fear for their safety or will they use the situation to their advantage and sexually harass any woman they will see?
Unfortunately, you answered this question the moment you finished reading it. We all know what will these men do.
They will sexualize war..
