On June 14, 2022, Mona Eltahawy gave the Dolle Mina lecture 2022, an initiative from the City of Amsterdam and organised with Atria, institute for gender equality. Mona Eltahawy is a journalist for The Guardian, The New York Times, her own platform Feminist Giant and other media about women’s rights and sexual liberation. She fights against patriarchy in both the Middle East and the West and advocates a new sexual revolution. She inspires girls and women worldwide to stand up for their right to self-determination.

After the lecture we spoke with Milou Deelen, Munganyende Hélène Christelle and feminist collective S.P.E.A.K. about the current state of the sexual revolution in the Netherlands. Are we free to make our own choices regarding our bodies and sexualities?

Watch the Dolle Mina lecture 2022 with Mona Eltahawy below (English spoken)

About the speakers

Mona Eltahawy

Mona Eltahawy is a journalist, writer, Muslim and feminist. She writes for The Guardian, The New York Times, her own platform Feminist Giant and other media about women’s rights and sexual liberation. During a protest in Cairo in 2011, she was arrested and abused by the Egyptian security police. This experience propelled her to write and speak even more openly about her sexuality. Eltahawy is author of the books Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (2015) and Seven Necessary Sins for Women (2019).

Milou Deelen

Milou Deelen is a journalist and an activist. In 2017 she went viral with her video about slut shaming. She has been a well-known Dutch advocate of sexual liberation ever since. Her new book, in she explores the current state of sexual equality in the Netherlands, will be published in May 2022.

Munganyende Hélène Christelle

Munganyende Hélène Christelle is an essayist and publisher. She created the crossmedial feminist audiocollective Fufu & Dadels and writes essays in which she reflects on blackness and being female. She composed the essay collection Liberté, Egalité, Beyoncé (2021).

Saida Derrazi from S.P.E.A.K.

Saida Derrazi is human rights activist and co-founder of S.P.E.A.K., the Dutch collective for Muslim women who fight for their right of self-determination. The collective speaks out against racism and islamophobia and fights for freedom of choice, such as the right to decide to wear an hijab (or not).

Moderator: Maartje Laterveer

Maartje Laterveer is a journalist, writer and public speaker. Her main interest is women and feminism, and she enjoys exploring different perspectives on what it means to be female in the 21^st century. In 2019 she interviewed Mona Eltahawy for the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant.

Image: Design: BUROBRAAK, photo Mona Eltahawy: Robert. E. Rutledge