Contrary to the cynicism of the above cartoon, I was so thrilled and captivated by the events this past week in Egypt. The fact that the people of Egypt achieved their goal—or the beginning of their goal—with non-violence is wonderful. What I found most moving is that the uprising included people of all classes, religions, generations and both genders. Women and men joined hands for freedom. We should learn from their efforts. If we stopped thinking about celebrities for a moment.
We Americans try to understand and sympathize with what is going on in Egypt. It’s hard, but the least that we can do is try, like this misguided woman in the cartoon above.
An article in the New York Times recently profiled 26 year old Egyptian protest organizer, Asmaa Mahfouz. Ms. Mohfouz had posted a video on youtube–a daring act by a woman in that part of the world–explaining her work and passion in helping to organize the uprising in Egypt. She says,
“I felt that doing this video may be too big a step for me, but then I thought: For how much longer will I continue to be afraid and hesitant? I had to do something.”
How many of us American women have felt that? About anything–asking for a raise, a job, respect. Granted, it is not life-threatening for us to take risks in most cases, as it is in Ms. Mahfouz’s part of the world. In our country, the decision to wear pants, when you know everyone else will wear a dress, is scary. That’s how different–or similar–we are with women in the Middle East.
I noticed on television, and read in the New York Times and DoubleX, that there are more women involved in the uprising in Egypt than in previous protests in the region. It was refreshing to see their faces on the streets, chanting and hoping for freedom along with their male counterparts. Who knows, could the measure of peace in the protests have anything to do with their presence in the square? I wonder.
When women take risks, and try to change things, it benefits all. Amr Hamzawy, a research director at the Carnegie Middle East Center who has spent most of the last week in central Cairo, said, “It’s very impressive. It’s not about male and female, it’s about everyone.”
Last fall, Chronicle Books published my latest book, When Do They Serve the Wine? The title is based on a cartoon in the book, which is all about the humorous world of being a woman. I lampoon women of all generations, poking at the many things we do in, and that are done to us by, our culture. To see me talk about the book and how I came to write it, see the video (link here) that is posted below or to the right. My blog, whendotheyservethewine.com was started to help get the word out about the book, but has since morphed into writing and cartooning about all kinds of things from politics to pop culture. To see more, go to my blog, or click here.
Last December, I delivered a talk for TED. In fact it was the first ever TEDWomen and was a great event. I met many amazing, dedicated men and women whose work is to help women around the globe. The editors at TED just released the video of my talk.
Writing the talk took over a month. It began as long speech, and I spent weeks pairing it down to the six minutes I was allotted. I also worked with a very talented coach, Trisha Bauman, who helped be understand many new (to me) key elements for successful public speaking and performance. While I have given numerous talks over the years, this was the first one that I felt I should memorize. In fact, memorization really frees you up, and allows you to connect with the audience and with what you are saying much more naturally.
The audience at the conference was wonderful. In fact you can hear me laughing with them because I was so taken aback by their loud spontaneous laughter. It was great. Many of the other talks were (rightfully) serious, and I sense that the audience was looking for relief, which I provided. While many of the other speakers were serious with touches of humor, I was humorous with an underlying note of serious. My favorite way to be.
