Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls

An international mandate for how girls and women can defy, disobey, and disrupt patriarchy everywhere

Feminist activist Mona 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.

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

Illuminating her call to action are stories of activists and ordinary women around the world - from South Africa to China, Nigeria to India, and 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 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.