The story “ In Camera” by Nawal El Saadawi impressed me in a bad way…It’s  one more sad story, I think, all sad stories portray real life. For me it’s hard to read that kind of stories, when  I have to face the ugly truth, that people were going through.

This story was confusing, some parts I didn’t get, but all I got that a young girl was having horrible time in her life. She was in camera, in pain, couldn’t even sit, but she had to do it at the court trial. She was not only in a physical pain, but also in emotional. Leila Al-Fargani got raped by ten males.

This story was written in 1980 and still I can see how bad women were treated by men. Her aunt was beaten by her husband and she wanted to claim  it, but the judge asked her to strip in order to see where and how she was beaten, since she couldn’t strip in front of a strange man ,her aunt had got to return to her husband-  on this my emotions were  ”Are you serious?”. How could they ask for it, if they know muslim  rules that no one  of men could see naked woman even to report the wound. They asked it on purpose in order not to make this story big and put a woman down. The judge as a representative of “man power” wanted to show woman’s place in society by rejecting her claim.

One phrase , I remembered very well, when Leila’s mother said :” Girls of your age think only about marriage. Politics is a dirty game which only ineffectual men play.” I could notice that her mother had old stereotypes about politics and women’s role. However this girl was in that situation, I found her very strong , it’s like she was not young girl, for me it seemed she was not a girl at all. Of course, she was suffering, but most of her pain was worries about her mother, that this situation made her mother suffer. In my perception, she was brave to face all of this at her young age.

But her father was feeling miserable because his reputation and his honour  were violated, since his daughter was in camera, and got raped by ten men. I don’t know why men were so selfish and they didn’t feel in other way.

Again this story was very brutal  and it shows injustice towards women. Women were still “lower race”. Hence, some changes I could notice: before a woman couldn’t even go to report that she was beaten and a young girl couldn’t get involved in politics. At least these women tried to change their situation, but it was ended unsuccessfully.

I just want to clarify the situation about that raping and beating of a woman, in every religion is a huge sin to raise a hand on a woman. And in Islam is one of the worst, according to Muslim rules a woman is supposed to be treated as a queen and princess and can never been “touched” by a man. Sometimes when people read or hear that kind of stories about Arabic women or Muslim women, they might think that it’s a norm, but  it’s not, since I know about this religion very well. Only “animals” could do this. I want to believe that in the future the world will  not have these situations, when a woman can be abused.