(CNN) -- Earlier this month, a video of young men doing the "Harlem Shake" -- bare chests and thrusting pelvises -- in front of the Muslim Brotherhood's headquarters in Cairo attracted worldwide attention, for putting one finger up to the moral authority of Islamic conservatives now struggling to govern Egypt. But over in Alexandria, a soft-spoken teenage girl offered a far more unsettling challenge to the powers that be. Hebat Allah Mahmoud, a young karate enthusiast, was refused a place in her school's tournament photo because, she claimed, she does not cover her hair with a hijab. Her teacher denied such charges of discrimination. Hebat Allah, however was unwilling to take this lying down. Instead, she took to YouTube, in a video in which she tearfully lambasted authorities for willful blindness and narrow-mindedness. Did they not know, she asked, that most of the girls put on the hijab at school but took it off once they left the premises? And she criticized teachers' interpretation of Islam, for insisting that the hijab was religiously mandated and that those who did not wear it were less worthy than those who covered. "We should have equal rights as stressed by the Prophet," she told the camera.
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Egypt's government protested against a U.N. document on violence against women
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Shereen El Feki says Cairo's "hysterical" reaction was nothing new
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Politics, religion and sex are the Arab world's "three red lines," she says
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El Feki says sexuality is a powerful lens through which to study a society
It's not just @placeholder human rights activists at the UN who have been making this point in recent days; Egypt's teenage karate dissident argues much the same.
If Egypt's @placeholder wants to walk the talk of freedom and justice, dignity and equality, that means giving people information and resources and trusting them to use it responsibly -- in and out of the bedroom.