Why Don't Egyptians Tell People Their Mothers' Names?

While all over social media yesterday, Egyptian society was inundated with rare images of forced offspring appreciation, UN Women decided to hit on a point rarely talked about until now. For so long it has been a taboo for Egyptian men to publicise their mothers' name for fear of ridicule. For example pissing someone off who can then use their mother's name against them.

UN Women's video #MyMothersNameIs was a beautiful tribute, not only to the importance of the mother figure but a decimation of the robotic relationship that's so easy to maintain between a child and their mother, humanising those givers of life and giving them their rightful identity within Egyptian culture.

The video shows interviews with a diverse group of our male society shying away from saying their mothers' names out loud, used to only referring to them as Om foulan, before pushing the point home that mums are people too and encouraging viewers to post their mother's names with the aforementioned hashtag.