After the Arab Spring, the Women's Turn

Although Egyptian woman activists have become more vocal, energised by their role in the revolution, women activists remain largely unacknowledged by the Egyptian state.

In February this year, a coalition of 11 women’s NGOs called for the dissolution of the “unrepresentative” National Council of Women and the prevention of its leaders from officially representing Egyptian women. At the time of going to press, no official statement has been released in response and the council remains. Similarly, 15 women’s groups petitioned for women’s rights to be secured in the reformed constitution. Their suggestions included clauses for equal rights for women at work and in education.

However, amendments in the constitution contained no references to equality for women. Gender was conspicuously missing from the list of statuses on which no one could be discriminated in Article 6.This may not be surprising, given that the constitution committee excluded women altogether, despite Egypt’s availability of qualified women like the Constitutional High Court judge, Tahani Al Jebali.

Tunisian women were more successful, having won a landmark campaign for gender parity in the constituent assembly, a body responsible for drafting the new constitution. Near-parity proportion of females among registered voters was also given by the Tunisian Higher Election Authority as of August 20 at about 45%. 

Egypt’s political scene was overall more fluid. In an unprecedented move, one woman is running for the presidential elections this Autumn, Buthaina Kamel, a 49-year-old television anchor and social activist. Her bid would have been inconceivable before the revolution, and is antagonistic to the influential Muslim Brotherhood that forbids female presidential candidates. Elsewhere, however, women continue to lack representation. Essam Sharaf, Egypt's new prime minister included only one woman in his cabinet; Planning and International Cooperation Minister Fayza Abouelnaga, an old guard of the previous regime. Her role in the state’s hostility towards independent NGOs makes uncertain the prospects of grassroots women's movements or organisation. The minister herself however made it clear that she was keen for fuller female participation in decision-making.

Women in Egypt also no longer have reserved seats in parliament. Before the 64-seat quota, only nine women held seats in the Egyptian Parliament post-2005 elections. Now instead, party lists must include at least one woman candidate. government spokesman Ahmed El-Samman thought it a good deal for women. “This means that each party participating in the election must place at least one woman on its list of candidates in each district,” he said, arguing that “in this way, women will be able to get at least 29% of seats in the new parliament”. How this calculation is derived is unclear, as the number of women in parliament ultimately depends on the number of parties elected.

Fighting sexism on the streets

Women’s highly unequal status has often been marginalised as an issue and left to specialist women’s institutions. “If we were to campaign for our rights as women in parallel with the revolution's national goal, that would have been called political opportunism," says Hala Kamal of Egypt, an assistant professor at Cairo University and a member of the Women and Memory Forum. The government decision to create a committee handling women’s welfare under the cabinet’s supervision reinforces this trend. In Tunisia, gender issues are more visible in the public domain. “The force of the Tunisian feminist movement is that we’ve never separated it from the fight for democracy and a secular society”, says long time feminist and activist Khadija Cherif.

Public opinion in Egypt has also turned against women activists despite the initial gender solidarity at the start of revolution. The march at Tahir Square on March 8 to commemorate International Women’s Day was derided by angry men and other women. Around the same time, the Egyptian military subjected many of campaigners to “virginity tests”, a form of thinly-veiled sexual harassment. Engy Gozlan of HarassMap, an initiative that helps women report sexual harassment by SMS, noted that sexual harassment incidents have returned to their pre-protests level. The Egyptian Center for Women's Rights' survey in 2008 revealed that 83% of local women have been sexually harassed. Women activists in Tunisia faced a similar backlash. After the revolution, there were loud calls for the women to return to their homes. Feminist Raja bin Salama was denounced by Rashid al-Ghannouchi, a popular, formerly-exiled head of the Islamist party Ennahda, who made theats to hang her in Tunis’ Basij Square. This marked a huge reversal given that Tunisian women had enjoyed relatively more advanced rights enshrined in the 1956 Personal Status Code.

An Arab sisterhood?

The women in Egypt and Tunisia are not a monolithic group within each country. And the dichotomy is not a simplistic one between Islam and Feminism. The attitudes of Muslim women are sharply divided with varying interpretations of Islam and its application to the status of women. As Halima Gellman, an expert on gender issues in Yemen, observes, there is much still to do for the women of Tunisia and Egypt.  “Women in the region need to recognize their common needs and interests, achieve consensus on key issues, build coalitions and organize campaigns around them, in order to ensure that the promises that politicians are making to gain their support during the transition and are translated into concrete action when the dust settles.”

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