Egyptian Women Plan "Million Women March' Tuesday March 8th

Andrea Bruce for The New York Times Women led chants on Friday in Tahrir Square in Cairo, where the new prime minister spoke.Beyond the Veil|  The NYTimes updated post-Egyptian revolution women’s rights issues, writing that women stood again yesterday with the men in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. While addressing the Lara Logan incident, in which the CBS correspondent was sexually attacked by a mob of men in the hours after Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, the newspaper doesn’t mention that a Lara Logan rally was held yesterday in Tahrir Square.

The National reports that Karim Mohy, organiser of the Lara Logan rally, was accused by Egyptian men of “bringing shame on Egypt.” 

He (Mohy) created an event page on Facebook called “Protest to demand justice for Lara Logan” and a group page called “Brave Hero of Egypt’s Revolution: Lara Logan.” According to a detailed description of the group in both Arabic and English, the protest aims to “create awareness,” demand that “the government and military bring her attackers to justice,” and shed light on the issue of “sexual assault and sexual harassment,” which it calls “a plague on [Egyptian] society.” via Al-Masry Al-Youm

“There is no problem with harassment here,” said one man, qutoed by The National. “This just makes Egyptians look bad.”

Women’s Rights in Egypt

To many Westerners the reality that 90 percent of Egyptian women still experience FGC (female genital cutting) is evidence of the challenges that exist for Egyptian women. The World Economic Forum ranked Egypt 125th out of 134 countries when judging gender equality. 

The majority of Egyptian women do not work; 42 percent of women can’t read or write; and in 2010 only 8 of the 454 seats in Parliament went to women.

Debating online before the protest, others said there was a problem of sexual harrassment in Egypt but complained that the demonstration focused unfairly on one foreigner and not the problems of Egyptian women.

We’ve complained loudly about the slanted view American media created about the ‘Million Man’ march that Al Jazeera English called the “Million Person’ march. Reading this morning at the NYT that at the height of the revolution, women — veiled and unveiled — comprised a quarter of the protesters.

Now the Egyptian women want to keep their momentum going. The committee of eight legal experts appointed by military leaders to work on revising the Egyptian Constitution didn’t include one woman or anyone with a gender-sensitive perspective, according to Amal Abd El-Hadi, a longtime feminist and member of the global Sexual Violence Research Initiative. She is a board member of the New Woman Foundation, which is one of the few NGOs in Egypt to break the silence around issues of violence against women including Female Genital Cutting which are otherwise considered taboo.

Egyptian Women Coalitions

The NYTimes writes that a coalition of 63 women’s groups have started a petition to include a female lawyer on the committee, arguing that women “have the right to participate in building the new Egyptian state.” In both the 1919 and 1952 revolutions, there was a push back against women’s rights.

Islamic feminist Fatma Eman, a co-founder of Nazra, says that a bridge is being formed between secular and Islamic women’s groups. A measure of that bridge is a call by a coalition including Nawal el-Saadawi, a leading feminist, for a million women’s march for Tuesday, with no set agenda other than to promote democracy.

We’ll be watching. Anne

Brutally Assaulted in Egypt | Lara Logan’s Career As Top Reporter

Anne of Carversville has long tracked women’s rights in Egypt and their role in the recent revolution. Read on Women of Egypt.

Comments

[Jayne]

Wow, great story, I am finding the events happening in the Middle East fascinating. Thanks for posting. I love your blog by the way, I have it on the blog roll of my own blog, Trend I-Spy, http://ispybyjaymo.blogspot.com/
Jayne