New Calls in Cairo's Tahrir Square 'Go Home and Wash Clothes'

Beyond the Veil| It wasn’t a good day yesterday for the women of Egypt, the ones gathered in Cairo’s Tarhir Square for a ‘Million Woman March’. Perhaps a few hundred women and men showed up to celebrate International Women’s Day in a hastily organized effort.

The glorious days of February 2011 were gone. Dozens of men and women engaged in heated arguments with the men saying the women have enough rights already. Reports are that some of the discussions were polite and others aggressive.

Christian Science Monitor reports that a sheikh from Al Azhar was hoisted on the mens’ shoulders, chanting:

“Go home, go wash clothes,” yelled some of the men. “You are not married; go find a husband.” Others said, “This is against Islam.” To the men demonstrating with the women, they yelled “Shame on you!”

At this point, the men turned against the women, pushing violently against them and chasing them. Army officers fired shots into the air, bringing calm into ‘liberation square’.

To all who were so joyeous over the prospects of significant forward progress for Egyptian women, yesterday’s events are distressing. Let us not forget, though, that women are under attack in America, too. The battle for women’s bodies is all consuming and perhaps never-ending.

One of the most interesting pro-women advancements in the Arab world involves female Islamic scholars. Islamic feminism is producing results, wrote the Christian Science Monitor in 2009. By arguing the Quran supports a woman’s right to own and inherit property, to be educated, to choose her husband and to leave her head uncovered, and that there is no place for controversial practices like honor killings and stoning for adultery in the Quran, Islamic-based feminism may offer the most direct route to equal rights in the region.

A global group called Musawah - For Equality in the Family - is working on scholarly studies of gender rights as defined by fresh, unbiased interpretations of Islam’s holy book.