Egyptian Women Unite, Saying "We Are All Lara Logan"

One of the glorious notes of Egypt’s sustained demonstrations to oust former President Hosni Mubarak were the underreported in Western media scenes of Egyptian women protesting alongside men with almost no sexual harassment towards the women.

I was contacted by Egyptian women asking why their faces weren’t on TV and the ‘March of Millions’ was called the ‘Million Man March’ by the most American press, until little people like AOC began calling them on their actions.

With women reporters in the region, the stories of the courageous Egyptian women began appearing.

In the aftermath of the jubilation in Cairo, the horrific details of the vicious assault on CBS chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan became news, reminding us of a theme that stretches from Cairo to Washington DC.

Men insist on controlling women’s bodies in one way or another in most countries of the world.

If the revolution happened on Facebook, we hope now that the women of Egypt can progress with international support from women everywhere — even as we fight off one law after another in America to control our own physicality and status as ‘incubators’, the term to describe women by former House Representative Bart Stupak during the heated health care debate.

It was the women of Egypt who threw themselves on a naked, beaten and sexually assaulted Lara Logan, to save her from the mob of men intent on raping her and killing her.

That image is embedded in my mind as a symbol of a new international sisterhood that could rise out of this tragedy.

The Daily Beast writes that the women of Egypt are moved not only by the horror of what happened to Logan but an understanding that the world’s women are unified in varying degrees by this common theme.

“Lara Logan, I apologize sincerely with all my heart,” reads an online petition being circulated Thursday. “To every girl, woman, mother harassed, I apologize sincerely with all my heart. To my mother nation Egypt, I apologize sincerely with all my heart. And I promise you all that I will try the very best that I can to bring an end to this, in the quest to have our sisters ‘Walk Free.’”

“We are all Lara,” says Engy Ghozlan, 26, a co-founder of HarassMap, a digital map that monitors incidents of sexual harassment against women here.

Last night PBS talked about the sexual harassment of women in Egypt, a topic I’ve covered several times in the last two years.

We share the broadcast with readers. Links to the studies and also videos of the prior attacks on Egyptian women referenced in the video are in my stories.

PBS New Hour | Sexual Harassment in Egypt

Women Correspondents Should Stay in War Zones

The topic of women correspondents in war zones will be discussed in a separate article.  I will personally lead a protest of any news organization that pulls its women out of those areas where women’s stores aren’t even told by the Western press as it is.

A woman’s life is no more valuable than a man’s.

Lara Logan is considered one of the world’s top — really at the top — foreign correspondents. I will picket CBS if she now covers the Royal wedding. I don’t think that will be necessary because I sense that women journalists and ordinary women everywhere are united by what happened to Lara Logan.

The usual Conservatives will argue that war is no place for women. Republicans will try to amend some piece of legislation to keep women journalists from entering Arab countries, lest their incubators suffer injury.

International Women United

There is another opportunity, however. In the digital age, millions of women can and will stand united, inspired first by the voices of Egyptian women in the protest, and second by their spontaneous willingness to suffer injury themselves by falling on top of Lara Logan.

I hope an artist somewhere paints this picture, because it inspires me more than any religious picture hanging in Rome or Cairo or Utah. God surely was smiling.

In the history of the world, women have never unified together in an understanding that one way or another, we share a common patriarchal history.

This dramatic gesture to save Lara Logan cannot be forgotten, and international women must stand now behind the women of Egypt, as their new society evolves.

Perhaps their leadership will inspire American women to review the ongoing erosion of our own rights in the never-ending battle by men to monitor, control and guide female behavior around the world. Anne

Sexual Harassment of Egyptian Women

In Egypt, Large Numbers of Veiled (Scarved) and Niqab-Wearing Women Sexually Harassed on the Streets

Egyptian Women Embrace Martial Arts