American Media Ignores Egyptian Women Protestors | They're Not All Home Under Male Protection

We want to support the women of Egypt, focusing attention to the new Facebook album “Women of Egypt”, launched on Facebook today by Leil-Zahra Mortada. These images change the reporting on America’s biggest networks, which are more likely to suggest that Egypt’s women are behind closed doors, being guarded by their husbands and brothers.

This is certainly the case, as the brave people of Egypt fight for their human rights.

However, this new album “Women of Egypt” seeks to portray many Egyptian as not quite ready to adopt the veil and do as they are told in a more restricted Egypt, as was suggested would be their fate on news programs today.

I’ve followed Egypt all day, with no sense that women are even involved, but plenty of stories about how they are being protected by their men.

Women of Egypt are not only participating in the demonstrations but acting as leaders. The American press should readjust the gender lens in which they are portraying the women of Egypt, clearly editing out footage of women in Egypt in action.

America is known for gender bias in media here in America. Please give the world an accurate view of what is happening in Egypt, with women on the front line trying to create an Egypt that works for all. In its patriarchal lens of reporting, American media fosters the very kind of society we say we’re opposed to being created in Egypt.

When American media wonders why the social networking websites like Facebook do so well, it’s because we can tell the real story, without male bias in reporting and editing. Anne

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Fundamentalists Fight Women's Rights Far Beyond Israel

It’s not the case that Haaretz.com is our go-to website for news on Israel. They just come up in our Google News searches. Good SEO and writing in English, I assume.

Researching the status of women in Israel yesterday, trying to understand the composition of the Israeli Knesset, the article Bill would reward parties that boast more women appeared.

The read brings to mind the Fundamentalist Conservatives in Egypt denying the rights of women to become judges, now thrown out by Egypt’s supreme court, but with another attempt at reconciliation scheduled for next week.

via Flickr’s Belgian_Sun_FlowerWomen’s Reservation Bill in India

I’m thinking also about last week’s vote in India on the Women’s Reservation Bill, delayed with fighting and a floor sit-in by seven Conservative members of India’s Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament), now expelled by their Janata Dal-United party.

Note the decisive action taken against the seven members in India. For once bad boys paid the price: expulsion from the group.

Yes, I know their argument was framed around a desire for quotas for members of different castes, and also religious quotas for Muslims, Hindus and presumably other religous affiliations. 

Women’s rights will always be last in the minds of many men who believe we deserve none. At least in India, the men tried to disguise their determination to keep women out of politics by arguing for a broad blanket of quotas.

India’s Women’s Reservation Bill has moved to the Lok Sabha, the India’s Lower House of Parliament, where the same foes will fight its passage. Attempts to reduce the quota from 33% to 20% female representation have failed. The bill remains undiluted and is expected to pass.

In America where you would never know that abortion is legal, listening to the patriarchy on television saying that they answer to God and the Vatican — not the US Supreme Court — there’s a reasonable chance that a health care bill will pass.

The Vatican Strong-arms America

Perhaps the Vatican will not prevail in dictating America’s health care for women from Nancy Pelosi’s office, surely one of the most scandalous moments in American history. Given the Vatican’s pitiful record on women’s rights worldwide, I was chilled to the bone by their aggressive move against American women.

The Vatican’s concerns are on breeding new Catholics, not women’s health and wellness. The rights of a fully-grown woman with an IQ of 180 — the next Albert Einstein — are of lesser value to the Catholic patriarchy, than an unfertilized egg and wandering sperm.

Having their own hands full with errant bad boys doing far more harm to God’s creatures than I ever will, I’m in no mood for Catholic lectures on female morality.

Hopefully, I’ve made it clear that I have no ax to grind with Israel, more than any other patriarchy in the world. As US Commender of our forces in the Middle East Gen. Petraeus testified yesterday, the dispute between Israel and its neighbors does have an “enormous effect” on other regional issues.

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Egypt's Supreme Court Backs Women Judges Against Conservatives

Beyond the Veil| Egypt’s women judges applauded a Constitutional Court ruling on Sunday, saying that women can be appointed to the country’s top advisory court.

The body’s general assembly voted overwhelmingly against female judges, reigniting a debate within the country over women holding senior government posts, particularly in the judiciary.

The Cairo-based New Women’s Foundation voiced their frustration in a press conference:

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Middle Eastern Women Activists Say 'Enough' to Groping & Mauling, Even Under Niqab

Activists from 17 countries across the Middle East met in Cairo for a two-day conference on the harassment of women.

The harassment from men, being constantly groped and also verbally abused, in a daily experience for women in the region, leaving them wary of going into public spaces.

As reported earlier at Anne of Carversville, women say modesty is not the issue. Wearing a face veil or niqab offers women no safety from harassment. Women across the region are calling the situation a national security issue and express concern for the safety of ttheir daughters.

In Egypt 83 percent reported being verbally or physically abused. In Lebanon, more than 30 percent said they had been harassed.

The situation is not new across the region. Apparently women have been pinched and groped for years. Participants in the conference say that men are increasingly threatened by women’s place in growing economies and the public culture of their countries.

In Yemen, where nearly all women are covered from head to toe, activist Amal Basha said 90 percent of women in a published study reported harassment, specifically pinching.

“The religious leaders are always blaming the women, making them live in a constant state of fear because out there, someone is following them,” she said.

If a harassment case is reported in Yemen, Basha added, traditional leaders interfere to cover it up, remove the evidence or terrorize the victim. via AP

The Jawa Report says on Dec. 8 that Yemen’s Amal Basha’s Arab Sisters Forum office was ransacked and the brake lines cut in her car in an assassination attempt.

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

In a followup to our Sept 2009 post about the mauling of women in Egypt by men, today’s LA Times picks up the story, reaffirming the growing problems of sexual harassment against women, especially durin feast times when thousands of Egyptians are enjoying their free time.

Slow to respond to the women’s complaints, the government only pressed charges after the October 2006 Eid holiday when cell phones and video cameras provided undeniable evidence to authorities.

The number of harassment cases during the feasts echoes a study carried out by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (ECWR) last July, showing that 83% of Egyptian women and 98% of foreign females residing in the country reported being harassed via LA Times.

The typical response to women’s assertions of being sexually harassed in Muslim countries is that they were dressed provocatively and therefore invited the transgression. Yet the data in the ECWR study shows that 71.5% of women who reported sexual harassment were wearing veils (head scarves) and non-revealing clothes, and 19.6% of them were even wearing niqabs (face veils).

Egyptian Women Embrace Martial Arts

Egyptian women fight against grope attacksThe celebrations around the end of Ramadan — called Eid — began yesterday around the world.

In Egypt, the government  was more prepared than in past years to protect women on the streets. Bikya Masr blog brings us  the recollections of women attacked in October 2006 in frenzied assaults on Cairo’s streets.

A holiday that should be brimming with beautiful memories is actually painful for scores of Egyptian women.

In October 2006, during the Eid holiday that follows the Holy Month of Ramadan, mobs of young men attacked female bystanders, ripping at and groping them near a local cinema in downtown Cairo. Nobody believed the women’s stories until evidence appeared on blogs that included video and pictures of the event.

The Ministry of Interior denied that it had even occurred, stating on the record that “if something had happened there would have been police reports filed.”

“It was like a war and I had no idea what was going on until they started to grab my butt, breasts and every inch of my body,” said Dina as she walked along Taalat Harb street in downtown Cairo, the location of the incident on October 24, 2006.

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