Women's Rights in Egypt

My blog project throughout the semester was revolved around the rights of women in Egypt. I chose this topic because it was something that I could easily compare to myself, being a woman. I also chose this topic because it is something that many people are unaware of in the United States. I wanted to learn about the causes behind this gender stratification, how long it has been going on, and why certain countries have more rights for males over females. After completing all of my Diigo research, I came to the realization that not only Egyptian women get treated differently, but nearly every Middle Eastern nation’s women, and even the United States. Personally, I have never had a problem occur at this point in my life where I felt like I was less able to succeed or less of a human because I am a female, but I learned that it does occur to many women. Although the treatment of women in the United States is not nearly as significant as the degrading treatment of women in Egypt, there can be certain stigmas placed on females that are the same throughout the world. This does not matter if you are in Egypt, Turkey, or even the United States. Women tend to accumulate similar issues no matter where you go in the world and I found that very intriguing as the semester went on. Although I mainly focused on women’s rights in Egypt, I gained a lot of perspective and knowledge about what women of all nations are facing together. This was a very motivating and exciting topic to cover because a lot of the articles and videos that I posted about on my blog were written directly by those individuals involved. This really hit home to me because it put my in their position and in their shoes for what they have gone through and what challenges they faced, and eventually overcame. I was still lucky enough to find a few articles that interview women and female children who have gone through diversity in regards to gender degrading. What I noticed from a lot of women journalists who interviewed other victims of gender abuse was how passionate they were about the fight. Almost every female journalist or writer was writing the article because they are passionate about getting equality for women around the world. Many were going on to educate others about the issues, while others were going to government officials to create new legislation about women’s rights, particularly divorce. A great example of an ordinary Egyptian woman who has sparked other women to join the cause for equality is Rana Allam, who I mention in my blog post titled, “The Face of Egyptian Women.” She is one of many who continue to do their part in fighting for a cause they are passionate about. Rana Allam uses social media, most notably Twitter, to educate others as well as speak her mind about women’s rights. In that blog post, I also attached an article she wrote about how the Egyptian government is passing laws to change martial rights and equality rights for the better, but the actual laws are still not being enforced. This shows how equality rights for women are not only a national, governmental issue, but mainly a large social issue.  Throughout this final post, you will get a perspective on how women are treated and what exactly is being done to change for the better.

At the beginning of my blog, I began with some background information about how the role of Egyptian women has changed from the era of Cleopatra. Women used to actually have more rights than the men. Discrimination was not about sex or gender in ancient Egypt, but about money. If you were wealthy, which was something you were merely born into, and then you would be more likely to have more rights. Today in contrast, money is still a large issue, but poor men are still likely to have equal or more rights than wealthier women. When I speak of “rights” I am putting voting, marriage, sexuality, social, work, and economic opportunity under an umbrella. During the Cleopatra era, the Egyptian society would have been under a market liberalism perspective. Money and economic forces drove society to what it was. Today in Egypt, the government is under a more political realist perspective. There is strong state leadership, followed by military and economic forces driving the citizens. The strong state government, also including strong religious backgrounds, creates laws on marriage, divorce and so on.

As the weeks of writing my blog continued, I began to realize how unfair the marriage and divorce laws were. This is what I knew I wanted to focus on more towards the end of my blog.  From the March 23^rd post titled “The ‘right’ for Divorce,” I looked at comparing the prevalence of divorce and why divorce is such a common process throughout Egypt. After researching more about divorce in Egypt, I learned that divorce was a common process because many marriages are forced, pre-set by families, and also many occur at young ages. Although the divorce rates are rather high, divorce is not a simple or quick process. Divorce can take years to complete and go through after being filed. Men in Egypt have a larger say in why the divorce is occurring, while women have a tighter bind to marriage. For example, if a woman in Egypt files for divorce because she knows her husband is not being faithful, the courts still may need other evidence and reasoning behind the filing. Although circumstances are not all the same, there are also times where divorce is granted immediately. I am only focusing on the struggles for many, but not all women. Now, more reasons for divorce include the physical and mental abuse that many women go through. It is very common for women to be sexually abused by their husbands or other men, as well as degraded to feeling as if they are merely an object and not a human. The objectification of women is something that did not only come up once or twice throughout my blog, but was a point that many different women focused on in articles and videos that I posted

Lastly, I wanted to focus and was extremely interested in the social stigma that women get once they are divorced in Egypt. I then looked at the social stigma on women in the United States after they have gone through a divorce. In my final blog post titled, “The Social Stigma on Divorce,” I compared and contrasted the stigmas women in the United States receive compared to Egyptian women. I gained insight on how, although women can be treated differently in the United States, we have more of a social stigma. From the first article, the American said she gets the feeling of being “undesirable” or that the marriage did not last because she was not a good wife. She elaborated in her article about how women can be portrayed as “mean-spirited” or “bitchy” after a divorce. In America, if you go through a divorce, you still have equal opportunity to get a job, have a stable income and a more profitable life. In Egypt on the contrary, women who go through a divorce have a much more difficult time in finding jobs, educational opportunities, and even are linked to higher numbers of sexual assault. It was absolutely shocking to me how something that has absolutely nothing to do with these opportunities can have such a drastic affect on different parts of an Egyptian woman’s life. I enjoyed focusing and learning about these issues, especially when articles were written by feminists. They believe in the social, economical and political equality of women, which is something I can stand by. Also, with nearly all of my posts and the general idea of women’s equality, Egyptian women and other Arab nation women are taking more of a radicalism approach to these issues. They are focusing on revamping the social injustice and political injustice. I would say women are taking a radicalism approach to the issues because they are focusing on self-reliance, cultural forces and are doing whatever is necessary in order to achieve equality. I would also say that some women and women’s groups are taking a cosmopolitanism stance because they are using education and forming networks with other nations, women and non-governmental organizations in order to achieve their goal of equality.

Choosing this topic and being able to find out new information about it really broadened my perspectives on how the world really is today outside of the United States. I forgot how different and old-aged some nations still are to this day compared to our progressive era in the United States. Equality and social justice for women will continue to be a large issue in the world, but I am excited to see where positive and determined women will take it! I believe there is a lot of potential for women to change the world one step at a time to finally achieve the goal of equality between men and women. I will no longer take my opportunities as an American woman for granted because I know that there are many women in the world who will never get to have the opportunities that I have by being an American. I have gained a new found understanding of what it means to have rights and I hope that someday I will be able to help make a difference for women who do not have opportunities.