http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/201134111445686926.html
Women are not merely joining protests to topple dictators, they are at the
centre of demanding social change.
Naomi Wolf Last Modified: 04 Mar 2011 17:23 GMT
Women supporting women inevitably leads to women supporting revolution.
In Tunisia and Tahrir Square, women were at the front and centre of organising
and leading protests, demanding social change [GALLO/GETTY]
Among the most prevalent Western stereotypes about Muslim countries are those
concerning Muslim women: doe-eyed, veiled, and submissive, exotically silent,
gauzy inhabitants of imagined harems, closeted behind rigid gender roles. So
where were these women in Tunisia and Egypt?
In both countries, women protesters were nothing like the Western stereotype:
they were front and centre, in news clips and on Facebook forums, and even in
the leadership. In Egypt's Tahrir Square, women volunteers, some accompanied by
children, worked steadily to support the protests - helping with security,
communications, and shelter. Many commentators credited the great numbers of
women and children with the remarkable overall peacefulness of the protesters
in the face of grave provocations.
Other citizen reporters in Tahrir Square - and virtually anyone with a cell
phone could become one - noted that the masses of women involved in the
protests were demographically inclusive. Many wore headscarves and other signs
of religious conservatism, while others reveled in the freedom to kiss a friend
or smoke a cigarette in public.
Supporters, leaders
But women were not serving only as support workers, the habitual role to which
they are relegated in protest movements, from those of the 1960s to the recent
student riots in the United Kingdom. Egyptian women also organised,
strategised, and reported the events. Bloggers such as Leil Zahra Mortada took
grave risks to keep the world informed daily of the scene in Tahrir Square and
elsewhere.
The role of women in the great upheaval in the Middle East has been woefully
under-analysed. Women in Egypt did not just "join" the protests - they were a
leading force behind the cultural evolution that made the protests inevitable.
And what is true for Egypt is true, to a greater and lesser extent, throughout
the Arab world. When women change, everything changes - and women in the Muslim
world are changing radically.
The greatest shift is educational. Two generations ago, only a small minority
of the daughters of the elite received a university education. Today, women
account for more than half of the students at Egyptian universities. They are
being trained to use power in ways that their grandmothers could scarcely have
imagined: publishing newspapers - as Sanaa el Seif did, in defiance of a
government order to cease operating; campaigning for student leadership posts;
fundraising for student organisations; and running meetings.
Indeed, a substantial minority of young women in Egypt and other Arab countries
have now spent their formative years thinking critically in mixed-gender
environments, and even publicly challenging male professors in the classroom.
It is far easier to tyrannise a population when half are poorly educated and
trained to be submissive. But, as Westerners should know from their own
historical experience, once you educate women, democratic agitation is likely
to accompany the massive cultural shift that follows.
The nature of social media, too, has helped turn women into protest leaders.
Having taught leadership skills to women for more than a decade, I know how
difficult it is to get them to stand up and speak out in a hierarchical
organisational structure. Likewise, women tend to avoid the figurehead status
that traditional protest has in the past imposed on certain activists - almost
invariably a hotheaded young man with a megaphone.
Projection of power
In such contexts - with a stage, a spotlight, and a spokesperson - women often
shy away from leadership roles. But social media, through the very nature of
the technology, have changed what leadership looks and feels like today.
Facebook mimics the way many women choose to experience social reality, with
connections between people just as important as individual dominance or
control, if not more so.
You can be a powerful leader on Facebook just by creating a really big "us". Or
you can stay the same size, conceptually, as everyone else on your page - you
don't have to assert your dominance or authority. The structure of Facebook's
interface creates what brick-and-mortar institutions - despite 30 years of
feminist pressure - have failed to provide: a context in which women's ability
to forge a powerful "us" and engage in a leadership of service can advance the
cause of freedom and justice worldwide.
Of course, Facebook cannot reduce the risks of protest. But, however violent
the immediate future in the Middle East may be, the historical record of what
happens when educated women participate in freedom movements suggests that
those in the region who would like to maintain iron-fisted rule are finished.
Just when France began its rebellion in 1789, Mary Wollstonecraft, who had been
caught up in witnessing it, wrote her manifesto for women's liberation. After
educated women in America helped fight for the abolition of slavery, they put
female suffrage on the agenda. After they were told in the 1960s that "the
position of women in the movement is prone", they generated "second wave"
feminism - a movement born of women's new skills and old frustrations.
Time and again, once women have fought the other battles for the freedom of
their day, they have moved on to advocate for their own rights. And, since
feminism is simply a logical extension of democracy, the Middle East's despots
are facing a situation in which it will be almost impossible to force these
awakened women to stop their fight for freedom - their own and that of their
communities.
Naomi Wolf is a political activist and social critic whose most recent book is
Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries.
This article was first published by Project Syndicate.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily
reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
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