http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/733/fe1.htm
The United Nations describes International Women's Day celebrated on 8
March of every year as a commemoration of "the story of ordinary women as
makers of history". Al-Ahram Weekly takes the occasion to reflect on the
progress made in the battle to emancipate woman kind
Traps of empowerment
What, asks Fatma Khafagy*, may be the gender of political reform?
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Click to view caption
The many faces of Egyptian womanhood
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Debates surrounding reform in the Middle East have addressed the issue
of gender and women's empowerment. Experts like Marina Ottaway, who talk about
the "women's rights trap", have argued that a country cannot be democratic if
it discriminates against half of its population. Yet the real obstacle to
democracy in the Arab countries is not discrimination against women but the
fact that the entire population has only limited political rights. The problem
has less to do with giving women the same rights as men, more with reforming
the political system in such a way as to grant the entire population the full
gamut of civil and political rights as delineated in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and relevant conventions. In the majority of cases, when women
are treated equally or assigned important policy and legislative positions in
non-democratic countries, they fail to make progress towards democracy; they
tend to only exert themselves in the effort to preserve their own positions,
and to maintain the status quo in order to remain in power. There is no
guarantee that in giving women positions of importance, any given society will
bring about democracy. In Egypt women occupy several important positions in the
media, yet they have failed to bring about major changes in media policies. Nor
have they managed to alter stereotypes of the woman in the media. To put it in
a nutshell, while a country cannot democratise so long as it excludes women, it
would be delusional to think that giving women the same (limited) rights as men
in an autocratic setting will bring a country closer to democracy. The two
battles -- for women's rights and for democracy -- are equally important, and
they must be fought together.
This line of thinking seems to be particularly true of Egypt. The
majority of women's rights advocates in government and civil society have
focussed on analysing gender gaps and calling for bridging them in health,
education, the economic and political spheres. Their point of reference
concerns what men have, and their aim is to help women have the same. This has
done little to mobilise men who themselves have little to say for themselves --
an objective that requires evidence of women bringing about good governance. In
Egypt as in comparable countries, competition among women at the top tends to
be fierce, with the older chasing the younger as if to mark territory, and no
effective mechanism to control corruption -- of which many women of status are
in fact beneficiaries who actively ignore the battle for democratic reform.
The legal sphere provides both positive and negative signals. The
current Constitution, issued in 1971, provides for equality between men and
women in all fields whether political, social or economic. It stipulates that
all citizens are equal before the law, and holds the state responsible for
supporting women in combining their reproductive and productive roles.
On the other hand Egypt ratified the Convention of Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1981. But it still refuses to
sign the Optional Protocol of CEDAW. It had four reservations on CEDAW. The
first concerns Article 2 on gender equality, on which Egypt stated that it is
willing to comply provided that such compliance does not run counter to Islamic
Sharia. The second concerned Article 9, paragraph two, which gives women equal
rights with respect to the nationality of their children; new jurisdiction has
since rendered the reservation null and void, however. The third reservation,
on Article 16, concerns gender equality in matrimonial and family relations
both during a marriage and on its dissolution. And the fourth reservation, on
Article 29, concerns the submission to an arbitral body of any dispute that
arises between states concerning the interpretation or application of the
convention. In 2001, Egypt presented its third and combined fourth and fifth
reports to the CEDAW Committee. The concluding remarks of the committee
recommended lifting reservations on CEDAW, intensifying awareness raising
programmes, eliminating negative stereotypes of women, especially in the media,
affirming the multi-dimensional and cross-cutting nature of HIV/AIDS, raising
the number of women at all levels of decision-making and addressing issues like
violence against women.
There have been positive amendments to some discriminatory laws in the
last few years. The rape law was amended to punish the rapist even if he is
willing to marry the victim. Women can leave the country without their
husbands' approval. And the khul' grants women the right to divorce
irrespective of the husband's consent, providing that they forgo their
financial rights. The family court law was also issued to facilitate procedures
and implementation of court rulings concerning the family. However, there are
still a number of laws that constitute gender discrimination and violate
women's rights such as the penal law governing adultery and prostitution.
Likewise there remains a need for stronger laws to prohibit domestic violence,
crimes of honour and similar problems.
The legal system in Egypt is contradictory in that it guarantees
women's rights in the public arena, restricting them in the private. The
personal status law, for example, permits not only male polygamy but the right
of the husband to divorce his wife for no good reason, and the expulsion of a
divorced woman from the marital residence providing she has no children or her
children are beyond custody age. Family law prioritises the reproductive role
of woman, assuming that men alone are responsible for providing for the family.
It places the protection of the family unit above individual rights within the
family, giving men privileges to go with the role of sole provider. Likewise
women are not treated as individuals but rather as wives, mothers and daughters
expected to obey the patriarch; and their role, especially in the case of
divorce, will bring no perks of its own.
Economic rights are further determined by the woman's position within
the family. Because the family remains the basic unit of Egyptian society,
family structure and relations play a significant role in determining women's
economic opportunities (what kind of jobs they should take, how many hours they
can work, how close their workplace should be to their homes, whether they can
take jobs that require travelling, etc.) Women are expected to have jobs that
do not contradict their role as wives and mothers. A deeply embedded belief
that the woman's most important role is that of mistress of the household
limits women's opportunities in the public sphere. Though the government has
declared its commitment to increasing educational and work opportunities for
females and expanding the scope of their political participation, the personal
status law works in a contrary manner, perpetuating the status quo and thus
making it difficult for women to combine productive with reproductive roles.
Based on erroneous interpretation of religious precepts, such laws reflect
cultural beliefs and tend to have a power preservation nature.
Yet the problem is not always with the law alone. Often it is the
application of the law that undermines women's rights. Judges in many cases are
influenced by the same patriarchal biases of society and to which they were
subject during their early socialisation. They have little sympathy with a
woman who initiates divorce, or one who suffers abuse at the hands of her
husband. Their verdicts reflect such biases all too often, and the fact that no
woman judges can bring change to the judiciary system, especially with regard
to family law, only makes the situation worse. Because the law is mostly
implemented by men (in the police and justice departments), women who have
court rulings that give them custody rights, to alimony, for example, are often
unable to implement them. Likewise, though the labour law does not discriminate
against women, they are often denied top managerial posts; women who have
temporary contracts are often denied maternity leave.
Girls are socialised to consider marriage life's mission, because a
woman does not have status unless she is married. As a result, women tend to
accept and tolerate injustices that take place in the family. Many women,
especially from low- and middle-income classes, tend to sacrifice their
individual rights for the sake of preserving the marriage. Control of women's
sexuality is another obstacle to their practice of rights. Religious extremists
place the blame for excessive libidinal drive on women alone, with the result
that FGM is universally practised and, increasingly, veiling as well. Many such
factors create further obstacles of their own.
Several stakeholders can contribute to meeting the challenges at hand:
civil society, government bodies, regional and international organisations. The
secular feminist movement in Egypt is fragmented, its various arms weak and
isolated with very little coordination between them. They lack a unified
agenda, failing to agree on even the outline of project on which they can work
together. In addition, they are subject to an Islamist critique that condemns
their work as anti-Islamic evil -- the implementation of a Western agenda. Yet
a change in the personal status law will affect the lives of every class of
women in Egypt, and it is something that should be approached collectively.
Because millions of women suffer the brunt of this law, millions can be
mobilised in the battle to reform it.
Women's groups and NGOs must forgo the leadership competitions in which
they tend to engage, arguing about who should lead women's liberation in Egypt.
In this regard Egyptians might learn from Moroccans, who have made significant
advances in the last few years, mobilising a strong movement to alter the
moudouna of personal status law and enhancing female political participation;
they also have a good model for rotating leadership.
The government should start with amending laws that discriminate
against women, consulting with women's groups and civil society at large and
fulfilling the stipulations of the Constitution regarding facilitating the
combination of both the productive and the reproductive role. There are
important positions that women are deprived of occupying, and the government
should open them up without scruples. It should also control religious
fundamentalism, preventing the media from spreading misconceptions that result
in the subordination of women.
And international and regional organisations should work along parallel
tracks, funding NGOs and women's groups in the hope of building a sustainable
and powerful women's movement; and they should fund on the basis of women's
groups' priorities, not their own. One wonders why international organisations
fund the government to undertake tasks NGOs can do better, something that tends
to weaken civil society, especially in the light of the lack of trust between
it and the government.
We need to stop talking about women's rights and start working towards
the rights of all citizens including women. The battle for reform, democracy
and good governance remains essentially a human rights battle, and Western
concepts about the importance of bridging gender gaps constitute an
inappropriate methodology that has cost us many valuable years already.
Bridging gaps is relevant only when the minority and not the majority is
excluded. And how to bring the majority back to the mainstream is a battle for
both women and men.
* The writer is the director of the Ombudsman Office of the National
Council for Women.
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