On the occasion of International and National Women's Day, Egypt is celebrating the gains that the country's women have made. Their emancipation in the modern period has reflected Egypt's unique features and the link between the fight for women's rights and national development. This struggle has continued, with women making major gains in education, the economy and politics. Women have entered new fields of work and have occupied leading positions, among them those of minister, member of parliament, ambassador, president of public and private universities, businesswoman and judge. Women are now witnessing a new stage in their development after the toppling of former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. There was a high turnout among women voters in the 2014 constitutional referendum and their yes vote was particularly remarked upon. The turnout demonstrates the steadily increasing political importance of women in Egypt, showing that they are not marginal figures or voters who do not have a specific orientation. Instead, women are now participating in shaping the country's future. Women have been contributing to political life with their votes, which have undoubtedly favoured the national option. This indicates the widespread politicisation of women. Their political participation has increased, after their having been marginalised during the previous regime of the Muslim Brotherhood. Many female activists have successfully argued that when men are not present to vote women should take their places as the heads of the household. Women have also taken the place of men when the latter have refrained from voting. As a result, on January's referendum day women of all ages went into the streets, sometimes ululating and dancing for joy at polling stations. They demonstrated for a future without terror, intimidation and fear. Most importantly, they wanted to sanction the Muslim Brotherhood, which had been in power for a year and had undermined the rights of women and had interfered in their private lives, revealing its bigoted view of women. Scores of women flocked to vote in the referendum as a result, this serving as a bulwark against Brotherhood attempts to return to power in order to take hold of society and once again try to take control of women's affairs. Women defeated the Muslim Brotherhood by voting in favour of the new constitution, which some Muslim Brotherhood preachers had not hesitated to call the “constitution of adulterous women”. Recent statistics released by the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights (ECWR) revealed that of Egypt's 52 million eligible voters, out of a population of nearly 90 million, the percentage of women voters was high, with tallies showing that 55 per cent of women voters had turned out to vote as against 45 per cent of men. In the previous referendum, women voters had constituted only 27 per cent of the electoral votes. Interim President Adli Mansour also called on women to participate in the referendum. In a conference organised by the National Council for Women (NCW) two months ago, Mansour in his speech, delivered by his advisor on women's affairs, Sekina Fouad, said that women had played an important role in stopping the bloodshed in Egypt. Women's needs were among the government's priorities, he said, and he wanted to see their fair representation in the municipalities and in parliament. Nehad Abul-Qomsan, head of the ECWR, said that women wanted to take the destiny of their nation into their own hands and to demonstrate this to the world. “The women's vote was a political message directed to the current regime asking for their place to be preserved on the political scene. Women are capable of asserting their roles as partners in political life and in the future of the nation. Women are not the political subordinates of men, as the Brotherhood has claimed, and they do not make their political choices emotionally or irrationally.” “It was not the calls issued by Minister of Defence Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi alone that pushed them to respond by standing in long lines to vote, as some in the media have suggested, nor were they sitting and waiting for Al-Sisi's invitation to go and vote. Instead, women wanted to say to the whole world that we can act in politics,” Abul-Qomsan said. She added that it was time for old-fashioned views of women to disappear. Egypt had seen a decline regarding women's participation in decision-making, she said, and this had reached its peak during Islamist rule. “Egypt ranked 139 out of 189 countries in terms of women's representation, and this led women to participate strongly in the revolution in order to demand change and refuse exclusion,” Abul-Qomsan said. The percentage of women MPs has never exceeded two per cent in Egypt, with the exception of periods that adopted quota systems for women and the proportional list system in 1979, 1984, and 2010. In 2010, the percentage of women MPs was at its highest ever at 14 per cent. Yet, despites this too often women still suffered from cultural, social, political and other forms of discrimination. However, the debate on women's rights in general and political rights in particular still disturbs many people. Too often, women and their demands do not attract much attention except before elections in order to gain their votes. Women's representation in the 2012 parliament under Islamist rule was just 1.6 per cent, or eight female members out of a total of 500. Abul-Qomsan believes that as the forthcoming elections will use the party list system, “one third of the list should be allocated to female candidates. One third of those should also be placed high on the lists in order to guarantee their success in the elections.” Women are playing an eminent role in forming the country's future, and as a result efforts to minimise their role should be firmly resisted, she said. At the same time Abul-Qomsan blamed former prime minister Hazem Al-Beblawi for saying during an interview at the Davos Conference in January that “people in the streets are pushing Al-Sisi to declare himself for the presidency. There are a lot of women among them, don't forget he is a handsome man.” In saying this, “Al-Beblawi insulted Egypt's women by portraying them as trivial creatures that only care about good looks. He should apologise to Egypt's women. It is not funny to be mocking about women and to ignore their role in the referendum,” Abul-Qomsan said. Such comments could give a negative impression of Egypt's women internationally. “Activists and politicians might believe that Egyptian women do not deserve to be politically, economically or socially helped as result, if they thought they only cared about the good looks of the president,” she said. “They might believe that women were not qualified to take part in politics or to hold senior posts. This is especially the case when one considers that the comment came from an official figure, Egypt's former interim prime minister.” Mervat Al-Tellawi, head of the National Council for Women (NCW), and the heads of some women's NGOs also objected to Al-Beblawi's comments. Al-Tellawi said that women's participation in the referendum had been high, though the figures were not yet confirmed. There was still a need to acknowledge and integrate women into the country's political, social and economic life in the transitional period, and there was also a need to gain a better understanding of their real needs. “Women's issues should not be discussed in isolation from wider societal interactions. It is essential to listen to their demands, and it is vital that those committing crimes against women are brought to justice,” she said. Activists want to see women's lost rights restored to them. According to Mona Zulficar, a representative of the National Council for Human Rights, women want to see tougher sentences handed down to those found guilty of crimes against women, and they want to see an end to all forms of discrimination against them. “Women must not be marginalised in the nation-building process. They want new referendums that will return their rights and provide them with further rights,” she said. Women constituted almost 50 per cent of the labour force in the country, she said, but only 15 per cent of mid-level and senior management positions were held by women. “In the coming period this percentage should be increased to at least 25 per cent as a beginning,” Zulficar said, adding that the number of female judges should also be at least doubled. Zulficar stressed the need for a commitment to the socio-economic empowerment of rural women as a means of helping them “to fulfill their potential and actively participate in the development of their communities.” This would act as a way of helping them to be “active agents of change and stake-holders in creating an environment conducive to enhancing the overall status of the society,” Zulficar stated, adding that society also needed to show more recognition of the efforts of rural women, which are “rarely appreciated.” Yet, public awareness of the need to enhance the role of women is growing. The momentum is no longer the result of a knee-jerk reaction to international pressure for greater gender equality, but rather originates from recognition of the dynamic role women can play in economic development. According to Zulficar, a unified framework should be adopted under which each governorate will outline its programmes and projects, providing descriptions, project objectives, principal and ancillary activities, allocations, sources of financing, the implementing body and the time frame for implementation. The plans should cover fields ranging from education, health and poverty-combating programmes to raising women's awareness of their rights and economic empowerment schemes. “The plans could also include ways of following up on the implementation of projects according to set timetables, as well as a set of indicators to identify the outputs, results and impact of projects versus their resources and inputs,” she said. Women in Egypt have long struggled to reach positions of leadership. They face different challenges from their male counterparts. “Egypt's future female leaders require the knowledge and the skills to become active players in the country's development,” Zulficar added. All political parties should also put in place special programmes promoting women's capabilities and contributions at all levels of action. The NCW has scheduled meetings with the political parties aimed at helping them to improve women's status in their programmes. This will take place through a coordinating committee that will put the parties in direct contact with the NCW in order to solve the problems facing them. “The NCW cannot interfere with the political parties' policies, yet with proper coordination and changes in the prevailing culture, which still underestimates women's capabilities and abilities, much could be done,” Al-Tellawi said. Meanwhile, the Council has also drafted a national development plan for the advancement of women that adopts a holistic approach and uses a scientific methodology. The idea is to increase participatory planning and decentralisation, in addition to the on-the-job capacity-building of partners from national agencies responsible for planning at all levels. The planning process has been based on an assessment of women's status and the identification of their real needs, from the village to the governorate level.
