Dina Ezzat finds very few signs of gender sensitivity The level of gender insensitivity and female bias as demonstrated by the press of all hues and political trends is high. Day in, day out women come across in the papers -- news stories, features, opinion pieces, photos and cartoons -- as children of a lesser god. Women's photos in the press are usually confined to a group of veiled students sitting for an exam -- this being the thanawiya amma, or high school exam period; an aggressive looking woman indicted for adultery; prostitution and brutality and corruption; pictures of women officials -- this week it's US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who is expected in town next week, and actresses and supermodels posing in sexy stuff for photographers. So it was indeed unusual when Al-Musawwar yesterday published a picture of a group of women scientists working in a laboratory. Equally unusual was the story that said close to one-third of the scientists in Egypt are women, a fresh change from the typical headlines of adultery or destitution. In contrast to stories such as the brutal grandmother who killed a Down's syndrome grandchild, promoted on the front page of Nahdet Misr on Sunday, or that of the mysterious veiled woman who kidnapped a Coptic women, that was published in Al-Fagr on Saturday, Al-Musawwar 's feature quoted top women scientists proudly speaking of the long list of impressive contributions women have made to science and technology in Egypt. The story offered some interesting statistics about what women mean to science and technology in Egypt: in some research centres 52 per cent of the scientists are women; over 30 per cent of post-graduate science thesis are written by women researchers, and the number of female students studying information technology is on the rise. Al-Musawwar 's story also indicated the concern senior women scientists have about the decreasing number of female students in the younger generation who opt for science degrees. More and more women are apparently more interested in studying languages and humanities. The story warned that this may become a serious setback for women in scientific research and development. And in an article in Rose El-Youssef on Saturday, Fatemah Sayed Ahmed warned of the growing trend to pull women away from centre stage of national activities and confine them to their homes under the pretext of religion. Ahmed's attack -- typical of the editorial line of her magazine -- was directed at the Muslim Brotherhood. The writer's argument was based on the character assassination of leading Brotherhood women figures such as Zeinab El-Ghazali and Gihan El-Halafawi. However, in the weekly mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood, Afaq Arabiya, that comes out every Wednesday, the paper published a lengthy interview with Hoda Abdel-Moneim that was introduced as a member of the International Islamic Committee. In the interview, published with her photo in which she dons a heavy veil, Abdel-Moneim argued that Egyptian women should play a more influential and active role in society in all spheres. "Egyptian women are denied their political rights... Legal and political illiteracy are to blame... Many man-made laws denied women their God-given rights... I categorically reject that women be given only a limited quota in parliament; they should run and get as many seats as they can... Women are too involved combating poverty to worry about their political rights... Women should read the history of the leading Muslim women figures who lived during the days of the Prophet Mohamed to learn how to be effective in their society," Abdel-Moneim stated. The give-and-take between Rose El-Youssef and Afaq Arabiya is in fact symbolic of how the various papers, in accordance with their varied political orientations, are using the issue of women and women's rights to argue a political case. The weekly Al-Ghad, of the party carrying the same name, dedicated impressive inches to pictures of women of different religious and social backgrounds carrying candles and demonstrating for political reform and regime change. This was very much in line with the political line of the party whose leader is planning to run for the presidential elections this autumn. The independent and opposition in nature Ad-Dustour this week published a front page story about the harassment to which two women journalists were allegedly subjected to at the hands of security agents after they complained about being assaulted by alleged thugs of the ruling National Democratic Party last month during the referendum held on whether the constitution should be amended to allow for multi-candidate presidential elections. Publishing the story with two photos of the journalists -- one veiled and the other not -- Ad-Dustour warned that these two women could face an unpleasant experience that is likely to involve further and more aggressive physical and maybe even sexual harassment at the hands of state police. Also on its front page this week, Ad-Dustour dedicated yet another headline to report that the producer of the video clips of Egyptian pop idol Ruby, Sherif Sabri, might be chosen the official director of all advertisements concerning the expected presidential campaign of President Hosni Mubarak. "Sabri quits Ruby for Mubarak's TV PR campaign" said one headline. Meanwhile, many semi-official newspapers dedicated a few news stories on government-sponsored pro-women campaigns that aim to alleviate women's poverty and eliminate female illiteracy. Actually, neither the opposition nor the semi-official papers or for that matter many of the independent papers accorded adequate attention to the up-and-coming independent women's movements that have been founded to champion the rights of women and allow them to safely exercise their political rights. "Along with the many movements for change that have cropped up during the past few weeks, the presence of women on this front has been impressive and noticeable," wrote Fahmi Howeidi, a prominent Al-Ahram commentator. Howeidi was actually one of the very few writers, men or women, who shed light on the activities of these movements which were founded in reaction to reported bullying and harassment suffered by women on the 25 May referendum. The reported violations prompted many existing women's groups to join the call for reform and peaceful change. Meanwhile, most papers continued to dedicate limited column inches to women commentators. With the exception of Al-Ahali, the mouthpiece of the left-wing Tagammu Party that has two well-known women columnists, most newspapers, including the most prestigious, Al-Ahram, commissioned only a few contributions by women.
