CAIRO: The sooner I think empowerment of the Egyptian woman is on its way to ending the deteriorating mentality that has dominated for years, the more frustrating it is to see how it is still a far away dream. Even if some claimed they do support women, their mentality is still acting in the opposite way. The accumulated dust over minds can't be removed over night. Unfortunately, now the confrontation is not only between men and women, it extends to women against women. When talking about women, you will find that society is dealing with them as females who will end up being wives sooner or later, serving their husbands' needs as if they were born to have no identity. But what about the power that many women have? Unfortunately, not so much concern is being paid to this. It is not true that women belong only to the home, where they should be taking care of their husbands and children. Their power cannot be underestimated. The sad thing is that here it doesn't matter whether you are a woman or a girl, as you, at the end, are considered a weak fragile female. But for a man, whether you are a man or a boy, you will be the dominating male who is given all power as “he is the man.” Certainly, this is all about the way Egyptian families are raising their children. They differentiate between rights given to the daughter and to the son. The brother begins dictating his own rules on his sister with the family's implicit approval, yet also their admiration that the young boy has grown up and he is “taking care” of his sister. Then afterwards the way of domination will be proceeded by the same manner through marriage. When the man can practice his usual power he has been given since being a child over his wife. Hence the circcle of domination will never end. Nevertheless if it's the mistake of families who brought up their sons in this manner, women also account for much of the unfair treatment they receive by agreeing on it in the first place. It is the same for a woman; she gets out of her father‘s shell and into her husband's. This is a way of “protection” by many parents who turned to being unfairly over protective. One can see this in several daily examples where women contend to give up many of their basic rights for the man they love, but they are being asked to give up more. Including for instance, be controlled on where to go, whom to be friends with, and it can even reach being asked to cut off her friendships with her male friends. In the end, they discover they have lost what is more than time with their friends, or a great deal of freedom; they have lost themselves. But does empowering men mean that this additional power they gain should be deprived from women, and to make them better off, women must be worse off? Marriage should not mean canceling out the wife's character and choices, so that the man can become the only voice. It's about pushing forward so that you prove to yourself each day that you have picked the right woman who is truly worth your trials, and is up to any challenges she faces. It's proving to yourself each day that you haven't chosen a woman who is content to being just your shadow, but she can't take less than being the powerful entity she was born to be. Much of the injustice toward women can be seen in different aspects of life, yet the more critical it is when it comes to people's ideologies. As a female driver, when driving I blame myself twice when I make any mistake even though it is out of my control. I know that look on their faces – other male drivers – is most probably to check out whether the driver is a woman or not. And if she is a woman, I imagine them saying their familiar words “that's why”; you can see the relief on their faces when their theory is proved. It's a way of thinking that can't be uprooted easily from people's mind. They have been coping with their own values and perceptions about women for so long, and for them it explains a lot and gives them the power they need. This explanation satisfies them that the reason of that any mistake should be a woman's production. To see more of this injustice, when giving a ride to my female relative, I was surprised to find her among those assuming you can easily infer a woman is driving when there is no rationality in driving. When someone was driving ahead of us and blocking the way for others to pass by, she said bluntly “See, it's a woman who is driving.” Then I realized that now women are not facing criticism and injustice from men only, it extends to to them as well, playing a great role in such injustice. To my surprise, she ignored many incidents of men either going in the opposite direction in a one way road or delaying the flow of traffic by taking up two lanes. It was frustrating to find that sometimes women are harsher on women than men. In most cases they either deny themselves the opportunity or feel they are not up to the task. Should we expect women's empowerment soon or not? It depends more on us. Will we keep using the same ideologies to exclude women from life's activities? Or give her the space to truly see how powerful men are in women's existence? At the end of the day, men can't win a battle when they are the only players. Women should be brought to the playground too. And then only real outcomes and empowerment of both parties can be achieved. BM
