CAIRO: On January 25, 2011 hundreds of thousands of Egyptians demonstrated against then President Hosni Mubarak and his regime. After years of oppression, people took to the streets and demanded their basic human rights. The demands may have changed over the past 18 months, but the principles stayed the same: food, dignity, freedom and the basic right of having a say over who governs you. One issue that never received decent public backing was women's rights; for some reason during the past 18 months whenever people dared to speak out about women's rights in Egypt, they were attacked by a mob made up of both revolutionaries and non-revolutionaries who claimed that its not the time for women's rights. “Shouldn't we focus on the economy first? On the actual demands of the revolution, or in the very least work on electing a new president or writing the new constitution before focusing on such tedious matters?!" Even people who get passed the initial closed-minded response sink into the “what more rights do you people want anyway?" The term women's rights is about so much more than a law criminalizing discrimination by gender or giving women the right to vote, it's a continuous battle against a mix of legal and social issues that oppress women and reduce them to second grade citizens. And this false perception that women have “won” is one of the biggest obstacles that the women's movement in Egypt faces. Speakers of those scary words like feminism, women's rights and sexism, are perceived as man-hating, anti-housewife infidels who are a threat to Egyptians' current way of life. When in reality true feminism doesn't preach a certain way of life, it doesn't dictate how women should live. In fact, that's the exact thinking that feminism tries to fight. Feminism is about educating women that they have choices, to be married or stay single, to work of become a housewife, to have kids or not, etc. It's about telling women that their entire lives are not planned out for them the moment they are born with a female body parts. You don't have to be anti-man to be pro-woman. Just because feminists believe in the power of women, does not mean they think men are weak. The principles of feminism are built on one main thought: that women are intelligent enough to make their own decisions, they don't need social and legislative rules, regulations and censorship that forces them into a specific way of life. Recently, the feminist movement in Egypt hasn't been calling for luxury rights like equal pay or, god forbid, decent representation of women in government, its issues like walking down a street without fear of being groped, the right not be butchered or in layman's terms circumcised, the right to protest safely without being sexually assaulted, these are the type of issues that are being brought up. All of which are basic human rights and are exactly what the revolution was calling for. It wasn't an all male protest that was calling for dignity and freedom, Egyptian women were on the frontlines and center demanding their dignity, their freedom and their rights, right there with Egyptian men. And now when the constitution, the fundamental law that will define the basic principles to which our society and its government must conform, when it hangs in the balance, how is this not the most important time to shed light on women's issues? Whenever brave women step up and write or speak about women's rights in Egypt, both men and women go into defensive mode, calling them fame starved unpatriotic, women, calling their opinions “aggressive" and saying they are all “exaggerating“. Well let me ask you this, if we aren't supposed to be aggressive now, when should we be? When things like reducing the legal age of marriage for women is mentioned in what is considered the “revolutionary parliament”? Or when female Arab and western journalists are brutally sexually assaulted in the very square that was calling for dignity? Or should we wait until after over 80 percent of women in Egypt are sexually harassed on a daily basis? Or when UNICEF puts the percentage of circumcised women in Egypt at a whopping 91 percent? Or when the current president belongs to a political party that has expressed views backing female circumcision and justifying sexual harassment claiming it's the victim's fault? Oh wait! All those things have already happened! So what do we need to srart taking women's rights seriously? When those laws actually getting passed? Or when women actually reach the point where they are forced into burqas to avoid sexual violence? Now is the time for a strong feminist movement in Egypt, now is the time for women's rights! Women represent over 50 percent of the Egyptian population, they aren't a minority searching for equality, they are a majority demanding their basic rights. The government, current legislative power and the public must understand that we will not sit back and watch our lives be dictated. We will fight for our rights cause that's precisely what they are, not gifts or favors or things we are suppose to be grateful for, they are God given basic rights. This is it, Egypt. It's now or never, our daughters and granddaughters will look at this day and blame us for our silence. If there is anything this past year has taught us its that no one will give you anything for free, you have to fight for it. People, both men and women fueled with rage spent 18 days on the streets demanding their basic rights. Women's rights are part of that demand and the demands of the revolution will never be met if we insist on ignoring our cultural problems. This past year will mean nothing if women don't fight their way into a front seat. NOW.
