CAIRO: Abu Bakr El-Guindy, head of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), denied news reports claiming there are 13 million "spinsters in Egypt. He explained that this figure, which was credited to a recent study by CAPMAS about marriage and divorce in Egypt, includes the total number of males, above 18, and females, above 16, who were never married, according to the 2006 study. "Spinster is a relative term which doesn't have any scientific definition [.] the marriage age for a female varies from one society [to another] and across social, educational and economic classes, El-Guindy told the Middle East News Agency (MENA). According to the CAPMAS study, the number of single females in the age bracket of 30-35 is 156,000, and reaches 78,000 in the 35-40 age bracket. The total number of single females above the age of 30 is 317,000, which constitutes 8.2 percent of the total number of females in this age group. The issue of spinsterhood has been in the spotlight lately, with women calling for social change in the attitude towards unmarried women. An online group on Facebook, "Old Maids for Change, attracted wide media attention for bringing into the limelight the stigma of being an unmarried woman in a patriarchal society. The group was created by Yomna Mokhtar, a 27-year-old journalist who was inspired by the suffering of her unwed friends and colleagues. The group identifies itself as "a social movement that seeks to reverse the negative attitude towards every unmarried girl who eventually found herself forced to either get married to any man so she could get rid of the title 'old maid,' or hold onto her position, insisting to wait until she finds the right guy, the group's mission statement reads. "We are not calling for girls to boycott marriage but we refuse the idea of girls getting married under pressure from their families or the society or just to get rid of the stigma of 'old maid', the statement continues. Another group, "Diaries of a Spinster, was created by Abeer Soliman and attracted more than 1,500 members.
