Women's Problems

Since the post is anonymous, I can't reply by name, but you are absolutely correct about all the things that you mention in your comment. All of these things are problems that women in various parts of Egypt face. Many of them are faced by women in other parts of the world as well. I'm well past the age of being groped in a crowd but I do remember being shocked at comments as I walked down streets in Mexico, even though I was warned that this was customary. I also recall having a policeman in Guadalajara trying to pick me up despite the children I had in each hand. Hmmmm. I also remember hating to walk past a certain construction site at college because of the catcalls and shouts of the construction workers. Insensitive male misbehaviour is not an Egyptian prerogative, but I will grant you that an awful lot of young men have abysmal manners. These days if I hear something that I'd rather not, I usually sternly turn to the youngster in question and ask him in Arabic if he would like someone speaking in such a way to HIS mother. With the appropriate "mother voice" it usually stops them cold.

Female circumcision is a problem to be sure, but did you have to undergo it? I believe that it is usually restricted to the villagers and the urban poor. I don't know of any of the families that I've either been related to or any of our friends who felt that it was even a reasonable idea.

Divorce is becoming extremely common in Cairo and while divorced women are still rather disapproved of, they are not much of a rarity. Likewise, there is the assumption that young girls should marry, it's astounding the number of parents who are bemused at their career-oriented daughters who seem to have no interest in marriage. The fact is that single women pose a quandry for Egyptian men and they aren't very comfortable dealing with them, or even women in general. But as one Egyptian woman spoke up one day when a group of local women were complaining about men that they'd had to deal with or be married to, "When we can honestly say that we've raised our sons to be different, then we have the right to complain. Most of us don't like the way our men of Egypt behave at times, but who has been responsible for teaching them to respect women's rights?" I think that she has a point, but as a mother of a young man I can also vouch for the fact that it isn't always easy to get the results that you want. Just have to keep working at it.