The backlash against women and Egypt’s revolution

This story was originally covered by PRI’s The Takeaway. For more, listen to the audio above.

The revolution is not over in Egypt. Recently, a march turned violent on International Women’s Day. “The march of women was quite peaceful,” according to Dr. Nawal El Saadawi, a pioneering force for the feminist movement in Egypt. But El Saadawi says that gangs, Mubarak supporters and police conspired to turn the event violent.

“There is a backlash against the whole Egyptian revolution by many powers — external and internal power to oppose the whole revolution,” according to El Saadawi. “External powers, neocolonialism, with dictatorship, with religious fundamentalism, they all work together,” she says. “And they are all outside the revolution. And they are not related to the young men and women who really made the revolution.”

There have been some gestures to include women in the new Egyptian government, but they haven’t gone far enough, according to El Saadawi. “It has no meaning if we have one or two here and there,” she says. She wants there to be at least 30 to 40 percent women in the new temporary government.

“In every activity, political, economic, social, women should be represented,” she says. “Women are half the society, so they should be there. Not to put one or two as a sample.”

People can say that now is not the time to push for women’s rights, but El Saadawi disagrees. “This is the language of patriarchy, she asserts. “When they say, no no. It’s not the right moment for women. It’s not the right moment for the working class asking to increase your salary. It’s because they don’t respect those sectors of the society, who are half the society.”

“How can we postpone their rights?” she asks. “Their rights are the rights of the revolution.”

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