By Maha Ghalwash
Egyptian activists celebrated International Women’s Day (8 March) by organizing a million-person-march. These activists, some of whom were men, called for gender equality in the new Egypt. They pointed to the fact that the constitutional amendments did not grant women equal opportunity to run for Egypt’s highest public office — the presidency; and thus worried that the lawyers charged with the task of drafting the new constitution would similarly fail to embrace the idea of gender equality in politics.
Many Egyptians criticized this march, in the belief that we have more pressing problems that require immediate attention. Irritated, they asked: “Is this the time to talk about women’s political rights?”
The answer is a definite “yes”.
Dissenting compatriots would do well to remember the very aim of the January 2011 revolution: to bring about the establishment of a new democratic order. The resignation of Mubarak constituted no more than a first step in Egypt’s historic transition to this new order; and since then, activists have urged the government to introduce the kind of changes that would ensure the protection of citizens’ rights to freedom, liberty and equality.
Upholding these fundamental democratic principles necessarily involves shedding all our prejudices; especially those regarding creed, race and gender. To fail to do so puts us in danger of perpetuating “the culture of domination” that has characterized our society for so long. To fail to do so means continuing to accept ideas like men’s superiority over women, to allow a dominant religious group to be intolerant of religious minorities, to submit to an abusive ruling elite.
The state can speed Egyptians’ renunciation of such negative ideas by introducing the kinds of laws that would speed society’s transition to an open, democratic, pluralistic order. Among these should be laws that aim to ensure gender equality. To this end, Hoda Badran, Chair of the Alliance for Arab Women, recently demanded that the state ensure that fifty percent of members of all governmental committees are women; “since women make up half of society,” she explained.
This too is unacceptable. Women should not have to rely on a quota system for representation in official committees; for such “special treatment” suggests that women’s very credentials and capabilities are suspect and somewhat inferior to those of their male counterparts. But why call for a quota system when we have the likes of Tahani Al-Gabali and Mona Makram Ebeid in our society? The achievements of both these exceptional professional women can hardly be attributed to the “tokenism” implied by a quota system.
Instead of the quota system, the state would better serve the country if it developed and refined two kinds of laws: those that would allow all citizens to realize their intellectual and professional potential; and those that would allow all to compete for coveted positions in our society on an equal footing — with the “prize” going to the most capable and deserving, irrespective of religion, color or even gender.
A final word regarding the idea of allowing women to compete for the office of President of Egypt: Many Egyptians oppose this, simply because “the Quran does not allow a woman to rule men.” Yet these people might re-read the Quran and think again about the passages which refer to the Queen of Sheba as a wise and capable ruler.
Maha Ghalwash, Ph.D, is a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the British University in Egypt. The views expressed here are her own and do not represent the institution in which she lectures .
