An Arab Spring for women?

Lina Abou-Habib asks if revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa can be a vehicle for the economic empowerment of women or whether patriarchy will prevail.

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Over the past few months, watching popular revolutions unfold in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been both an exhilarating and a surreal experience. Indeed, as days and weeks passed, many of my guesses and predictions proved to be wrong. In the case of Tunisia, I was positively convinced that the uprising would not lead to any radical change and that, short of other viable alternatives, Ben Ali and his cronies would maintain power. Wrong… Ditto for Egypt. Who would have thought that the all- powerful oligarch and his family would leave power? Indeed, the turn of events was both exhilarating and surreal.

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However, what was even more startling was what a feminist friend from Egypt described to me as “radical and profound social changes”. She, along with many others, maintained that “women are omnipresent”, and “there are absolutely no incidents of sexual harassment in Tahrir Square”. The international media captured and hailed the visible participation of women from all walks of life in the Egyptian revolution. For a moment in history it seems, society transcended gender-based violence, prejudice, and discrimination against women. For a moment in history, many women in Egypt experienced equality, collegial leadership, and all-out public and political participation. During that moment, their voices and action mattered.

Some women’s organizations sought to capture that moment. In the not so long ago past, women who had taken part in liberation movements against colonial forces were quickly forgotten, and sent back to their places, at home… Another feminist colleague told me that they were constantly and consistently “taking pictures, collecting testimonials, and documenting in great detail what women did to make this revolution a reality…lest we forget”. But forget, we did.

Political activity that followed the dethronement of the dictator appeared to be almost entirely male-led. On International Women’s Day, March 8, hundreds of women gathered in Tahrir Square to ask for a greater role in building their new country. They were attacked by angry men who shouted at them to go back home. Notwithstanding who the perpetrators were, and why they committed such hateful acts, it was a sad reminder that gender equality and women’s rights remain at risk. Notwithstanding the various analyses of how and why this happened, many of us have chosen to interpret it as a violent reminder that women should not and may not occupy the public sphere.

If women’s mere presence in the public sphere is not accepted or tolerated by some, and not protected and upheld by many others who have fought for revolution, change and transformation, then what lies ahead for women in the post-revolution era?

Women’s participation in the MENA region has always been abysmally low, especially at the level of political life, as well as in terms of their presence in the formal economic sector. Patriarchal social institutions, and the values, practices, and even the legal framework they reproduce, have been quite effective and powerful in ensuring that women remain in a position of dependence and subordination. Religious family courts, despite the various reforms and pseudo-reforms they have gone through over the past decade or two, still fall short of acknowledging and codifying the concept of equality. The household has invariably been kept as a sacrosanct, untouchable institution which, in most cases, and in most places, means any form of discrimination against women and violation of women’s human rights may take place with almost total impunity. Market institutions in the MENA region are far from being egalitarian or equally accessible to women and men. Unequal pay, discrimination at the workplace, glass ceilings, sexual harassment, penalization of women’s reproductive and care roles, and the age-old undermining of women’s leadership, have all contributed to the exclusion of women from the economy.

In Egypt, for instance, women are mostly to be seen in the agricultural sector, which is largely unregulated and is where women’s work is often confused, unconsciously, as well as consciously, with their non-negotiable and hardly recognized household work. In the more prosperous and better paid service, industry, and business sectors, women’s participation is less than 13%, and these women are least likely to be found in the higher echelons of management. Women’s participation in the unregulated and often exploitative informal sector reaches up to 46% in Egypt, thus increasing the invisibility of women. Though often enjoying a better reputation for gender equality, Tunisia does not fare much better: women make up 55% of the labour force in agriculture, but less than 22% in the service sector!

If exclusion and discrimination against women in the MENA region, as in many others, is a well-established and institutionalized phenomenon which is practiced in the household, as well as in larger social institutions, including state institutions, then what change for women are revolutions bringing?

Perhaps the most important question that comes to mind is whether the new winds of change that continue to sweep the MENA region carry a sincere agenda, a desire, and commitment to gender equality. In other words, are the revolutions questioning and challenging the so-called sanctity of the private sphere? Do they recognize women as full citizens, no matter where they are located, whether at the home, in the workforce, or in the public sphere? Will inequality continue to be protected by impunity, or will it be challenged, and if so, how? Will inclusive citizenship be internalized, owned, and practiced? Will diversity be respected and upheld? Will sexual rights and women’s bodily agency become a reality?

In short, how, and on which basis, will the new emerging states rebuild social institutions that are not patriarchal? How will these social institutions in the MENA region be held accountable for ensuring gender equality, especially since the mere concept of state accountability to women and men citizens is in itself a novelty?

At this point in time, five months after the start of the ‘Jasmine Revolution’ in Tunisia, and its knock-on effect throughout the region, it is impossible to gaze through a crystal ball and predict whether this will bring more or less opportunities, jobs, freedom, and emancipation for women and girls. However, one can safely say that without asking these uncomfortable questions, and without a sincere willingness to challenge and change patriarchal institutions and to hold them accountable, gender equality will remain a far-fetched goal for women in the MENA region.

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● Lina Abou-Habib is the founder and director of the Collective for Research and Training on Development-Action (CRTDA), based in Beirut and working on women’s rights and equality in the Arab region. She advises the Women’s Learning Partnership on several initiatives and is currently the president of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID).