By Justin D. Martin / August 18, 2010 - CSM Cairo Harassed or sexually assaulted Egyptian women often find little help in fighting back. Neither the Egyptian government nor much of Egyptian society itself seems shocked or galvanized by lewd catcalling in public, groping, or more serious assa...

 NYT, 7/30/2010 Regarding the article “In Egypt, burdens but no privileges” (July 14): Women in Egypt have made huge strides economically and socially, and there are numerous success stories of Egyptian women. While the first female cabinet minister was appointed in 1962, Egypt no...

 Two weeks ago I wrote about the injustice commonly inflicted upon Egyptian women where inheritance is concerned. Even though the law allots a woman half the share her brother inherits, she more often than not ends up getting nothing at all of her due inheritance, especially when it involves la...

CSM, 7/21/10 Cairo - Syria has banned students and teachers at universities from wearing the niqab, the full-face veil that has grown in popularity there in recent years. The decree, which came Sunday on the heels of a move toward similar bans across Europe, is an attempt to preserve Syria's ...

 Among the ugliest problems faced by Egyptian women and long placed on the hold is that of inheritance. No matter how modernised or aware our community has become, it still maintains archaic notions which allot females a trifle of the inheritance allotted to males—or none at all. Worse, t...

New York Times, 7/13/10 - CAIRO — Hoda Gameel is 22 and one of the millions of women in Egypt thrust by need and circumstance into the world of work. While the act of leaving home to work may have liberated some women in the past, Egyptian women have found no recognition and are fleeing i...

Forbes, 7/1/10 A poll of 22 countries conducted by the Pew Research Center and written up in The New York Times, found that equality between men and women is supported worldwide, but men still come out on top. The majority of people surveyed said they supported gender equality. In 13 of the 22 cou...

Almasry Alyoum, 5/5/10 Aswan--In a nation where UNICEF estimates 96 percent of all married women have undergone some form of female genital mutilation (FGM), Aswan's official declaration against the practice earlier this week, marked by First Lady Suzanne Mubarak's two-day visit to the southern gov...

يوم المرأة، جمعية المرأة، مؤتمر المرأة، برنامج المرأة، و تطل علينا دائما امرأة تستطيع بسهولة مستفزة أن تعرف أنها من سيدات المجتمع الراقي. أو بالأحرى الطبقة المترفة من المجتمع، ( تعرف ذلك لأن شكل عباءتها لا تقل تكلفتها عن 3 آلاف ريال. أو لو كانت من دولة عربية كمصر او لبنان من الساعة الماسية أو الشنيو...

 كتبت ريم عبد الحميد هاجمت الكاتبة نوال السعداوى التشدد الدينى ووصفته بأنه يقمع المرأة . وقالت فى حوار للصحيفة البريطانية " الجارديان " إن التشدد الدينى هو التهديد الأكبر لتحرر المرأة اليوم، وأضيف قائلة إن هناك معركة ضد الحركة النسائية فى جميع أنحاء العالم بسبب إحياء الأديان من جديد،...

The Guardian, 4/15/10 'I am becoming more radical with age," says Nawal El Saadawi, laughing. "I have noticed that writers, when they are old, become milder. But for me it is the opposite. Age makes me more angry." This is a startling admission. It is hard to imagine how El Saadawi ...

Almasry Alyoum, 3/27/10 The current debate about the eligibility of women to assume judicial positions reveals an ugly aspect of a society that has an appalling hatred of women and a phobia of everything feminine. This society publicly speaks of the woman as a hidden jewel and a chaste pearl to be ...

 LA Times - March 22, 2010 | 10:59 am The row over appointing female judges to the State Council, Egypt's highest legal authority, will linger for a while after the council on Monday postponed a final decision on the matter. The council, which presides over questions regarding the ex...

AP, 3/5/10 CAIRO — Egypt's Constitutional Court backed the right of women judges to sit on the bench in the state's administrative courts, despite opposition from conservatives, state media reported Monday. The ruling follows a dispute within the State Council, the top administrative cou...

2/18/10, Almasry Alyoum The Land Center for Human Rights, a Cairo-based non-governmental organization devoted to women's, children's and farmers' rights, published a report last month on violent crimes committed against women in 2009. Based on incidents documented in the media, the report offers an...

AFP, 2.15.10 - CAIRO — Judges voted on Monday to bar women from ruling in an influential court which advises Egypt's government, official media reported, in a move slammed by human rights activists. The Council of State's association voted by an overwhelming majority against appointing wome...

12/16/09, Alarabiya  An article promoting polygamy for women published in an independent Egyptian newspaper has caused a stir as one MP filed a lawsuit calling for a trial and several lawyers lobby the government to ban a television series about the same topic. The article, "My Four Husb...

AP, 12/15/09 CAIRO — The sexual harassment of women in the streets, schools and work places of the Arab world is driving them to cover up and confine themselves to their homes, said activists at the first-ever regional conference addressing the once taboo topic. Activists from 17 countries ...

 By Emmy Varley (AFP) – 12/9/09 CAIRO — Her hair neatly tucked under a Muslim headscarf, Dawlat al-Amine practises aikido regularly in a Cairo gym where she and her female colleagues learn martial arts to protect other women. The blackclad "ladyguards" provide a niche ...

In the US in the 1980s, there was a song called “I am woman hear me roar.” At that time, it was the anthem for the women’s equality movement, especially with regards to equaling out the income disparity between men and women and women achieving higher positions in big companies an...

By Christian Fraser BBC News, Cairo 10/19/09 The crowded, bustling streets of Cairo can be an intimidating environment for women who venture out alone or even in groups. It is well known that sexual harassment is a pervasive problem in Egypt, from touching to lewd and abusive cat calls. But i...

9/15/09, Alarabiya.net After three years of negotiations the United Nations General Assembly voted unanimously Monday to create a new, more powerful agency for women even as its top human rights commissioner lashed out at the lack of women's rights in the Gulf. The resolution called for the four e...

AlMasry AlYoum, 7/21/09 The Land Center for Human Rights released a report yesterday named, Diverse Ways of Killing Women in Egypt, stating that the number of discrimination crimes against women has reached 232 cases during the first half of this year. According to the report, as a result of ...

Jun 14 2009, University World News More than a century after the first public university opened its doors to both sexes in this conservative Muslim country, Egypt last week named its first woman university president. Hind Hanafy was appointed by President Hosni Mubarak as head of Alexandria Univers...

عيد الأم هو كذبة كبيرة، محلية الصنع للضحك على الأمهات. وليس من الغريب أن يخترعها رجل، وأن تصمد الكذبة أمام كل الدعاوى التى تنادى بجعله عيداً للأسرة، أو على الأقل عيداً للأب والأم معاً. لأن توسيع دائرة الاحتفال يعنى توريط الأب ثم الأسرة فى المسئولية التى يراد لها أن تنزل كاملة حتى ولو معنوياً على عات...

Mother’s Day is a big lie; created in order to laugh at local mothers. It is not strange that the man invented it, and that this lie can resist all calls that claim it as a family feast or at least a feast for the father and mother together. If its’ celebration circle was widened, that w...

BBC, Wed March 18 2009 In a dojo, or martial arts training area, in a poor working class suburb of Cairo, women in karate uniforms and tracksuits are learning to fight off an assailant. In this male-dominated society it is unusual to see these women in their headscarves sparring with men, but such...

BBC, Wed. March 18 2009 Young Egyptian women are using blogs and online radio stations to beat the censors and to fight for equality. Despite making up only 24% of the workforce in Egypt, 30% of women use the internet. But it is the middle and upper classes that have really taken to the internet ...

Officials are often indifferent to crimes against women, and families pressure daughters and sisters to forgo justice rather than invite scandal. In a society where police are indifferent and relatives fear scandal, the abused have suffered the taunting and groping in silence. A landmark case...

KOMBOHA, Egypt Dec. 14th 2008 (AFP) — Eva Habil has just become Egypt's first female mayor but already she seems relaxed in her pioneering role as she strolls around her community clad in jeans and a pink sweater. "She will be a good leader, just like her ancestors," says Ja...

The people of an Egyptian village in Upper Egypt received the news that a woman was hired to become Mayor. She succeeds her Father with joy and happiness, and with this she becomes the first Egyptian woman to receive such a position. The Interior Minister Habib AlAdly issued the decision to prom...

18/11/2008 أهالي القرية استقبلوا النبأ بالابتهاج أسيوط (مصر) - رويترز استقبل أهالي قرية مصرية نبأ تعيين امرأة عمدة عليهم خلفا لوالدها بالابتهاج والفرح، وستكون بذلك أول مصرية تشغل منصب العمدة. وأصدر وزير الداخلية حبيب العادلي قرار تعيين ايفا هابيل كيرلس عمدة لقرية كمبوها بحري التي تسكنها ...

كتب محمد أبوزيد ١١/٣/٢٠٠٨ زينب طالبت الدكتورة زينب رضوان، وكيلة مجلس الشعب، بالسماح بتوريث الزوجة «الكتابية» - المسيحية أو اليهودية - والأخذ بشهادة أصحاب الديانات الأخري في مسائل الأحوال الشخصية، ومساواة شهادة المرأة الواحدة بالرجل أمام ا...

By Mohamed Abu Zeid,  AlMasry AlYoum, 3/11/2008 Parliament's Undersecretary Zeinab Radwan called for acknowledging the right of a Christian or Jewish woman to inherit and acknowledging women to have equal rights like men to testify in court, in the framework of activating the prin...

There are signs that Egyptians are challenging the political inertia that has gripped the country for so long. Workers are protesting poor wages and potential lay-offs, the Muslim Brotherhood is campaigning despite government crackdowns, university students are protesting frequently, and even proper...

Editor's note:  This speech was scheduled for presentation at CAA's 2007 International Coptic Conference and is being reproduced here in article form. I’d like to begin with 2 quotes: “At all times, day by day, we need to keep fighting for freedom of religion, freedom of speech...

Introduction by Hoda Halim and Nora Brathol:  "All women are targets." What a scary thought, but it is true - no one is safe from the threat of radical Islam. This article is about female journalists who were killed in Afghanistan by radical Islamists - targets because they were TV an...

Baghdad It almost sounds like a story from Shakespeare. A pair of star-crossed lovers meet, fall in love and are kept apart by the circumstances of their birth. Only this story takes place in modern-day Iraq, not Renaissance Italy, and the lovers don’t voluntarily end their lives in despai...

  The intruders covered their faces and broke down the front door. They ransacked the home, then kidnapped the three women and the baby who lived there. No one was arrested, despite a standoff with police. And neighbors welcomed the dozens of kidnappers, mostly female Islamic students who ...

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UNDHR) was formed after WWII in the beginning stages of the United Nations. The text of the UNDHR is now widely regarded as customary international law, meaning that (unlike other international law treaties and covenants) countries are automatically expecte...

I met Nawal Al-Saadawi for the first time in the summer of 1997, for the late imam Aissa. During that time, Egypt was full of opposition for the late president, Anwar Al-Sadat. Thanks to that opposition, all the security department forces were very active in pursuing the leaders of the opposition gr...

When the Egyptians faced the British occupying forces in the spring of 1919, women demonstrated side by side with men. The British fired on the demonstrators, killing one - and the first martyr in the history of modern Egypt was born. The death of Shafika, the daughter of Mohamed, ignited the zeal o...

I met Nawal Al-Saadawi for the first time in the summer of 1997, for the late imam Aissa. During that time, Egypt was full of opposition for the late president, Anwar Al-Sadat. Thanks to that opposition, all the security department forces were very active in pursuing the leaders of the opposition gr...

There is something important you need to know about the new Coptic Assembly of America: this is not an organization for men. CAA is for men, women, young people, older people – it is a grassroots organization that is for everyone. And it will take hard work from each and every one of us to wag...