The Middle East's Feminist Revolution

By Naomi Wolff
Globe and Mail (Canada) 
March 2, 2011

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/the-middle-easts-feminist-revolution/article1925427/

Among the most prevalent Western stereotypes about
Muslim countries are those concerning Muslim women:
doe-eyed, veiled and submissive, exotically silent,
gauzy inhabitants of imagined harems, closeted behind
rigid gender roles. So where were these women in
Tunisia and Egypt?

In both countries, women protesters were nothing like
the Western stereotype: They were front and centre, in
news clips and on Facebook forums, and even in the
leadership. In Cairo's Tahrir Square, women volunteers,
some accompanied by children, worked steadily to
support the protests - helping with security,
communications and shelter. Many commentators credited
the great numbers of women and children with the
remarkable overall peacefulness of the protesters in
the face of grave provocations.

Other citizen reporters in Tahrir Square - and
virtually anyone with a cellphone could become one -
noted that the masses of women involved in the protests
were demographically inclusive. Many wore head scarves
and other signs of religious conservatism, while others
revelled in the freedom to kiss a friend or smoke a
cigarette in public.

But women were not serving only as support workers, the
habitual role to which they are relegated in protest
movements. Egyptian women also organized and reported
the events. Bloggers such as Leil-Zahra Mortada took
grave risks to keep the world informed daily of the
scene in Tahrir Square and elsewhere.

The role of women in the great Middle East upheaval has
been woefully under-analyzed. Women in Egypt didn't
just "join" the protests - they were a leading force
behind the cultural evolution that made the protests
inevitable. And what's true for Egypt is true
throughout the Arab world. When women change,
everything changes, and women in the Muslim world are
changing radically.

The greatest shift is educational. Two generations ago,
only a small minority of the daughters of the elite
received a university education. Today, women account
for more than half of the students at Egyptian
universities. They're being trained to use power in
ways their grandmothers could scarcely have imagined:
publishing newspapers (as Sanaa el Seif did, in
defiance of a government order to cease operating);
campaigning for student leadership posts; fundraising
for student organizations; and running meetings.

Indeed, a substantial minority of young women in Egypt
and other Arab countries have now spent their formative
years thinking critically in mixed-gender environments,
and even publicly challenging male professors in the
classroom. It's far easier to tyrannize a population
when half are poorly educated and trained to be
submissive. But, as Westerners should know from their
own historical experience, once you educate women,
democratic agitation is likely to accompany the massive
cultural shift that follows.

The nature of social media, too, has helped turn women
into protest leaders. Having taught leadership skills
to women for more than a decade, I know how difficult
it is to get them to speak out in a hierarchical
organizational structure. Likewise, women tend to avoid
the figurehead status that traditional protest has
imposed on certain activists in the past - almost
invariably a hotheaded young man with a megaphone.

In such contexts - with a stage, a spotlight and a
spokesperson - women often shy away from leadership
roles. But social media, through the very nature of the
technology, have changed what leadership looks and
feels like. Facebook mimics the way many women choose
to experience social reality, with connections between
people just as important as individual dominance or
control, if not more so.

You can be a powerful leader on Facebook just by
creating a really big "us." Or you can stay the same
size, conceptually, as everyone else on your page - you
don't have to assert your dominance or authority. The
structure of Facebook's interface creates what brick-
and-mortar institutions, despite 30 years of feminist
pressure, have failed to provide: a context in which
women's ability to forge a powerful "us" and engage in
a leadership of service can advance the cause of
freedom and justice worldwide.

Of course, Facebook can't reduce the risks of protest.
But, however violent the immediate future in the Middle
East may be, the historical record of what happens when
educated women participate in freedom movements
suggests that those in the region who would like to
maintain iron-fisted rule are finished.

Just when France began its rebellion in 1789, Mary
Wollstonecraft, who had been caught up in witnessing
it, wrote her manifesto for women's liberation. After
educated women in America helped fight for the
abolition of slavery, they put female suffrage on the
agenda. After they were told in the 1960s that "the
position of women in the movement is prone," they
generated "second wave" feminism - a movement born of
women's new skills and old frustrations.

Time and again, once women have fought the other
battles for freedom of their day, they've moved on to
advocate for their own rights. And since feminism is
simply a logical extension of democracy, the Middle
East's despots are facing a situation in which it will
be almost impossible to force these awakened women to
stop their fight for freedom - their own and that of
their communities.
________________

*Naomi Wolf is a political activist and social critic
whose most recent book is *Give Me Liberty: A Handbook
for American Revolutionaries. Phil Ochs film and Panel,
Sunday, March 6th.eml

___________________________________________

Portside aims to provide material of interest to people
on the left that will help them to interpret the world
and to change it.

Submit via email: [log in to unmask]

Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3

Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq

Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe

Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive

Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate