April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

differently towards each other.” These are the words of Ms Kamel, 50, one
of the many women who were out on Tahrir Square, actively participating
in the revolution.
Cairo, February 4. Photo: 3arabawyArab women have once again shown
that women play a decisive role in revolutionary events. In Egypt women
have been participating actively in the revolution, in the same way that
they played an active role in the strike movement in the few last years, in
several cases pressurizing the men to join the strikes.
In earlier protests in Egypt, women only accounted for about 10 per cent
of the protesters, but on Tahrir Sqaure they accounted for about 40 to 50
per cent in the days leading up to the fall of Mubarak. Women, with and
without veils, participated in the defence of the square, set up barricades,
led debates, shouted slogans and, together with the men, risked their
lives.
Another view on women
Probably the most important motive force so far has been ordinary
people's striving for respect and dignity (something that was also clear in
the Russian revolution and in France in May 1968). The dictatorial regimes,
the police and the bosses don’t treat people as human beings, but as
animals. That goes for all workers and poor, but especially for women.
Women’s perception of themselves has been changed through the struggle.
“We have suffered the taste of teargas, but we are not afraid. The women
who are afraid to leave the house, even they see us and gain courage,”
explained English teacher Riham Muntaz, 25, to the newspaper The
National on February 14. (Women make their power felt in Egypt's
revolution 14.02.11)
The idea that men and women should be different was removed during the
revolution. Mozn Hassan, the director of the Nasra Feminist Studies Centre
in Cairo said, “No one sees you as a woman here; no one sees you as a
man. We are all united in our desire for democracy and freedom.” She
explains that it was the freedom women experienced at Tahrir Sqaure that
made them return again and again bringing along their friends, sisters and
mothers.
The revolution also changed the relation between the sexes. “(…) In the
square, you had people from different classes, both men and women,
mixing, talking and debating. They [men] were seeing that women are
strong, that they can look after themselves. They were seeing women work
hard for the revolution, leading protests, and their response [not groping]
is their way of saying, 'I respect you',” explained Ms. Hassan. Sexual
harassment has been a large problem in Egypt. More than four out of five
women have been sexually assaulted at some time, and the police has used
this also to intimidate women, but it has been completely absent in the
struggle against the Mubarak regime.
Women’s liberation through class struggle
Arab women are now showing the way forward. The right-wing bourgeois
parties have used the oppression of women in many societies where Islam
is the main religion to campaign against the so-called “Muslim world” and
legitimize the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately in this they
have had help from intellectuals and so-called left-wingers that have been
complaining about the “Muslim view on women”. Other left-wingers has
swung to the opposite side and even made concessions to religious forces
in the Arab world. The Arab revolution shows that as Marxists we were
absolutely correct when we insisted that the struggle for women’s rights is