June 30, 2011 New Acquiring a taste for women’s issues
By Dorothy Smith
Originally Published by the Center for Private Enterprise, june 30, 2011
Though I am a woman, I have never focused in depth on women’s issues. Perhaps it was a counter-feminist within me that thought, “If we talk about women’s issues we’re perpetuating a difference between men and women. Or maybe it’s just that as a researcher on the Middle East, I steered clear of the ubiquitous discourse on the “Arab woman.” But a few recent events and stories have begun to chip away at this shell and spark in me a genuine interest in women’s political and economic empowerment.
The first was my participation in CIPE’s conference Democracy that Delivers for Women. In case you missed it, Stephanie Foster has a nice recap at the Huffington Post. Over the course of two days, women from across sectors and different countries spoke about education, entrepreneurship, technology, and more – and their relationship to women’s empowerment. But I’m not one for long, drawn out, up-in-the-clouds debates. So I was happy to hear examples of programs that have made it easier for women to start and maintain their own businesses, and to learn how financial independence has translated into political empowerment and support for democracy.
Soon after that, I was performing some background research on women and entrepreneurship, ahead of the Business Women Forum’s annual conference in the West Bank at which CIPE’s Chair Karen Kerrigan, Regional Director Abdulwahab Alkebsi, and Program Officer Amy Thornberry are presenting and facilitating discussions.
A quick internet search on women and business in Palestine returned this World Bank statistic: in the West Bank and Gaza women with a college degree or above account for 82 percent of unemployed women, compared to only 12 percent for men.
Why is that? What factors inhibit women working in Palestine, and how can these hurdles be removed? I’m sure this will be a central point of discussion at the conference.
Next, I read an article that describes how, while facing greater obstacles to doing business in the Middle East, women are slowly knocking down barriers to finance. The story gives excellent examples of how regulations and cultural characteristics have restricted women’s entry into the workforce. For instance, a woman entrepreneur in Saudi Arabia is likely to have difficulty registering her business because one cannot legally run a business from a home address. But as the article relates, more women becoming proactive: building their own investment vehicles, establishing their own financial firms, and creating outlets for their entrepreneurial spirit.
So women face all the same barriers to doing business as men, but these barriers disproportionally affect women because they are compounded by social and cultural norms, and in many cases unique legal environments.
I’m sliding, a bit reluctantly, down the path of women’s issues, and I’m actually eager to learn more about the unique circumstances that create disincentives for women to become entrepreneurs and work in the private sector, and how women and men are blazing paths to equal economic and political empowerment.
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June 30, 2011 Revolution Youth Coalition calls for massive protest next Friday
Al Masr al Youm, June 30, 2011
On Thursday, the 25 January Revolutionary Youth Coalition called for a massive protest in Tahrir Square on 8 July. Calling it the “Friday of Retribution”, the coalition hopes to put pressure on officials to speed up the trials of those accused of killing protesters during the revolution.
The coalition called on people to stay in Tahrir Square until officials meet their demands, including the immediate dismissal of Interior Ministry leaders involved in corruption cases and accused of oppression, particularly the directors of public security and central security.
In a statement, the coalition called for suspending any officers accused of harming protesters pending investigations, tracking all murderers and bringing them to a fair and speedy trial, opening trials of former regime stalwarts to the public, including that of former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly and his assistants, and compensating people injured during the revolution as well as the families of the deceased.
They said instability in Egypt is due to the absence of political will to purge state institutions from National Democratic Party remnants and corrupt members, especially in the Interior Ministry.
They criticized the slow pace of trials and the decision to limit Prime Minister Essam Sharaf by not allowing him to choose his assistants and staff. Reliable sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm on Tuesday that the ruling military council refused Sharaf’s request to dismiss seven ministers.
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June 1, 2011 NPR: Women The Latest Target Of Bahrain’s Crackdown
By Kelly McEvers
See the original post and listen to the segment via All Things Considered at NPR.com
May 31, 2011
For the past 2 1/2 months, Bahrain’s government has cracked down brutally on opposition figures who led massive anti-government protests in February and March. Doctors, journalists, human rights workers and even elected officials have been detained and beaten.
The government’s most recent targets are women.
“They took me from my work,” one woman says. “And from the beginning, they slapped me on my face, on my head, shoulder.”
The woman agreed to be recorded in an interview with NPR only if she could whisper, in English, so that authorities wouldn’t recognize her voice.
She had been detained, beaten, then let go. When she met with NPR, she was limping from pain.
Government Crackdown
The crackdown began in mid-March, after hundreds of thousands of Bahrainis had occupied the Pearl Roundabout, marked by a white monument that looked like elongated fingers stretching a precious jewel toward the sky.
The government says the protesters were engaged in a violent plot to overthrow the state. Protesters were dispersed, and the monument was flattened.
Authorities detained thousands of men who were known to oppose the government — and then went after the women.
The woman who spoke to NPR says she was taken by bus to a police station, blindfolded, and made to stand for five hours in a room. She was accused of working to bring down the Bahraini regime.
“They tried to force me to confess that I told people at my work to be against the regime,” she says.
Authorities showed the woman a picture of someone protesting at Pearl Roundabout. At the time, Bahrain’s crown prince said it was legal to protest. Now, authorities say it’s a crime.
“They tried to force me to confess that a picture in a protest — that it is my picture. And it was really not my picture,” the woman says.
She was taunted about one of her relatives, who has been jailed without charge for many weeks. “They said very bad things about him,” she says. “And they told me that, ‘Do you think he will come out of the jail? He will die in jail.'”
Under Threat
But perhaps the worst part of the ordeal was that the woman was detained at all. In an Arab culture, particularly in the Gulf, detaining a woman is the ultimate humiliation, going back to the days when the way one tribe defeated another was to capture and rape its women.
“They told me if I didn’t confess they will let men come and — continue with me,” the woman says. “They told me that.”
She says she understood what they meant — the men would do bad things to her. When asked if she was told that the men would rape her, she says, “No, they didn’t say — but to beat … strong and [hard].”
When asked if she ever felt like she was in danger of something worse, like some kind of sexual attack, she replies, “Maybe, yes. Maybe.”
Women Targeted
So far no Bahraini woman has reported being raped while in detention. Middle-aged men have reported being threatened with rape, and young men have reported being raped.
There is much, much more to this woman’s story — details that simply cannot be divulged at this time. One of her relatives is still in jail, and she is terrified for her children.
Analysts in the region say this is the first time in the wave of protests sweeping the Arab world that large groups of women have been targeted for going against the government.
Bahraini human rights groups say hundreds of women have been detained in recent weeks. Most were released. Dozens are still being held. One female journalist reportedly was beaten so badly she can’t walk. Authorities have vowed to investigate.
In her whole life, the whispering woman says, she has never been treated like this. No one has ever raised a finger to her, she says, or said a single unkind word.
If they apologize for this, she says, maybe Bahrain can go forward again. But if they don’t, she says, we will live with this shame forever. And that shame might eventually turn into revenge.
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June 1, 2011 New Initiative for Girls and Sports from the State Department!
Here’s a press release from the State Department about an exciting new initiative for girls and sports across the world!
On June 6, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will launch the Women’s World Cup Initiative: Empowering Women and Girls Through Sports, at the Department of State with members of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team and youth soccer players from around the world.
This joint initiative by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues harnesses the power of sports and international exchanges as a means to empower women and girls worldwide.
The event will take place at approximately 9:30 a.m. in the Benjamin Franklin Room at the Department of State. The event will be streamed live on www.state.gov and open to credentialed members of the media. Press access times will be forthcoming in the public schedule.
The Women’s World Cup initiative includes:
– Sports Visitor Program
Through the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ SportsUnited Office, 18 teenaged female soccer players and their coaches from Bolivia, Germany, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Palestinian Territories and South Africa will travel to the United States May 31-June 9 through the Sports Visitors Program for a 10-day exchange. During this time, the young athletes will travel to New York City and Washington, D.C., where they will meet with the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team and play soccer with local teams. The delegation will also meet with local community organizations that provide sports opportunities for youth with disabilities and mentorships through a soccer and literacy initiative.
– Sports Envoy Programs
Partnering with U.S. Soccer, former Women’s National Team players Briana Scurry and Amanda Cromwell traveled in May as Sports Envoys to Germany to lead soccer clinics and engage young audiences in Berlin, Dresden, Wolfsburg, Sinsheim and Frankfurt. Additional Sports Envoys will travel to Brazil this summer.
– Women’s Sports Management
The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ International Visitor Leadership Program will lead a parallel 10-day international exchange program for five sports management professionals. With an emphasis on the administration of women’s and girls’ soccer programs, the program will allow the visitors to exchange ideas and best practices in the management of sports and recreational programs with their American counterparts. They will examine how athletic programs for women and girls promote leadership, teamwork, respect, self awareness and life skills, and how sports and recreation programs can make a positive impact on at-risk and underserved youth.
Visit www.exchanges.state.gov/sports for more information.
PRESS CONTACTS:
Department of State
Office of Press Relations
(202) 647-2492
Department of State
Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs
Talley Sergent
SergentRT@state.gov
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May 31, 2011 Dalia Ziada featured in Sayidaty Magazine!
Check out Sayidaty Magazine’s feature on AIC’s Dalia Ziada! For a closer look at the article, click on each photo below.
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May 26, 2011 Second Update on Manal Al Sherif (via Saudiwoman’s Weblog)
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May 26, 2011 The Right to Drive Campaign
Check out the blog Saudi Women Driving for some of the latest stories from the Kingdom featuring the work of women’s activists!
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May 24, 2011 New York Times: Saudis Arrest Woman Leading Right-to-Drive Campaign
By Neil MacFarquhar, May 23, 2011
Published by the New York Times
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The government of Saudi Arabia moved swiftly to extinguish a budding protest movement of women claiming the right to drive, a campaign inspired by uprisings across the Arab world demanding new freedoms but at risk Monday of foundering.
Cars at a checkpoint near a mall entrance in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A national protest supporting the right for women to drive is scheduled for June 17.
Manal al-Sharif, 32, one of the campaign organizers, was detained Sunday in the eastern city of Dammam for up to five days on charges of disturbing public order and inciting public opinion by twice driving in a bid to press her cause, said her lawyer, Adnan al-Saleh.
Ms. Sharif was arrested after two much-publicized drives last week to highlight the Facebook and Twitter campaigns she helped organize to encourage women across Saudi Arabia to participate in a collective protest scheduled for June 17.
The campaigns, which had attracted thousands of supporters — more than 12,000 on the Facebook page — have been blocked in the kingdom. Ms. Sharif’s arrest was very likely intended to give others pause before participating in the protests in a country where a woman’s public reputation, including her ability to marry, can be badly damaged by an arrest.
“Usually they just make you sign a paper that you will not do it again and let you go,” said Wajiha Howeidar, who recorded Ms. Sharif while driving on Thursday. “They don’t want anybody to think that they can get away with something like that. It is a clear message that you cannot organize anything on Facebook. That is why she is in prison.”
The revolt that overthrew the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, and similar efforts in the Middle East gained crucial momentum online.
Saudi Arabia is the only country that bars women from driving. But the topic remains a highly emotional issue in the kingdom, where women are also not allowed to vote, or even work without their husbands’, or fathers’, permission. For religious puritans, the ban on women driving is a sign that the government remains steadfast in the face of a Western onslaught on Saudi traditions. A political cartoon here once depicted car keys attached to a hand grenade.
Even before the arrest, the debate was raging online, on television and in the streets between supporters and opponents. One argument endorsing the change is that women drove donkeys in Koranic times, with a television cleric noting in recent days that handling a donkey was actually harder than driving a vehicle. Supporters believed that the changes sweeping the Arab world made it the right moment for women to seize the initiative.
An online petition addressed to King Abdullah, asking him to free Ms. Sharif and grant women the right to drive, gathered signatures from more than 600 men and women after it was organized by Walid Abu al-Khair, a Saudi lawyer and human rights advocate. Saudis are often reluctant to publicly attach their names to political actions.
Many opponents were religious puritans who object to the very idea of women being exposed to strangers outside their homes by driving. The ban is rooted more primarily in religious fatwas, nonbinding decrees by clerics.
In the new online battlefield, conservative clerics have been deploying their own Twitter accounts to call on the religious police to be extra vigilant against the prospect of women drivers.
Some women were opposed, too, because they said that driving remains such a social lightning rod and that raising the issue is likely to set back efforts to gain more fundamental freedoms like voting or ending the legal guardianship that allows Saudi men to control virtually every aspect of women’s lives.
But Ms. Sharif and others decided to take to the roads in May to encourage a higher turnout for the national protest. Saudi newspapers have been filled with articles in recent days detailing a rash of women taking to the roads — publishing confessions of women who drove their children to school, a father to the airport or themselves on errands.
One of the arguments for allowing women to drive is the economic cost. There are some 800,000 foreign drivers in the kingdom, and the roughly $350 monthly salary needed to hire one is considered an economic drain on the middle class.
Ms. Sharif, an information technology specialist with the state-run oil company Aramco, has a reputation for pulling stunts to highlight the lack of rights for women. Such was her renown that certain myths about her circulate widely as fact—like the false tale that she once rode a donkey down a main Riyadh shopping street until the religious police stopped her.
She took her drive on Saturday with her brother Mohamed al-Sharif, who was initially detained with her by the religious police and then released. The local police returned to her house after midnight to arrest her again.
“That was a mistake,” Mr. Saleh, her lawyer, said in a telephone interview from Dammam. “It is not considered a big crime in Saudi Arabia — it was not smuggling drugs, nor murder, nor rape — it was a girl driving a car.”
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May 24, 2011 Who’s that girl? Notes from the Lebanese Absolute Republic of Beauty
By Dina Karam
Originally published by Sawt al Niswa, May 3, 2011
Who’s that girl supposed to be?
I wake up and look in the mirror to see the reflection. Somehow it is not me, or what I think should be me. My body also feels heavy, another weight to handle.
This idea came about slowly, of what I guess I should look like. Much like Beirut after the war; slowly reconstructed into a patchwork of functional and less functional pieces.
I don’t fit into what I think is thought of as pretty. But perceptions are signs of the times. Constantly measured, labeled, balanced into a prototype of a girl who is just one image. So simple, it’s easy, an archetype, a clear map, an icon, of sorts, of beauty. Immutable, like the political leaders whose posters we veneer and like to think of as eternal guiding lights.
I do not know really where the image came from, but she is daring, super confident in her sexiness, like she’s conquered all the people who dared not to be attracted to her. Isn’t that rather a contradiction, though, to the notion of beauty? And although her eyebrows seem like paint, she has pout-y lips that look like they’re practicing the word “O”, and something not so alive adorns her expression; sometimes maybe, long ago, people would have thought her vulgar.
With my funny walk, questioning eyes, big divided teeth, a longer nose, a funny voice, I am not in line with this poster girl, but an outlier. A statistical exception from the rule of a perfect hypothesis: how beauty should be.
I am also not a particular consumer of “Instituts de beaute.” They seem to sprout like the “khadarji” (vegetable grocers) at every corner of these city streets. Like a must-stop pit-stop, asking me “Did you not forget something?” The few times I’ve done my nails it felt like trying to waltz while being trapped in a straight jacket, forbidden to use these precious glazed hands. A male friend, not the type who’s much into appearances, once told me that my feet looked like I had just stepped out of a cabin in the woods. Because I had no nail polish on; and it was summer. Apparently toes can carry the most alarming politically incorrect messages. Check yourself, sisters!
No, I also do not like to go to the hairdresser, in fact I hate the blow-dryer, and the small talk of what the best looks are like. Beauty – aghast – is political! Yes, take that 14-ers and 8-ers, you have company!
The “coiffeur” likes me though, and says I’m his favorite client, even though I tell him some of the styles cooked under those scissors and gun-hair dryers look like they are copies of that dog they call poodle. I told him about a super idea I really think he should look into: It’s called “Instituts de après-beaute” or “Post-beauty institutes.”
But spring is out and along with the akidenyah fruits sprouting along the branches and the sudden sweet warmth invading the morning air, you see a lot of nose bandages also, sported with a high head by boys and girls, along with the red eyes; marks of a brutal transformation. Along with the big billboards advertising plastic surgery devices and victorious body parts. The battle of appearances has begun, for the big summer sun is unforgiving and sees all imperfections.
Apparently, to graduate and fly from the state of an “un-becoming” caterpillar to the much-vaunted butterfly in the Lebanese Absolute Republic of Beauty, you should (in order of importance):
1. Do your nose by age 16.
2. Permanently erase the traces of Middle Eastern brows – think laser beams – then tattoo – yes, tattoo – your eyebrows into perfect semi-circular arches.
3. Buy colored lenses, if you have the misfortune of having dark eyes.
4. Consider breast modification; after all, your bank can help.
5. Consider pouting your lips – with some kind of acid.
6. Wear 5-inch heels to school, university, work – because it’s such a good work-out.
The whole industry of plastic surgery, beauty institutes, hair salons, nail bars, make-up people and society magazines (for the final results) forms a big chunk of the GDP, a vital chunk of an economic ecosystem feeding and employing many. In addition to the brain drain, sectarianism, and about ten thousand out-migrants each year, beauty is also made in Lebanon.
So I would like to call for a National Pajama Day, whereby everyone would go out in the streets in their pajamas in the state they just woke up in – no fixing yourself up in anyway, not a single hair combed. We’ll call it the “rebellion of the pajamas.” After all, the revolt of “les sans-culottes” overthrew a kingdom.
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Drafting a New Story: Women's Rights in the Middle East 
May 26, 2011 AWID: Egypt: May 25, The Commemoration Of “black Wednesday”
Source: Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights
26/05/2011
(Cairo, May 25, 2011) The revolution of the 25th of January, 2011 was not born out of the moment, but was the result of a long struggle of all political and civil forces in Egypt. Women participated in all phases of this struggle and bore serious risks to confront the former regime and its security armory. This year, the 25th of May comes after the great revolution in which women participated to its success. Today marks the day in which women paid the price on the day of the referendum to amend article 76 of the constitution in 2005.
The 25th of May 2005 witnessed the rise of many voices of the Egyptian opposition by the announcement of a protest and criticism of what was described as – the fake change which forged the will of the people – on the so-called referendum to renew the presidential term of the former president. Young women and men and activists were at the forefront of those who gathered in front of the press syndicate and the judges club.
Despite the huge propaganda and use of all the resources of the state to support the play of the referendum, tens of young men and women worried the security forces and the ruling party to the extent that they decided to use more oppressive methods. They used a new security approach against the young women and men participating in the demonstration that caused the psychological feeling of defeat. The physical and sexual attacks targeted all people who protested or tried to protest against the fake referendum conducted by the state. All demonstrators were targeted, with a special focus on women and girls who were sexually harassed.
The militias of the National Democratic Party practiced before the eyes of all security forces the severe oppression from the very first moment of the attack on the demonstrators. The security forces – at the beginning – intentionally surrounded the demonstrators, severely pressured them while their back was against the wall, then split them – violently – into small separated groups.
Members of the security forces promptly dealt with the demonstrators in these small groups by direct orders of the officers who pushed them to cruelly beat the demonstrators and to sexually harass the women and girls. The orders of officers included verbal abuse that can provoke every free person. The security forces sought to kidnap prominent figures – of both sexes – from the demonstration, took them to the side streets to beat them, and then made them disappear in the buses of deportation, or in near police stations.
Security forces used the soldiers of the Egyptian central security forces who came out in civilian clothes, concentrated on the sexual harassment of women and girls by violently harassing their bodies, tearing their clothes, and removing the veil of veiled women, in addition to dragging them on the ground by their hairs; as for women or girls who tried to escape, they followed them and incited thugs to surround them to fulfil what they had begun. The women who could stop a taxi were forced out after they had horrified the driver to fulfil what they had begun. If they resorted to a shop or a residential building, they were surrounding it and breaking through with direct orders from the officers.
The message that the police and the former regime wanted to deliver at that time was that sexual harassment is the destiny for women who will participate in reform and requests of democracy.
It is worth mentioning that the victims of this day reached 13 female activists. Many of the private Egyptian and international media and blogs said that some thugs attacked female journalists, political activists, beat them, tore their clothes and sexually harassed them. In addition, a number of female journalists and activists, victims of what was then named “black Wednesday” reported to the general prosecutor what they had been subjected to. However, the general prosecutor then issued a decision to dismiss the investigations in the incident due to the failure of knowing the perpetrators.
At the end, the investigation was dismissed in this case due to the failure to know the perpetrator. The general prosecution ignored the witnesses, images and videos that demonstrated the attack!!
The dismissal of the investigation resulted in the statements presented by some activists to the African Commission on Human & Peoples’ Rights which is affiliated to the African Union, since 24 organizations from the civil society presented a claim with the number 323 in the year 2006 (323/2006) in the name of 4 female journalists and activists who had been subjected to attacks. The claim included charges against the Egyptian government; that it violated the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, which was signed by the Egyptian government and became integral and compulsory to the Egyptian legislation in March 20, 1984. The journalists syndicate, many writers, activists and human rights organizations also condemned the incident and called for the resignation of the interior minister and for the trial of the people responsible for it.
Although these severe incidents occurred, they did not impede Egyptian women from resuming their efforts in the political work. In the revolution the Egyptian women stood side by side with Egyptian men. Their bodies bore what had been borne by men’s bodies, by the violence of the security forces of all its types beginning with the sticks, and tear gas bombs to live and rubber bullets. There were women injured and martyrs.
Women shaped human armors and stood in the popular committees. They experienced the battle of the camels, and confronted the thugs of the NDP. At that time they were not concerned about being women or men, mothers or young women, Muslims or Christians; they were just remembering that they are Egyptians.
As the acts of women were not new for them, and were not separated from their historical national role played over ages for the renaissance and liberation of their nation from different types of authoritarianism, women’s role in this popular revolution must not ignored. The price they paid as Egyptian citizen must not be omitted. It is also unacceptable in any name or under any type of guardianship, either political or social, that women are excluded on the political stage in the coming period, which is full of national challenges for all of us as Egyptians, women and men.
The achievements of the Egyptian women, which reached a minimum level of citizenship, were obtained after a long struggle for which they paid a high price. They were not granted from a ruler or a ruler’s wife, as said by people who want to forge history and cancel the Egyptian awareness. Instead, these achievements of the Egyptian women affirm that women are on their path to equality and human rights.
We sought to achieve real participation in decision making, and equal opportunities that ensure to every Egyptian female citizen and every Egyptian male citizen to carry out their duties towards their nation under a new civilian constitution that cancels all types of guardianship and distinctions and ensures the complete rights and equality for all. All we desired is empowering women, who are half of the society, to resume their role as Egyptian citizens to ensure their access to broad and comprehensive types of the meaning of democracy.
The Egyptian society as a whole and afore them the national figures and the military council are requested to support and help the victory of women’s rights as part and parcel of human rights. We also desire the removal of the obstacles to their participation in the decision making and wish that the required measures to ensure this are taken.
(There is no democracy without women’s participation, and there is no women’s participation without democracy)