Why are we still surprised that Egypt’s women are not free? | Women Under Siege Project
Egyptians often tout their country as a beacon of culture, liberalism, and Muslim modesty in the Middle East. But in terms of freedoms for women, a recent study on how people in Muslim countries prefer women to dress in public showed that Egypt is significantly more conservative than its Arab neighbors. According to a study conducted by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, 57 percent of people surveyed in Egypt believe a woman should fully cover her hair when out in public.
Many Egyptians on social media have criticized the controversial study, which found that only 14 percent of those surveyed in Egypt believe women should be able to choose their own clothing. Many Muslim or Arab males have dismissed the study as inaccurate. But if you’ve ever lived in Egypt or talked to average Egyptian men and women about their expectations for how a woman should dress, you would find the study to be shockingly representative of the situation.
Just because some Egyptians may believe the study is orientalist or that the Western world is overly obsessed with the way Middle Eastern women dress, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t something inherently wrong with the way women are viewed in the Arab world.
Women march to Cairo’s Tahrir Square in February 2013 to protest sexual harassment. (Gigi Ibrahim)
