John Altmann

1/22/14

Woman: A Critique of Her Objectification in Egypt

The question has arisen many times in the consciousness of man and the collective consciousness of civilization. That inquiry is simply; what is woman? If we were to consult the Arab world as it pertains to this question, we would find their answer to be that woman is dispensable. Woman is nothing more than a tool of reproduction, a tool of servitude, and a tool of economic and sexual exploitation to be wielded by her male counterpart. No nation exalts this ideology of woman more than that of Egypt according to reports that surfaced late last year regarding their treatment of women. It was found during the course of this research that in April, 99.3% of women and girls were victims of sexual harassment. This same report also found that in the city of Cairo, the predominant economic practice was trafficking women and forcing them into marriage. What’s worse, in June, the Humans Rights Watch in a separate report stated that in June when protests against the rule of Mr. Morsi, whose election as well as the institution of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood resulted in a regression of women’s rights had exacerbated, 91 women were subjected to sexual assault and even outright rape in the Tahir Square. As if this abhorrent portrait of the existence the Egyptian woman bears on her back everyday could not get any worse, UNICEF found in this same vein of research that 27.2 million women and girls undergo genital mutilation.

The empirical deconstruction of women as they live in Egypt lends credence to my sentiments of what the Arab world believes woman to be. But now I will reconstruct her using that same empirical basis but with ten times the accuracy of the Arab world. The focal point of this empiricist thought? That woman is the fountain from which all of society springs forth. I make this assertion for it is the very economic, political, intellectual, and historical constitution of Egypt that lies in the reproductive power of women. Furthermore, the sustainment and strengthening of this very constitution is also attributable to the reproductive capabilities wielded solely by the female gender. Yet what does the patriarchy of Egypt bestow upon the women of this nation for their selfless sacrifices and their ill waning patriotism? Nothing more than degradation, discrimination, and violent reaction in the face of protests for equality.

It is a cruel and tragic irony that the women of Egypt confront daily. The idea that their oppressors do not just maltreat them, their oppressors treats with coercion and prejudice their very own origins. For without woman, the patriarchy and all of its machinations would never progress beyond nothingness. That being said, it does not alter the fact that this bleak reality that the Egyptian woman faces imposes upon her the most arduous of existential crises. The crises being does the woman use her reproductive power to birth the next generation of oppressor and or oppressed? Or does she rebel and sustain the abuses of the patriarchy for the causes of

equality and respect? The answer to this inquiry is the latter, and it should begin in the city of Cairo, the very same city whose economic strength sees its dependency on the very degradation and unequal status of the female gender.

The revolution in Cairo will be one of great complexity. On the one hand, the women of Cairo should not seek to spill blood or to associate themselves with the coercive and prejudicial practices of those who exercise dominion over them. The patriarchates in the Arab world rely on violence, government, and religion to maintain their power. Let the women of Egypt and all across the Arab world rely on intellect, rationality, and compassion for the claiming of theirs. On the other hand, though I speak of these principles and believe they should be prioritized to the absolute highest level for the integrity of the revolution, I understand that compassion alone cannot disarm misogyny when it’s wielding a knife. I understand that a man whom, by his own volition, imposes his will upon a woman in the form of mutilating her reproductive system is well beyond the point of adhering to rationality. That is why in the face of this sobering reality I advocate that the women of Egypt endow themselves the quality of self-defense when the transgressions of the patriarchal dictatorship appear far stronger than anything in the arsenal of pacifism.

I advocate this quality because when the women of Cairo are reduced to being inventory at the mercy of flesh peddlers and their prospective consumers, then it is with sound clarity of this repugnance that one sees that all other avenues of activism the woman can exercise have been occluded from her will. I advocate this quality because when a woman is not afforded the dignity of controlling the fate of her reproductive prowess and is instead forcibly rendered helpless as that same reproductive system succumbs to mutilation, it becomes painfully evident that rousing verbiage and fiery conviction are insufficient in the face of such atrocities. That is why I say that, when the women of Egypt are faced with such repulsive and imminent danger, that they should take up defending themselves by any means necessary. Let it be a reminder to the oppressors that their beginnings came from the wombs of women and that by this same entity, their ends will come in graves as deep and as dark as their bigotry.

Now that I have addressed the appropriate environment for which self-defense should be enacted, the subsequent paragraphs will be devoted to the articulation of both why pacifist resistance is preferable to violent revolution, as well as how pacifist resistance can manifest in places like Cairo and all of Egypt in general. To begin, it should be noted that pacifism is superior to violent revolt not just for its inclusion of certain moral considerations as it pertains to the nature of rebellion, pacifism is also superior to violent revolt because it possesses a far greater utility towards the ends of the revolution. The aim of the Feminist revolution in Egypt is not the overthrow of the patriarchy and instituting in its stead a matriarch. The aim of the Feminist revolution in Egypt is the promotion and sustainment of equality between both the male and female gender and disassembling all barriers in existence between them. Because of this, Pacifism should not merely be viewed as just preferable but rather, an imperative to the success of the movement. Through the utilization of protests, literature, and all other forms of non-

violent activism, the Feminist movement positions itself to gain an invaluable asset in freshly converted human capital to their cause. This is something that violent revolt is not only incapable of achieving, but indeed violent revolt will only serve to intensify the opposition of the female class by the rest of Egyptian society. This freshly converted capital, whether it is in the form of males utterly disgusted by the current social paradigm or females whom up until that point had been apprehensive about asserting themselves for fear of ostracism or abuse, will then be empowered to carry out reform in greater degrees. For example, one way of doing this would be a commitment to driving down the overwhelming number of women and girls who are subjected to sexual harassment. Another way of doing this would be through the collective action to see legislation implemented that would put an end to the practice of genital mutilation upon women. Of course, once pacifism saw conversions of a large enough quantity that would also see repercussions for the economic and political consciousness of Egypt as a whole, but these matters are too in-depth for the chief aim of this work to tackle and may be more appropriately addressed at a later time. To put it succinctly, strength truly does lie in large numbers and the Feminist movement will never gain such an audience or the respectability and influence that accompanies it, by deliberately nourishing the soil of the land with the blood of the patriarchy.

Now that the inquiry of why pacifist resistance is preferable to violent resistance in response to female inequality in Egypt has been answered, the question ultimately becomes specifically how the women of Egypt and the entirety of the Arab world are to engage in non-violent revolt. While the above musings of circulating literature and organizing informative protests are certainly encouraged, the women of Egypt need to partake in a form of activism that is an outright defiance in the face of the patriarchy and all of its constructs. What constitutes such an activity? The answer is a strike that sees the woman reassert complete ownership of their reproductive system and the enactment of a prohibition against the use of this system by the Patriarchy. This entails that women who are forced into marriage would be under no obligation to bestow upon the husband in that marriage a child. Moreover, it means that the women have reclaimed control of the future generations of Egypt and subsequently, Egypt’s very identity by wrestling away that power from the patriarchy and its practitioners who undertook to mutilating female genitalia and who sell women off like cattle for sex to the highest bidder. By making the declaration that the very lifeblood of Egypt, the sustainment and strengthening of its very populous is being held in non-violent captivity until the women of Egypt attain political, economic, and social equality alongside their male counterparts, the patriarchy is left with either complete concession of the aims of the revolution, or the self destruction of Egypt as a nation. Regardless, the patriarchy, no matter what path it chooses to travel, will come to the end of that path in the form of the dissolution of its very existence. All without shedding a single drop of blood. By reclaiming ownership of the reproductive power and using it as the vehicle of protest, the women manage to exalt their values as equal beings in an unequal society, illuminate to the current structure the vital importance the participation in society the female possesses, and finally achieve non-violent reform of dominant political, social, and economic ideologies and institutions.

In summation, the abuses and abhorrent treatment incurred upon the women of the Arab world particularly in Egypt should be unequivocally revolted against. The women of Egypt are the very fountains from which Egypt’s very identity as a nation springs forth. As such, the treatment of women should be one of equity. Specifically, the women of Egypt should be afforded the rights of equal participation in Egyptian society on a political, social, and economic level. If the governments, religious institutions, and the patriarchy in general should fail to concede to this notion, then the women of Egypt should then empower themselves to band together as a collective and reclaim ownership of their reproductive powers thus holding Egypt in total captivity. During this period of captivity the women of Egypt should strive to attain fresh human capital for their revolution and pursue aggressively legislation to be instituted that would see the stark number of sexual harassment cases against women and girls decline, as well as the abolition of the practices of genital mutilation, and human trafficking and forced marriages specifically in Cairo. Finally, let it be stated with not an ounce of ambiguity that in the interim of this activism by the women of Egypt that if they should be confronted with violent forms of misogyny and prejudice, then the women of Egypt are endowed naturally as members both of the Egyptian nation and the human race, with the right to self-defense. The fact is, the current practices of Egypt against the female population are in the short term inhibiting the potential and the human capital possessed by the woman and in the long term, regressing and outright harming the country through its discriminatory ideology for when Egypt castigates its female populous, as a consequence it’s also erecting blockades against progression in every vital arena. While Mr. Morsi may not wish to recognize that his life was made possible by the biological strength of women, but he will have no choice to acknowledge that strength when the day arrives that the women of this land reaffirm their existence and take the future hostage as a result. In the end Egypt it is either equity for all or prosperity for none.