Introduction
The question of women in Egypt, their social status, and their duties and roles is considered to be very important and interesting to discuss. Numerous historical sources tell that women had to follow their husbands, hide their faces, and avoid contact with other people both outside and at homes.
This representation of female place in society may be regarded as humiliating and unfair. This is why such issues are always captivating and significant to study.
Modern times demonstrate how progressive female status in Egypt can be: now, women have chances to earn money, to communicate with any person, to follow own desires, and to improve this life as they actually want.
The role of Egyptian women is great indeed for a woman of any other culture: women like Qasim Amin or Nawal El Saadawi show how their intentions to become free and independent help to recognize challenges, any woman may face; male and female attitude to marriage in Egypt differs from other cultures and get a good chance to evaluate the necessity of equality in families; and current state of affairs in Egypt describes the actual attitude to women and their roles in society, their abilities, and their ideas of how to make this world better and safer.
Current Egypt and Status Women
Historical background helps to comprehend that men’s treatment to women has enough grounds and outcomes for present and future.
However, our modern world requires that people become noble and fair to each other and underlines that such concepts like freedom, independence, and the right of choice are the crucial ones in the life of any person.
The status of women in Egypt may be named as limited and restricted, however, it is mistakenly to think that their status was the worst one and considered to be the same even nowadays.
For example, the social status of Greek women differs even from social status of Egyptian women considerably. In Greece, women were under a power of their fathers, husbands, and even eldest sons (Amin 6). This inequality was observed when Egypt was conquered by Greece at the beginning of 332 B. C.
Women in Egypt had nothing to do but agree that they had more rights and more privileges in society in comparison to poor women of Greece. Egyptian women’s desire to achieve equality with men was so huge; and it is not a surprise that some of their attempts were successful.
Parity between Egyptian men and women is a big deal for this society, because it allows to enjoy common economic rights, to use similar legal issues, and to participate in social life of the country.
The rights, women have now, can be hardly distinguished from the rights of women of other countries. Of course, it is possible to admit that behavior and clothes of Egypt women are modest in comparison to American or European women and their styles, however, it should not mean that it is all because of their inability to follow other women’s examples.
It may happen just because Egyptian women try to demonstrate their respect to their families, their religion, their culture, and their past. Unfortunately, our modern youth pay much attention to personal interests and demands. This is why in case of Egyptian women’s status, it is better to learn something and make use of.
Traditions of Egypt consider women as “not passive victims” but as personalities who may “quite actively argue their case and seek to widen their opportunities when the chance is offered” (Sullivan and Abed-Kotob 111). Investigations show that the vast majority of women in Egypt become perfect family planners.
Their work does not deprive them of the opportunities to improve skills, self-confidence, and also to be able to earn money and gain recognition and respect in their communities. Of course, history shows that such attitude to women is not possible to women of Egypt, and numerous feminist activists wanted to achieve these norms for a long time.
But still, the life of Egyptian women improves day by day, and they have enough efforts to find a balance between work, family, and personal desires. Egyptian women perform successfully the roles of nurses, social workers, and teachers, and psychologists, and complete their duties on the same levels as men can do it.
Property rights of women in Egypt deserve certain attention at first. As a rule, women get a chance to receive some land or real property by means of getting gifts or inheritance.
In spite of the fact that women earn money and bring incomes to own families, they can hardly allow themselves buying a house or some other expensive property. Husbands usually leave all their properties to their wives, but women do not have the right to exchange it to something else.
Someone may think that Islamic religion deprives Egyptian women of a chance to be on public without men and without their famous veils. This very point was famous in the past, and it is crucially important to comprehend that the world, we live in, has changed considerably.
As a rule, any Egyptian woman has the right to be in public: she has job and has to perform certain duties, and the presence of veil on women deprive her of the opportunity to communicate with other people and to breath free. The belief about women perfect behavior should be also destroyed because of the existence of female criminals in Egypt.
Women as well as men have all chances to be arrested because of robberies, murders, and even lies. Women can rape or be raped, and be convicted in both cases. Woman can steal, be stolen, and be responsible for such accidents.
On the one hand, such attitude to women shows that Egyptian traditions appreciate women, their rights, and provide them with an excellent chance to do whatever they want and whenever they want.
On the other hand, when women were under male powers, they could not be convinced in any crime because their men were responsible for their actions, women should not take care of family income because men had to care about families only.
Taking into consideration these facts, it becomes clear that there are many pros and cons in both cases, and it is important to be smart enough to use only best points in these cases.
Conclusion
It is frequent for many people to admire Egyptian culture and music (Ahmed 24) and believe that women usually depend on husbands (Badran 204). However, our reality opens new doors, which show how unfair and incorrect human attitude can be to each other.
Egyptian women may serve as good examples of how a group of people was under constant pressure of other groups of people and made successful attempts to prove their rights for living, for earning, for satisfaction.
This is why the role of Egyptian women has to be underlined and described as the one that helps to encourage many people to believe in own powers and rights and be able to prove this to the others.
Works Cited
Ahmed, Leila. A Border Passage: From Cairo to America ‑ A Woman’s Journey. New York: Penguin, 2000
Amin, Qasim. The Liberation of Women and the New Woman: Two Documents in the History of Egyptian Feminism. New York: American University in Cairo Press, 2000
Badran, Margot. Feminists, Islam, and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Sullivan, Denis. J., and Sana Abed-Kotob. Islam in Contemporary Egypt: Civil Society vs. the State. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999.