On March 31, 1776, future First Lady Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John Adams, who was soon to be appointed a member of the committee drafting the Declaration of Independence:
“… In the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I would desire you would Remember the Ladies. … Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. … If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies, we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”
This declaration by Abigail Adams (cleverly appropriating the language of the American Revolution by the way), over 225 years ago, should give some perspective regarding the challenges that many post-uprising countries face in the aftermath of their respective revolutions.
Women played an essential role in the Arab uprisings that swept the Middle East and North Africa all through last year. Yet, in places such as Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, those contributions seem to have had little or no effect as they see their rights marginalized and sacrificed.
Arab spring or Arab winter for women’s rights
For example, in Egypt, an attempt to render women all but nonessential in power-sharing has been taking place. Only men were appointed to draft an interim constitution after the military council took control last year. The 64-seat quota for women’s representation in parliament was abolished, and many say no effort is made by any party or liberal groups to prioritize women’s issues.
In the Egyptian elections, 11 out of the 508 elected body were women. Four of those women had to be appointed. Only seven were actually elected.
At the ceremony marking Libya’s official liberation in October 2011, one of the first announcements from Mustafa Abdel Jalil, leader of Libya’s National Transitional Council, was that any laws that contradicted Sharia would be annulled. He specifically mentioned that, going forward, polygamy would be legal as well. Granted, polygamy was technically legal under Gadhafi, it was discouraged and today is not practiced widely in Libya, but that could change.
And just as Egypt’s quota system for female representation was squashed, in other emerging post-Arab Spring democracies, there are signs of regression. Libya’s new electoral law contains no such quota as well, an International Federation of Human Rights report notes, while a Moroccan law adopted in October 2011 established a quota of only 15 percent and Tunisia’s 41-member government contains only 3 women.
Overlooked extremist elements in the revolutions
In addition to these new political realities are the still, quite unjust social ones.
On March 8, 2011, a demonstration on International Women’s Day attracted a few hundred women but was tainted by angry men shoving the protesters and yelling at them to go home, saying their demands for rights were against Islam. Around the same time, the Egyptian military rounded up a great number of women demonstrators and (what can only be construed as an attempt to humiliate and intimidate) subjected many of them to “virginity tests.”
Something that was all but ignored by Western media was the extremist elements involved in some of the Arab revolutions.
The focus last fall out of Cairo was the Muslim Brotherhood’s triumph in parliamentary elections, as the Brotherhood-affiliated party took 37 percent of the popular vote. The real news was made by the more extreme Nour Party, which is affiliated with Egypt’s Salafists.
Salafists, who believe in a very strict interpretation of Islam and appear to be extremely disinclined to women’s rights, took almost 25 percent of the popular vote. During the uprising in Libya, because the West was entirely infected by ABGS (Anyone But Gadhafi Syndrome), extremist elements were also ignored.
Virtually unobserved was the reality that in eastern Libya, al-Qaida, its affiliate al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and other Islamist extremist groups are operating there; and “the government doesn’t have anything approaching control” in the eastern portion of the country. None of these groups can be seriously called fans of female empowerment or progress.
So one can see that the uprisings have succeeded in uprooting entrenched, authoritarian and long-standing dictatorships, and yet, because of the extremist leanings of many of the groups that have stepped into those power vacuums, women’s rights are particularly at-risk.
Arab women not monolithic in viewpoints
Granted, Arab women are not entirely opposed to Islamic law playing some role in a country’s governance. In a Gallup poll from June of this year, a majority of women and men across countries experiencing political upheaval do want some level of religious influence in law, though people’s views of the specific role for Sharia vary widely from one country to another.
According to this same poll, women in post-revolution nations who believe that Sharia should be the only source for new legislation shapes up like this:
Egypt – 44 percent
Syria – 15 percent
Libya – 32 percent
Tunisia – 18 percent
Yemen – 58 percent
An interesting side story — that seems to run counter to what many believe is the thinking of those in Islamic countries — is that within this survey, those who didn’t view religion as important were less inclined to believe that women should have the right to initiate a divorce than those who believed religion is important (41 percent vs. 69 percent).
What we can deduce from these findings is that it would be ill-advised to surmise, as many in the U.S. and other Western countries seem so willing to do, that women, as a whole, in countries impacted by revolution are totally at odds with Islam. In particular, Egypt, Libya and Yemen show a significant number of women support a system of law that many women’s organizations view as being extremely repressive to females.
What the numbers also tell us, however, is that, by-and-large (and significant numbers aside), a majority of women in these countries do not support Sharia being the only authority by which their societies should be ruled (Yemen being the only exception).
These voices of female dissent have not been stilled by the reactionary forces that seemed poised to retract rather than expand their rights, even though the challenges are daunting.
The difficulties and duplicities of democracy
According to a Democracy Digest article from Sept. 20:
Women start from a low baseline in the Middle East and North Africa, which has lagged by Europe and North America, and even Asia, in getting their foot into the doors of parliament and the presidential palace. The Inter-Parliamentary Union figures show that women account for just 11.3 percent of lawmakers on average in the Arab World, compared with 22.6 percent in Europe and America. In Asia, they occupy 18.3 percent and in sub-Saharan Africa 20.8 percent.
Yet, before we climb up on our moral high horses and look down our seemingly-superior noses at this region, let’s remember America and its sometimes faltering steps toward democracy for ALL of its citizens.
It wasn’t until 1920, a full 133 years after the Constitution was adopted, that women received the right to vote in this country. It took a Revolutionary and Civil War, three amendments to the Constitution, a Civil Rights Movement, a Supreme Court Decision and two laws passed by Congress (the Voting and Civil Rights Acts) for blacks to approach anything resembling equality.
Conclusion
As you can see, we are far from guiltless in this whole denial of rights thing. So Abigail Adams’ words become all the more prescient for us today as we reflect on our sisters in the struggle from Tunisia to Iran. Why should they be beholden to laws in which they had no voice or no (or inadequate) representation?
Women’s organizations and groups across the region headed and led by Arab and Muslim women are still pushing and striving for their equal and rightful place at the table in their respective societies.
Their movement is now linked to all the movements (across the globe and across history) that came before or will follow after. No matter where we are on this terrestrial ball, they are our sisters and wives; they are our mothers and our daughters. They were on the streets standing and marching, side by side with their brothers, for democracy in Tripoli and Tehran; in Tahrir and Tunis.
Will we, dear reader, remember the ladies?