As the world celebrates Mother's day this month, Egypt presents different form of appreciation for women by taking away their rights. Six decades ago, women were much more appreciated in the Egyptian society, and it was big shame on men to hit women even if she hit him first.
Now, Egyptian man has lost a great deal of his sophistication that we saw a wild man of the Muslim Brotherhood slapping a woman journalist on the face as he didn't like her shouts or even her look. However, Mervat Moussa, the slapped woman, has refused to surrender and decided to demonstrate next week in the same place.
What this man has done reflects how the Muslim Brotherhood think about women, which was also revealed through a lecture given to family consultants by Osama Yehia Abu Salama, leader in the MB. He said that women have to surrender to man even if the woman got beaten by the husband.
The Muslim Brotherhood had strange reaction to UN document on violence against women, as they announced that wives don't have the right to lodge complaints of marital rape, and husband shouldn't be punished for such rape. It added that the relationship between a husband and his wife is tutelage and not partnership, and only the husband should have the right to make final decisions about wife's travel, work or use of contraceptives. In short, they want to abolition all laws to support women that were passed under the former regime.
According to Ms. Bakinam al-Sharkawy, presidential advisor for Political Affairs and Egypt’s delegate to the UN Commission for Women, Egypt is doing its best to stop all forms of violence against women. However, when she was asked about marital rape in Egypt, she said that Egypt suffers more from sexual harassment in the streets.
In fact, many Egyptians fear for women rights in Egypt. For instance, the government doesn’t agree that women may have the right to lodge complaints of marital rape, as sex according to them is granted for husbands, even against the will of his wife.
However Abu Salama has tried in his lecture to make some balance by calling the husband to be lenient with his wife, he accuses women that they misuse freedom! It seems that women's rights will cause the next clash between the Egyptian government and the international community. The problem is that commitment to women's rights is one of the criteria to receive any international aids.
