The Position of Women in the UAR

Abstract

After I6 years of republican rule in Egypt and the development of the 'socializing' phase in its national history, after the enthusiastic declaration of the right to work, participation in social benefits, and the dignity of woman (who is 'man's equal'), made in the Charter proclaimed on 30 June I962, it is now possible to piece together some of the facts about the woman's world in present-day Egypt, and about its conflicts. Legal and statistical information has proved a helpful source of data for this study, while the local press provides another source, for it is remarkably well informed and frank in its portrayal of the social problems of women. In contrast to the more scholarly studies made by lawyers and economists, it does not reject secondary material, but examines the facts in the light of every-day reality, and describes the attitudes of those involved. From the methodological point of view, it is certainly necessary, whilst surveying these facts, to bear in mind the emotional needs which the weeklies must satisfy, and also the personal position of the writers of the articles. But taken together, the individual cases which they report are a clear index to the diverse social currents of which these cases are merely the indications. Subject to the diverging constraints of a way of life which is still conservative, but sharply aware of her inferior position, the 'modern woman' finds herself today at the point at which two societies, the liberal and the closed, confront each other. 'Westernized', she desires recognition and respect as a human being, economic independence, but she is faced with the traditional and legal institutions of her largely conservative environment. A transformation of customs is not necessarily brought about by political and economic evolution. Traumas are caused by the conflict between the maintenance of surviving structures felt by many