Country and western singer Tammy Wynette sang that sometimes it’s hard to be a woman. Despite the difficulties of womanhood, the artiste enjoined her female audience to stand by their men. What about the instances when there is no man to stand by?
Women are the principal, or sole, breadwinners in 30 per cent of households nationwide, according to figures from the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS).
Help is at hand for working women who are bringing up families single-handedly. Shady Salem, head of the projects sector at the Tahya Misr (Long Live Egypt) Fund, said in a statement in March this year, “Thanks to a 2017 initiative, small businesses for women have received LE330 million from the Tahya Misr Fund and Nasser Social Bank.”
People who live in Beheira and Damietta, ignore the following question. How many women provincial governors can you name? Most will say none. However, in February 2017, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi appointed the country’s first female governor, Nadia Abdo for Beheira, and in August 2018 Manal Awad Mikhail was appointed for Damietta.
At the top of the executive, in 2013 there were three female ministers. In the current cabinet, there are eight female ministers. The ministries of health, international co-operation, trade and industry, and environment are all led by women.
Even so, parliament’s lacklustre track record in female representation, the quota for women MPs has been introduced, abolished and reinstated.
Intessar el-Saeed, director of the Cairo Foundation for Development and Law, told The Egyptian Gazette that after the 2011 Revolution, the quota was abolished for the 2012 parliament and women’s representation was confined to two per cent.
“However, in the 2015 parliament, a quota was reinstated and the number of female representatives reached 89 seats,” el-Saeed said.
“In the 2020 elections, women won 148 seats, accounting for 25 per cent of the house – the highest in Egypt’s history,” el-Saeed added.
“The presence of women MPs is one guarantee to women’s empowerment,” she added, adding that Egypt has made breakthroughs in gender equality in recent years thanks to genuine political will of the government, which believes that empowering women means empowering the community.
An integral element of women’s empowerment is health. Minister of Health Hala Zayed oversees the presidential Egyptian Women’s Health Initiative that was launched in July 2019, covers all women from the age of 18, educating them in the early detection of non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes and obesity, and raising awareness of reproductive health, family planning and breast cancer.
Last month, Minister Zayed said, about 11 million women had free medical examinations at the start of the initiative.
Such is the progress that has been made in guaranteeing women’s rights and support thanks to efforts by the government that views women’s participation as essential to development.
Indeed, the National Strategy for the Empowerment of Egyptian Women announced by President Sisi in March 2017 has laid envisions that by 2030, “Egyptian women will become active contributors to the achievement of sustainable development in a nation that safeguards their constitutional rights, ensures their full protection, and provides – without discrimination – political, social, and economic opportunities that enable them to develop their capacities and achieve their full potential.”
