Progress Amid Resistance

★•egyptby Mariz TadrosPOPULATION: 78,629,000GNI PER CAPITA: US$1,788COUNTRY RATINGS 2004 2009NONDISCRIMINATION AND ACCESS TO JUSTICE: 2.8 3.0AUTONOMY, SECURITY, AND FREEDOM OF THE PERSON: 2.8 2.9ECONOMIC RIGHTS AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY: 2.8 2.9POLITICAL RIGHTS AND CIVIC VOICE: 2.7 2.7SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS: 2.4 2.6(COUNTRY RATINGS ARE BASED ON A SCALE OF 1 TO 5, WITH 1 REPRESENTING THE LOWEST AND 5 THEHIGHEST LEVEL OF FREEDOM WOMEN HAVE TO EXERCISE THEIR RIGHTS)INTRODUCTIONOver the past decade, women in Egypt have made great strides in addressingdiscriminatory laws. The country’s personal status legislation, whichhad been a source of gender discrimination since its inception in the1920s, has undergone reform, especially with respect to its procedural elements.Legal prohibitions preventing women’s equal access to and representationin the judiciary have been lifted, and social taboos that haverestricted their access to certain professions have been broken. At the sametime, increasing poverty and hardship have taken their toll on women andtheir families, limiting their choices and reducing their opportunities toas sert their rights. Rising social conservatism with respect to gender rolesand increasing deprivation could ultimately undermine women’s ability totranslate legal rights into lived realities.Egypt is a republic, led by a president who serves as head of state and aprime minister who is the head of government. The legislative branch consistsof the mostly elected People’s Assembly (Majlis al-Sha’b) and the partiallyelected Consultative Council (Majlis al-Shura). Hosni Mubarak hasbeen the president since the 1981 assassination of his predecessor, Anwaral-Sadat. He has maintained an authoritarian regime, with sweeping powerslegitimized through an emergency law that has been in effect since89