Progress Amid Resistance

106 WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICACairo, initiated a major strike in December 2006 in response to the failureof the authorities to deliver long-promised bonuses. The Mahalla strikehad a ripple effect on workers and civil servants across the country. Femaleworkers played a central role in mobilizing strikers and sustaining sit-ins,in which they slept on the factory floor overnight. 51 Hundreds of thousandsof workers have taken part in protests, seriously affecting manufacturingand the textile industry as well as other economic sectors, includingthe civil service and railways.In 2007, civil servants that deal specifically with property-tax accountingprotested their wages, believed to be 10 times less than other tax workers. 52Women comprised a significant proportion of the property-tax workerswho participated in the sit-ins, which were staged in tents outside of governmentbuildings. Female protesters brought their entire families withthem, including infants and toddlers, as well as food, drink, and blanketsto withstand the winter nights. Their goal was to maintain the protest untilthe government heeded their calls for fairer wages, and their participationchanged the face of peaceful protests by drawing in the whole family.The significance of women’s participation and in some cases leadershipin organizing protests and sit-ins against the government is manifold.First, it was women who broke the barrier of fear of brutal reprisals bysecurity forces in a highly authoritarian domestic environment, and this“shamed” the men into also becoming active in demanding their rights.Second, the phenomenon challenged conventional ideas about appropriatemodes of action and expression for women, gender mixing, and proper“spaces for women.” When women were holding public sit-ins, day inand day out, it was difficult to suggest that they live only in the domesticsphere. Finally, women’s roles challenged patriarchal notions of masculinityand gender hierarchies. In some cases, women were nominated by bothmale and female workers to lead protests and communicate their demandsto the government. Male workers did not consider this as underminingtheir masculinity or their male pride.RecommendationsF The government should encourage women’s economic participationthrough measures beyond the offering of microcredit, which—although important—cannot be mainstreamed and applied to womengenerally.