Arab Women’s Activism defies Western Stereotypes of Disempowerment, Submissiveness

In sideline panel events at the 57th Commission on the Status of Women, talk was of working for further transformation in everything from the Egyptian constitution to the safety of women throughout the uprisings

Arab Women Say Time for Saying ‘Spring’ Is Over
By Hajer Naili – WeNews – 14 March, 2013

UNITED NATIONS (WOMENSENEWS)–Egyptian female activists are looking for a better constitution and members of the Syrian opposition are concerned about the violence committed by all sides of that conflict against women.

Worsening violence against women in Tunisia is also troubling.

The long and difficult process of democratization is causing many Arab women to seek new ways to describe what their region–and the women in them–are going through.

They reject the term “Arab Spring” and instead use the words “revolution” and “uprisings.”

“What we have witnessed, you cannot call it an Arab Spring,” said Zahra’ Langhi, a gender specialist and political activist from Libya. “The term was coined in the West and imposed on our reality. Whereas if you say it’s a revolution, an uprising, it means it’s a transformation.”

Last week the 57th Commission on the Status of Women began at U.N. headquarters. Violence against women is the overall theme of this year’s two-week-long event.

Karama, an Egypt-based organization working to end violence against women across the Middle East and North Africa, helped host media panels for Arab women at the conference, in conjunction with Equality Now, the New York-based group advocating for the human rights of women and girls around the world.

Along with Langhi, Mervat Tallawy, president of the Cairo-based National Council for Women, was among those invited to New York to speak.

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