International Women’s Day: My Message From the Jungle

By Deena Sabry

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Happy (belated) International Women’s Day, ladies! How did you spend yours?

I spent mine telling my girlfriends how strong and inspiring they are.

Like every year, I shared every post there is on Facebook and retweeted every tweet about women I came across on Twitter.

I even got a great discount on my gym membership, solely for being a woman in March. I was also told a few restaurants had female-only discounts and some places around town were serving free drinks.

Which is great! Isn’t it? It sure does sound great!

But is it really?

Last Thursday marked the world’s 108th and my 23rd International Women’s Day.

However, my position as a woman has not changed over all those years – not one bit.

I’m still looked down upon by society; I still come in second to men; I still cross the street to avoid passing by a group of men when I’m alone; I’m still scared to walk home by myself at night; sometimes I’m too worried to order an Uber past 10pm; I still get catcalled; I still get harassed and men continue to talk at me.

Whether we choose to compare where we, as women, stand today to a year or five or 10 ago, the end result continues to be the same — nothing. Every year, we talk about

International Women’s Day. Every year women around the world count down to it. Every year, a myriad of international feminist organizations, with UN Women at the forefront, launch campaign after campaign, all in support of women, specifically throughout March.

Some may say the situation in Egypt has been slightly different over the past few months, given the fact that there have been some changes in favor of women.

For the first time in its history, Egypt now has a total of six female ministers; the number of feminist non-governmental organizations (NGOs) continues to rise and new anti-sexual harassment and rape laws were passed down.

Yet, in reality the situation on the ground has not changed and most of us are guilty of celebrating all those initiatives. Or rather hopeful — hopeful that perhaps that new bill or that new social media campaign will play somewhat of a role, regardless of how small, in improving our lives as women.

But we must ask ourselves, is legislation the only aspect women were missing to be regarded as equal to men?

Deep down we all know that passing down a new law is not the definite end of an ongoing problem as long as those who are expected to implement the law continue to be part of the problem at hand — how many of us were harassed by officials?

How many of us saw police officers stand by, watch a girl or a woman get harassed and not utter a single word; turning a blind eye?

Regardless of the number of parliamentary discussions, that may take place or how many pro women laws are passed down, being a woman has always, and continues to be, a hassle everywhere.