International Women's Day

The International Women’s Day is a reminder of gender equality. Sadly, the majority of world societies have failed to achieve such goal.

In general women are still discriminated against and are not equally treated with men, even in the USA.

The Arab world is not different. Women are left behind despite the fact that Islam does not differentiate between men and women, as it is apparent in some Qur’anic verses.

Recently, the Egyptian Census Department (February 2017) revealed the recent result which depict the total number of Egyptian living in Egypt. It was estimated at 91 million people, of which 51% are women, and 49% are men. Furthermore, the survey states that 33% of women are illiterate, while 17.3% of men are illiterate. Hence, this demonstrates that more than half of the Egyptian population cannot read or write.

The percentage of families headed by women is 18.1%, and 27.3% are economically supported by women, despite the fact that only 22.5% of women are employed.

Religion is not the reason for the gender inequality in Egypt, but rather tradition and culture which is the cause for this inequality. Actually, Islam as a religion, does not differentiate between gender.