Global Feminism

Dina Abou El-Soud

Her name isn’t being heralded throughout the streets. She hasn’t reached viral status on the Internet. However, Dina Abou El-Soud has been the at the center of change in Egypt, working hard to for women’s rights in the tumultuous nation.

El-Soud owns and operates her own hostel in Cairo. “Dina’s Hostel” is the only female-owned hostel in the capital.[1] The officials “refused to believe” that Dina was the owner, asking things like “Your father put it in your name?” She has stated repeatedly that the official paperwork to start her hostel was the biggest challenge for the entire process- she experienced things like waiting 30 days just to meet the person giving the final say, waiting outside an office from 10pm to 1am, etc.[2]

She is not just a trailblazer in the business world. When El-Soud noticed that revolutionary coalitions and groups were forming without women, El-Soud took matters into her own hands. El-Soud helped to found the Revolutionary Women’s Coalition to combat the exclusion. She hoped to unify the women’s NGO’s, provide a space for collaboration and a community to support one another.[3]

El-Soud was one of the activists who organized the Million Women March in March of 2011. They claimed that the military government had forgotten the part women had played in the revolts, adhering to the same oppressive status quo for women.[4] The march was sparked after the proposed amendments to Egypt’s constitution were released. Among other things, it prohibited the president from marrying a non-Egyptian, removed the 12% quota for elected female representatives and includes only masculine pronouns when describing presidential duties (implying, although not requiring, that the president must be a man).[5]

As of 2012, what’s concerning for El-Soud was the fact that she heard the country’s judges planned to only allow 10% of the panel revising Egypt’s constitution.[6] After the 12% quota of female representatives had been removed, women went from having 64 guaranteed seats to only winning 5 seats in Parliament.[7] In these post-revolution days, women are more concerned with making sure the gains they experience under Mubarak’s reign don’t disappear. A tactic right now by the Salafists (“conservative Islamists who believe in a strict interpretation of Sharia law and that women should have a limited role in society”) is declaring that such advances the women are attempting to protect are “Suzanne Mubarak’s Laws,” as the name of the former first lady, such claims carry loaded implications.[8]

El-Soud is staying focused on her Revolutionary Women’s Coalition, attempting to build a supportive, encouraging atmosphere in a community where women’s NGOs frequently end up in heated competition rather than cooperation. El-Soud, however, looks on the bright side, “You see them empowering women in parliamentary elections, supporting 60 women to make political campaigns… Now I see that our movement did encourage those people to do something, and this is a good thing.”[9]

 

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