Building on an earlier story about women in Tanzania being blamed for tempting men into having unprotected sex by wearing clothes considered to be inappropriate by men, the CS Monitor brings us similar examples of blaming women for their own oppression, this time in Egypt. The article provides a valuable insight into the abuses of women in Egypt.
"Female victims of sexual harassment and assault in Egypt are usually blamed for somehow bringing the abuse on themselves," says Justin D. Martin, the article's author and a professor in Cairo, "A related falsehood is the notion that Egyptian women are overly sexual beings who must be constrained."
Nearly two-thirds of Egyptian men admitted to sexually harassing women – and half blamed the women themselves, a survey found in 2008, while nearly 80 percent of Egyptian boys and men aged 15-29 years agreed that a woman who is harassed deserves it if she had dressed provocatively.
This isn't really news in Egypt, where women's rights are very low on the agenda and where nearly all Egyptian women have been subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM), which involves clitoral removal or other forms of cutting. Egypt’s health ministry announced a complete ban on the practice in 2007 but the procedure continues to be performed on teenagers and children, sometimes with little or no anesthesia.
Underpinning FGM, sexual harassment and other abuses of women in Egypt (and elsewhere in the world?) is a belief amongst men in the uncontrollable sexual impulsivity of women, says Dr Martin - talk about the pot and the kettle discussing colour schemes.
So the conclusions to be drawn here? We're to blame for our own oppression, we're to blame for every badly behaved child you ever have or ever will encounter, we're to blame for the behaviour of men, we're to blame for our own bad behaviour (though if we do well at something, you can bet we got unfair help from somewhere), and before I forget, we cause earthquakes, too.
