Discovering MENA and other thoughts

Women are not only half of a society but its mainstay. They bear its children and they raise its generations. Together with Tunisia, Syria was one of the countries in which women were allowed a limited margin of freedom and benefited from a more advanced social status than their brethren throughout the Arab world. One example was the wife of Bashar Al-Assad, known worldwide for her stylish and elegant attitude, a symbol of the will of the regime to appear as a civil and secular state. Their situation was, of course, far from what Western women are familiar with, as most of them were subject to the tyranny of a culture dominated by men. The civil war represented however a turning point in this evolution. And, when violence broke out in Syria, women were the first victims, seeing themselves subject to the whims of extremists both in the rebel-side and in the regime. 

It is not a secret that life for women in Egypt is not always easy. Most of the times ignored by authorities and politicians, whichever their background, sexual harassment is beyond doubt one of the most serious problems the country faces nowadays. A problem whose roots are difficult to determine, but which has for years represented both a taboo and a gangrenous wound for Egyptian society. An issue that many remarkable organizations such as Tahrir Bodyguard or Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault have been raising awareness about for years, but that has only been really discovered by the West after the 25 January Revolution. It was precisely a film that also people around the world to understand the gravity of this scourge.