Egypt’s Leading Female Voice for Change Warns That Revolution Is Backsliding
Egypt’s Leading Female Voice for Change Warns That Revolution Is Backsliding
Years from now, when scholars and historians debate the beginnings of the uprisings that rocked Egypt and the entire Middle East in 2011, one woman will likely figure prominently: Dalia Ziada, an ebullient Egyptian woman, civil society activist, and prolific blogger.
Ms. Ziada is one of a growing number of women activists in a movement that some have called “The Pink Hijab.” The wave of uprisings that roiled politics and upended dictatorships from Tunisia, to Egypt, to Yemen has featured female activists at its forefront in a way that was previously unthinkable in male-dominated Muslim societies. Her work in particular has garnered accolades: Newsweek magazine called her one of the world’s most influential women, while CNN dubbed her one of the Arab world’s eight “Agents of Change.”
“I don’t believe our revolution will succeed until one day we will have a woman president. I don’t believe there can be a democracy unless women are properly in power,” she said in a speech at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Medford, Mass., yesterday.