Women In Egypt Taking Self Defense Classes to Defend Themselves from Harassment by Muslim Men
As Muslims in the West strive to spread Islam, more and more facts about the Muslim world make this unappealing.
CAIRO--The grunts and groans of women stop several men in their tracks and send them jostling for a better glimpse at the window. Inside is a group of people who could not be less pleased to see them: a self-defence class for Egyptian women.
“Your body language has to be strong,” Mary Elsouyem, the teacher, says. “The moment they start trouble, you send a harsh message letting them know that their behaviour is not acceptable.”
Her class, which meets once a week in the upper-class Cairo neighbourhood of Maadi, is one of dozens that has been started across Cairo. Eight other women were learning with The Times: five wore veils, one was a Coptic Christian, another was three months pregnant. All the women said that they faced harassment daily.
“I thought it was so normal for us to take this abuse. We’ve let the men get away with it for too long,” Sarai Khella, 23, who was brought up in central Cairo, said. For years she kept her head down while men hissed and catcalled on the street. . . .
A study conducted by the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights in Cairo reported that nearly 83 per cent of Egyptian women and 98 per cent of foreign women said that they had been sexually harassed in Egypt. More than 62 per cent of men who were surveyed admitted that they had harassed women.
The study found that regardless of what women wore they were still hit upon. Approximately one third were wearing a headscarf and conservative clothing and one fifth were in a full veil and cloak.
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