Many Western pundits pointed to the low turnout and the ugly counterprotest as evidence of Egyptian society's lack of support for gender equality. But that's not the case. Egyptian men and women's support for equal legal rights between the sexes, though not unanimous, has steadily climbed over the past six years. Shortly before the protests began, a comfortable majority of both men and women said they supported legal gender parity.
Moreover, Egyptian men and women overwhelmingly support equality in education for boys and girls. Today, Egypt boasts no gender gap in post-secondary education, where men and women compete in all fields of study.
At the same time, most Egyptians also favor a constitution that guarantees freedom of religion and expression.
Many Westerners see a direct contradiction between men and women's thoughts on sharia compliance. For many in the West, and the East alike, sharia is an ossified set of edicts that oppresses women and violates human rights.
However, the vast majority of Egyptians associate the religious legal tradition with something very different. In what looks like an exact reversal of Western assumptions, Gallup found that Egyptian men and women -- in equal numbers -- overwhelmingly associate Islam's judicial tradition with "justice for women," "human rights," and other dimensions of social justice, including protection of minorities.
If most Egyptians understand their faith's sacred law to promote equality, then contrary to conventional wisdom, we might actually expect practicing religious Egyptians to be more in favor of women's rights than their non-practicing compatriots. That is in fact the case -- but only for men. Men who reported attending a religious service in the past week were more likely than men who did not to say they supported equal rights for women (data from 2005). However, women who attended a religious service were as likely as women who did not to favor equal legal rights for women. This suggests that for men, anti-women cultural trends are somewhat mitigated by religious teachings to the contrary. After all, it was Egypt's grand mufti, Ali Gomaa, who declared in an official fatwa (religious legal opinion) that women could serve as judges, even as secular judges rejected the notion. It was also his legal opinion that female genital mutilation was against Islam, despite Egypt's cultural norms which result in the circumcision of the majority of both Muslim and Christian girls.
Put simply, Egyptians seem to see no contradiction between the faith to which they adhere and the democratic ideals to which they aspire. The data also suggests that their desired democratization should not be confused with a push for Westernization.
Egypt tops the region in two things: Egyptians are the most likely to say Muslim progress requires democracy, and the most likely to say Muslim progress requires attachment to spiritual and moral values.
Working out the proper relationship between these two priorities will be the next phase of the revolution.
