What it is like to be a female in the Arab world specifically in Egypt

Being a female in the Arab world is a certificate of slavery to the society and men. As a female you are restrained since childhood even till death. You see your life being planned ahead of you, with no control and very limited choices, and sometimes none at all.

Growing as girl child, you begin to witness the discrimination and restriction and of course that gets more obvious and hard when entering the womanhood. Since starting to understand things around you and the rules begins falling over your head; what you say, the tune of your voice, how you walk, what you wear, whom are you talking to, and even the toys to play with which is usually dolls and kitchen -cause that what they want to turn us into -.  And of course the introduction of us to the domestic tasks and the housework, while your brothers are free to do whatever they want with their time, you are expected to serve everyone just because you are not a boy.

Our childhood and creativity is being blocked by many rules and restrictions that limit our minds. In other cases you are not even allowed an education because you are girl and even if you are you are still restricted to a specific level.

When you are finally in school things starts to be more vivid. As a girl you have to be quite and silent, daring to speak up and discuss things is condemning for you. You shouldn’t be talking to your boy colleagues or people will think you are rude. In the free activity class you will be forced to take domestic economics even if you want something else (don’t know why it is called free activity then). The older you get the more restricted you are as a female and the more cautious and responsible you are not just about your actions, but also the whole society’s. Getting into college is a step not every girl is granted with, from the comments like what will the education do to her (Well it does a lot ) and she is finally will be married what is the point of it anyways. And even us the lucky ones who enrols into college we yet face different challenges to simply study what we want. They would tell you to study something that is suitable for girls (Even education is divided to males and females!). They would tell you not to be an engineer because it is not appropriate for girls, and if you did, specialise in something that would keep you inside on a desk. Don’t get into medicine because it takes lots of study years and a huge effort, and how would you manage being a doctor in your marriage (marriage again, god). And even when you do they would again interfere in your speciality to again choose a girl friendly one. And of course during college and after, there will be questions about when you are getting married. They circulate our whole existence in life about marriage, and oddly they don’t do the same for men even though marriage takes a couple. And that actually is a cause for a very unstable and failed marriages because it is all on one side of the relationship, but that topic is for another time. They kill our ability to fulfil our potential and devastatingly lots of girls fall for that. Now getting married is yet with other struggles. From whom you choose to marry in the first place to the inability to get divorced if you can’t go on anymore in a toxic relationship. From the pressure to get pregnant even if you don’t want or not ready, to the shame if you give birth to a girl not a boy (and the cycle goes on all over again.) And of course to that the domestic violence, abuse, harassment, rape, insulting, beating and all form of dehumanising.

We are suffocated by rules, shame, chains, and restrictions from everyone and about everything. Nothing is easy, the most simple acts and decisions for males is an event for us. The society is incapable of treating us as equal humans. Although not every female faces theses struggles, but she faces one form of it, many or even them all through her life. To every female know that you are fully human, have the same potential and capabilities, should have the will to choose what you want and the freedom to simply lead your life. You are only chained if you give up to their chains.