28 March - 3 April 2002
Issue No.579
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 28 March - 3 April 2002 Issue No.579 |
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Learning to be equal
Shahida El-Baza * reviews gender priorities
The open-door policy, as developed throughout the 1980s and leading to the current economic reform policy (ERSAP), has had a negative impact on poor and vulnerable groups.
As a national policy, it has had a structurally polarising impact on society. Some groups have benefited from the new policies, others lost. The middle classes are breaking up, with the fragments drifting into either of the two factions. Gender access to rights and opportunities is uneven too. Many women have been excluded from the development mainstream. To achieve equality in development, measures to empower all women equally are necessary.
Egyptian women are not a homogeneous category. Tackling gender inequality as a national issue should not mystify socio-economic inequality. Differentiation is based on class affiliation, access to social, economic and political opportunities, and rural-urban disparities. Poverty eradication, therefore, is a top priority. According to a 1987 study led by Karima Korayem, 51.1 per cent of urban households and 47.2 per cent of rural households live below the poverty line. The scarcer the key resources, the less likely women are to have access to them. With inflation, women face problems providing for their families' basic needs. It is becoming even more difficult with increasing male unemployment. Moreover, women now make up 23 to 25 per cent of household heads. Most are illiterate, or have poor education and skills.
Poverty has affected social groups that were not previously among the poor: civil servants and unemployed graduates, especially those with secondary education whose low-income families suffered to educate them in the hope of increasing family income, are now poor. Among these categories, women are the majority.
Social exclusion and limited access to social and economic opportunities lead to "poverty of abilities," which maintains women in the vicious circle of human underdevelopment. Tackling structural poverty from a gender perspective that does not ignore women's needs is therefore a gender priority.
Education is another high priority. In addition to the high rate of illiteracy, the educational system is not conducive to development. Although the education budget has increased in the past few decades, the share spent on each student has declined, owing to increasing enrolment figures related to population growth. In addition, the lion's share of the budget is swallowed by salaries and construction of schools.
While government education is officially free, families incur different forms of fees, in addition to the cost of private lessons. As a result, education has become unaffordable for the poor. Drop-out rates have increased and some families do not send their children to school at all. When a choice is made, preference goes to boys, since girls' future is still seen in marriage. Until then, they can help in household chores or go to work. Most of these very young girls work as domestic servants, a phenomenon which had disappeared in the 1950s and '60s.
Among those who manage to continue their education, the poorest enter commercial, vocational or agricultural schools. On graduating, they have practically no hope of finding a job, since this category features the highest rate of unemployment. Girls usually enter commercial schools, where the quality of education does not qualify them for the labour market. Some work as domestic labourers.
Government education must improve if the regime hopes to produce the labour force necessary for a competitive market, and to enhance poor children's access to education. To bridge the gender gap in enrolment rates, pro-active measures are imperative. Female school-leavers must receive informal education combined with skill training to qualify them for decent jobs.
While employment is a national priority, it should also be a gender priority. The rate of female employment is still much lower than that of males. Government employment, where women enjoyed more equality, has become minimal. Privatisation results in massive lay-offs, and women are the first to go. The private sector generally avoids employing women owing to the social cost of maternity leave and child care. When women are used as cheap labour they are employed on a temporary basis without security or benefits. Yet, due to gender bias, unemployment is treated as a male issue. Significantly, data about the impact of privatisation on women's employment are not available.
As a result of women's diminishing opportunities in the formal sector, many have resorted to the informal sector, which provides no legal or social protection.
Women in agriculture have also suffered from liberalisation, which has hiked up the cost of inputs. Women with small landholdings or tenancies were obliged to leave the land and seek agricultural wage labour, where they earn far less than men. Exploited migrant seasonal labourers have reappeared in the rural areas, many of them women and children.
Duality has permeated health care as well. Government hospitals provide very poor services. Patients must provide most of their own medication. Health care for women focuses on reproductive health, mainly related to family planning. For other problems they are stuck with low-quality public hospitals, if they can afford to go to hospital at all.
Although women secured political rights half a century ago, and have occasionally reached high posts in government and parliament, men still control policy. As a result, public policies do not take into consideration the different needs of men and women. Women's position is still structurally the same, due to a lack of gender awareness. Gender-aware women will be able to help formulate gender-sensitive public policies, which, in turn, will place women in the mainstream of the development process.
Participation in civil society is an effective tool for women's empowerment, both as activists and beneficiaries. The promotional NGOs now occupying centre stage, however, help beneficiaries without enabling them to participate in decision making and management. More effective grass-root NGOs help women organise themselves, determine their objectives, economic and otherwise, and teach them to make decisions concerning their private and public lives in a more democratic way. Women must become active agents for social change before a dynamic women's social movement can come into being, let alone transcend the existing elitist women's NGOs, however honourable their intentions.
* The writer is a political economist.
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