Read this and it got me to wondering.
Hmmmmm........ I wonder how the modern Egyptian woman is at building aquaducts.
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At first glance, men seem to hold all the jobs in the crowded city of Cairo: They drive taxis, direct traffic, and iron clothing in steamy laundry shops. But behind the scenes, a quiet revolution is taking place.
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Record numbers of Egyptian women are holding jobs, and the variety of careers open to them is rising. Women serve as bank CEOs, newspaper editors, university deans, and government ministers. One has been appointed a judge.
In 1996, 18 percent of Egyptian women worked outside the home. By 2004, 31 percent did, according to a
United Nations report. Although there is no single explanation for the increase, experts do see some trends.
Relatively affluent women are marrying later than their mothers did, giving them an additional decade in the working world, says Hania Sholkamy, a professor at the American University of Cairo. Some university departments, such as medicine and humanities, now graduate as many women as men.
But most Egyptian women take jobs "in an effort to escape the cycle of poverty," Ms. Sholkamy says.
Forty-five percent of the country's women are illiterate, which limits their opportunities to low-wage labor. Still, working helps women raise their status at home. Ikram Hasem Hadifa, for example, sells fish to help her husband support their seven children. "We're no longer as we were in the old days, when women just sat at home and had nothing to do," she says. "Whoever can work can change her life."
phthalmologist
Ms. Khater grew up around doctors, including her father and many family friends. So her career choice came easily. After finishing medical school in Cairo, she traveled to the United States to complete a fellowship at the University of Texas.
"Getting ahead in medicine really depends on how clever you are, not your gender," she says. "Some women are achieving so much, but others in society - the conservative religious forces - want to put women back a million years."
