Al Ahram reports that a women’s demonstration has been planned for Thursday to coincide with International Women’s Day, in downtown Cairo. Organizers are expected to provide parliamentary leaders with 100 suggested names of prominent female Egyptian figures for inclusion in a constituent assembly that will be mandated with drawing up a new constitution.
Despite the notable female role in last year’s revolution, women have hardly been represented politically. They fear that the constituent assembly, members of which will be chosen by March 24, will lack adequate female representation.
After Mubarak’s ouster, a quota for female MPs was cancelled by Egypt’s ruling military council and replaced with a law obliging competing political parties to include at least one woman per electoral party list. This led to most parties including women at the very bottom of their electoral lists, however, which badly hurt their electoral prospects.