Quotes of the Day

Dozens of men scurry around a suburban Cairo art gallery, carrying out the rapid-fire orders issued by a tall, imposing woman in tight black jeans and a cream cashmere sweater. "Everyone out of the way!" barks director Inas El Degheidi, scanning the set to make sure everything is in place for the next scene in Women in Search of Freedom, her film about the harsh lives of female migrant workers. Even in a cosmopolitan hub like Cairo, most Arab men aren't used to being bossed around by a woman, but El Degheidi's confrontational style does not faze her crew; they "are used to my way by now," she says. So are audiences: the veteran Egyptian filmmaker is known for training her camera on problems that male-dominated Arab society tries to keep under wraps — marital infidelity; the sale of child brides; a legal system that's tougher on women accused of adultery than on men. "Issues need to be brought to the surface," the director says, "to create a healthy social dialogue."

Provocative? You bet. El Degheidi, 45, belongs to a rising generation of Arab women who are challenging the conservatism and sexism of the Middle East, where some 90% of the population is Muslim and females are rarely treated as equals. Across the region, these women are using their growing prominence to push for women's rights, and overcoming real obstacles in the process. In Jordan, Queen Rania is lobbying for a progressive agenda — and riling traditionalists (see profile); in Qatar, Sheika Mouza has become the architect of an educational expansion that's giving women new options. And all over the Arab world, savvy, ambitious, effective women in all fields — politics, business, arts, sport — are helping to claim a larger space for women in the public sphere.

The pace of change is faster in more liberal countries, such as Lebanon and Egypt, than in conservative ones like Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. But even where law mandates equality, social customs mean that many women never have the full range of choice in employment and education, or even the option of expanding beyond their traditional roles at home. The 2003 Arab Human Development Report identified the "deficit in women's empowerment" as one of three key impediments to progress in the Arab world. (The other two are deficits in freedom and knowledge.) But change is coming, and as Arab societies slowly, painfully evolve, dynamic women like Queen Rania, Sheika Mouza and El Degheidi are leading the way.

El Degheidi is one of eight children from a conservative, middle-class family: she and her sisters "were restricted in all our comings and goings," she says. "This discrimination must have left some residue," including deep curiosity about gender relations. But probing society's fault lines can be hazardous to one's health. El Degheidi's work has earned her death threats from Islamic militants. Diaries of a Teenage Girl (2001), her look at the sexual awakening of Egyptian youth, had fundamentalists suing to stop distribution. Citing the lack of a legal basis to do so, a Cairo judge dismissed the case, but said he wished for the authority to sentence her to 100 lashes of the whip. "There are people now who want to hush any loud voice with a different opinion," El Degheidi says. Especially if the voice belongs to a woman. Last month, Lubna Olayan, Saudi Arabia's most prominent businesswoman, spoke before a mixed audience at the Jidda Economic Forum without wearing a head scarf, leading Saudi Arabia's top cleric to condemn her "shameful behavior." The topic of her speech: pursuing change while preserving core values. "To progress," Olayan said, "we have no choice but to embrace change." Throughout the Arab world, legions of young women are doing just that, studying at university (more than half of undergraduates in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are female) and preparing for a society in which it's normal for women to be called "doctor" or "entrepreneur" in addition to — and sometimes instead of — "wife" and "mother." But they don't see change as an abandonment of duty. Rather, it means choice. The right to choose, say, whether to veil is as much a part of a woman's emancipation as the right to vote. The veil is no barrier to hijab-wearing leaders like Sheika Mouza; not wearing one is likewise no obstacle to Queen Rania.

While there's a long road ahead to true equality, "this is a special moment," says Sabah Almoayyed, acting ceo of Bahrain's Ahli United Bank, who last year became the first woman to lead the Gulf kingdom's Bankers' Society. "We are helping to build opportunities." As the vanguard knocks down the big hurdles, more and more Arab women — diverse in their ideology, their dreams, their dress — are stepping up, united in the belief that they can do more, and redefining what the Arab woman can become.

One sign of change is the growing public role being seized by the wives of Arab leaders. (No Arab country is ruled by a woman.) The steps may seem small, but in the context of these conservative cultures, they are significant. In 2002, when Bahrain held its first election in over 25 years, Sheika Sabeeka, the King's wife, led a campaign to encourage women to vote. When Morocco's King Mohammed VI wed Salma Bennani that year, he gave her the title Princess; spouses of Morocco's kings had rarely been seen, let alone honored with titles. (The King has also spoken out on women's rights, saying last year, "How can society advance while ... [women] are subjected to injustice, violence and marginalization despite the deference and fairness accorded to them by our true religion?") Syrian President Bashar Assad's wife, Asma, travels with her husband and promotes the cause of microfinance — small loans for entrepreneurial women who would otherwise be unable to obtain credit. Her mother-in-law made just a handful of appearances during the 30-year rule of the current President's father, Hafez.

Women are also a growing presence in official ranks. Last May, shortly after Qataris approved a constitution granting women the right to vote and run for office, the Gulf state got its first female Cabinet member. Tunisia's Cabinet now has six women; Jordan's has three. But "patriarchy is still there," says Jordan's Asma Khader, a women's-rights activist named Minister of State and Government Spokesperson last October. Women hold less than 6% of the region's parliamentary seats (the global average is nearly 16%). The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait bar women from voting or running for parliament. Morocco has the highest rate of female representation — women hold 35 of the 325 seats in the Chamber of Representatives — and reserves 30 seats for women. That the half-female electorate only voted five women into at-large seats shows how hard it is to crack a male-run system. "Women in the Arab world are still operating in male-dominated societies with stale traditions," says Haifa al Kaylani, founder of the Arab International Women's Forum, a networking group. Says Khader: "Women's [political] participation and equal rights are still not accepted by some extremist groups and religious interpretations."

Some governments have defied such dissenters, expanding women's legal rights. Last summer, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak decreed that children born to Egyptian mothers would be considered Egyptian; previously, only fathers passed on citizenship. In January, Moroccan legislators approved King Mohammed VI's reforms of the Moudawana, the country's personal-status code. Women were given the right to ask for divorce, the minimum marriage age for girls rose from 15 to 18 and polygamy was strictly limited.

These reforms are just the beginning. Westerners are often struck by the Saudi ban on women drivers. (Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said at the Jidda forum that if technology had allowed it in the 7th century, the Prophet Muhammad "would have made Saudi Arabia the first automobile-producing nation on earth and put his wife in charge of the business.") But the Arab world's most conservative country has even more egregious rules, such as one requiring a male relative's permission for a woman to study. Women in the region also point to more pervasive cultural practices, such as female circumcision and honor killings (when men restore family "honor" by killing a female relative who has sex outside of wedlock). Jordan's National Assembly has rejected repeated calls from King Abdullah and Queen Rania to repeal Article 340, which mandates leniency for perpetrators of honor killings. The fundamentalist Islamic Action Front, Jordan's largest party, issued a fatwa saying that a repeal would "destroy ... family values by stripping men of their humanity when they surprise their wives or female relatives committing adultery."

That fatwa essentially claims that the promotion of women's rights weakens the fiber of the family and the pre-eminence of Islam, the faith of more than 90% of Arabs. Nonsense, says Morocco's Nadia Yassine — mother of four, grandmother of one, daughter of fundamentalist leader Sheik Abdel- Salam Yassine and, as spokeswoman for his Justice and Charity Party, perhaps the most visible fundamentalist feminist in the Arab world. The diminution of women's rights — not their promotion — is what's anti-Islamic. "Man is almost a god in Arab countries," says Yassine. "We have developed this chauvinistic thinking that men are naturally superior."

Her hair tucked under a tight head scarf and her body cloaked in a flowing robe, Yassine, 45, hardly fits the West's image of a feminist — but neither she nor her more liberal counterparts claim to be Western-style feminists. "I adapted my feminism from Islam, not Western culture," she says. Her inspiration comes partly from Islam's history. Muhammad was "a true feminist," she says. His favorite wife, Aisha, a revered Islamic-law expert, led an army into battle. Discrimination "is a homegrown malady," Yassine says. "We can find solutions derived from our own culture, our own value system."

Perhaps the most potent solution is education. "We have to unveil the Arab woman's mind," says Egyptian activist Nawal El Saadawi. Though half of Arab women still cannot read and 4 million girls are not in school, education rates have risen rapidly across the region. Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and the Palestinian territories have all achieved gender parity — enrollment rates for girls and boys are equal among primary-school-age children. In RoperASW's 2003 values survey, Saudi women ranked learning third, behind only faith and family in importance. In Qatar, where Sheika Mouza, the second of the Emir's three wives, has led a drive to build a world-class education infrastructure boasting branches of Cornell's medical school and Texas A&M's petrochemical college, more than 70% of undergrads are women.

In Kuwait, the numbers are about the same — and girls' desire to perform is so strong that "if we left [admission] to grades, we would have almost 100% girls," says Fayzah al-Kharafi, a chemistry professor at Kuwait University. Al-Kharafi, 57, knows how education can break down barriers. A trailblazer in Arab higher education, she has racked up impressive firsts at K.U. — first woman to get a scientific Ph.D. there; first female science professor; and, in 1993, first woman to lead an Arab-world university when she was named president. She gave up that job in 2002 because she missed the classroom, where she says she can have a bigger role in pushing students to pursue academic excellence. "Education is the bones of the body," she says. "We cannot live without it. It gives more opportunities. Women are prepared for all jobs in society."

But once they have diplomas, can they get those jobs? In Saudi Arabia, women make up 55% of undergraduates, but only 15% of the labor force. Those who venture beyond traditional working-women's sectors like health care and education are greeted by male skepticism. Architect Nadia Bakhurji recalls how hard it was to win funding for her Riyadh firm. Men doubted her trustworthiness, purely due to her gender. "One man said, 'Don't you have a husband? A male figure we can deal with? Between you and me, what if we don't get our money back?'" she says. "They don't have as much faith in you because you're a woman." She pressed on, thinking of her mother, who wed at 14 and never realized her dream of entering politics. "The best she could do was to concentrate on her children," Bakhurji says. "She boosted me. She told me, 'You're a star.'" Her persistence paid off in 1996, when she won the backing of billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud. His willingness to bet on a businesswoman shows an openness that Bakhurji, 36, hopes will soon be the norm. Her generation "will have a knock-on effect" on her son's, she says. "The next generation is going to be far more accustomed to seeing their mothers as work-oriented and high achievers."

Role models matter, agrees Nawal El Moutawakel, who was the only woman on Morocco's Olympic team in 1984, when she won the 400-m hurdles and became the first Arab woman to strike Games gold. Now an International Olympic Committee member, she notes that "it's becoming something very usual" for Arab women to have a medal-winning presence in the male-dominated sports world. El Moutawakel, 41, says her success — and that of athletes who have followed her — has opened doors and minds even for those who will never set foot on an Olympic track. She points to the Run for Fun, a 10-km race she organizes in Casablanca each May, as one symbol of the larger public space now becoming available to women. Last year, 12,000 women — "all sizes, all ages, all dress codes, Olympic champions, members of parliament, grandmothers" — took part. "We don't exclude men; they come to help," says El Moutawakel, laughing. "But I want to push for women to understand the importance of participation."

It's not always easy to get that message to the grassroots, especially when women have not had a real voice in society for so many generations. Trickle-down equalization may not be ideal. But given the starting point in most Arab countries, change "has been top down because it has to be," says Oman's Assilah al-Harthy. She ran her family's construction company until last year, when she became the national oil firm's first female executive. "We need to teach people that they can speak out, that they have a choice," says al-Harthy, 33. "People may not understand the first time or the second time, but they will start asking, 'Why, where, when?'"

It helps if they hear others speaking out. The pan-Arab media — more influential than ever, due in part to the proliferation of the satellite dish, jokingly called the national flower in several countries — has broadened debate through the work of journalists such as Diana Moukalled, editor of Beirut-based Future TV's international news, and the Arab world's only female roving reporter. "The media has a great role to play in putting the spotlight on issues, providing a platform for women and educating people," says Moukalled, 33, producer of about 30 hour-long documentaries on topics such as Taliban-era life in Afghanistan. Her work is sometimes shelved; pro-Saddam sentiments in the region killed a show about Iraq's Kurds, made before the war started last year. "We all know there is censorship," she says. "But so many have made it on air, stirring discussions about important issues." That women are viewing, reading and talking is itself progress. "The lives of Arab women are still not what they should be," Moukalled says, "[but] things are moving forward." Calls for change are getting louder. Last month, 300 Saudi women signed a petition to Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud demanding reform, including more women in government and the relaxation of restrictions on their daily lives.

• JEFF CHU with AMANY RADWAN | CAIRO
• Arab women are breaking out from their traditional role in a male-dominated society