Workshop teaches Aswan women about feminism

(13 Oct 2017) LEADIN:
A group in Egypt is holding workshops to encourage young Aswan women to learn about feminism.
"A Free Woman from the South" is a women's advocacy group inspired by the revolution.
STORYLINE:
Ayat Osman, a 26-year-old woman from the Upper Egyptian province of Aswan, walks towards her office.
It's the hub of the women's advocacy group she co-founded in her hometown in 2012.
Now she's launching a five-day workshop for young Aswan women to learn about feminism.
Inspired by the revolution, Osman and her friend Nagham Ali found themselves compelled to form a feminist organisation in Aswan.
Their aim was to reverse the tribal and patriarchal nature of their environment by changing women's attitudes about themselves.
Osman says she believes women are more likely to listen to them if the message comes from within:
"As women from the south, we are the most capable of talking about our complex tribal environment. Tribes here would not listen to anyone coming from the outside. So we are telling them we are southern women and we belong to your society and want to say that you have gender-based violence."
Since it was founded, the group has been trying to raise awareness for gender-based violence.
According to Egypt's 2015 Health Issues Survey, Upper Egypt has the highest rate of female genital mutilation in the country.
According to EHIS, 92 percent of women there are circumcised.
Figures from CAPMS, Egypt's Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics, also show that southern women are more prone to domestic violence.
According to official figures, at least 30 percent of married Egyptian women were subjected to spousal abuse in 2014.
Although "A Free Woman from the South" seeks to develop a local discourse they also reach out to Cairo feminists for support.
At their workshop they invite speakers from the capital to talk to their peers about the history of the feminist movement and to deconstruct a lot of gender-based dogma.
Osman believes that Upper Egyptian women have more issues to deal with that their peers in the North.
"In general all women have the same concerns, but women in Upper Egypt still face hurdles which their peers in Cairo might have already overcome," she says.
"Women here still cannot choose their husbands. They cannot interfere with the circumcision of their daughters. They cannot inherit their parents' properties. They cannot even study or work away from their hometown."
The Aswan feminists understand that it will take a long time to reverse their society's patriarchal nature - so they are using their workshops to produce vanguard feminists in the south.
"We will consider it an achievement if we end up, after this workshop, convincing ten young women that they have all the right to make choices, to live the way they want, rather than the way society wants them to and to study whatever they like. We want to make sure that at least these girls will not oppress others the way they have been," says Nagham Ali, co-founder of "A Free Woman from the South".
Alaa Mohamed, a 22-year-old student from Aswan University's medical school, says the workshop has helped prepare her to deal with future female subjugation:
"We, women, face a lot of violence, discrimination and stigma for the mere fact that we are females," she says
"Feminism helps us understand why we face these issues and how to react."

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