Violence Against Women in the United States. Murder: The Leading Cause of Death for Pregnant Women. With Eyes Red from Rage. As we ran from Cairo's Tahrir Square into the side streets, protesters smashed pavements and threw them at the black-clad security troopers in their ill-fitting helmets. I found myself next to a man in a turban and the long-flowing Egyptian gallabiya popular in the countryside. His eyes were literally red with rage. He had uprooted a metal barrier and was smashing it into the paving slabs. As huge sections of paving came free he picked them up with two hands, lifted them over his head, and hurled them, screaming, in the direction of the police.
From among a small group of fellow protesters, a middle-aged woman in a headscarf approached him and tapped him on the shoulder. "Son, we didn't come to harm our own country," she said calmly. The man, sweating and grunting, stared at the woman, then picked up his last slab and lifted it high above his head, ready to smash it down on her. At that point in 2000, Mubarak was the undisputed leader of Egypt. MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images. Revolution signals new dawn for Egypt's women. Many women feel energized by the visible role they played in the revolutionThe Egyptian Center for Women's Rights has had a flood of new membersWomen will no longer suffer sexual harassment in silence, say activists (CNN) -- A couple of days after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, 24-year-old Nawara Belal was driving in Cairo when she was verbally abused by an army officer.
"I got out of my car, opened the door of his car and slapped him in the face," she said. "I realized he wouldn't do anything about it, and it gave me the power to do what I wanted to do to every harasser in my past. "I would never have been able to do that before the revolution. " Belal and many women like her, energized by the visible part they played in the protests that led to Mubarak's fall, feel they no longer have to suffer in silence the sexual harassment that has been part of their lives for so long.
In an oppressive society, people oppress each other. But many women now feel a change in this culture is possible.