Under the veil

At Khan il Khalili market

The situation of women in Egypt is every bit under the thumb as I expected and could get worse – more and more seem to be in full hijab which is very weird.

Mohammed Ali Mosque, Cairo

Good to be in Athens where you don’t see the walking tents. But we also saw lots of loving couples and women out smoking in the coffee houses too – plus lots of younger women working, but they tend to stop when they marry except for the elite who do what they like.

Our guide (male, they are all male) had the perspective that men have a very hard life because women “have” to stay at home, so men have to do most of the work, all the women have to do is cook, sew, wash, clean and look after the house, look after the children and of course look after their husband.

This is Angie listening attentively to the Iman…

There was nearly an uprising a couple of decades ago when the govt made a law that a man had to inform his wife if he was divorcing her or taking a second wife. I think the imans are still outraged by this. The whole country is held back by religious conservatism – and can’t improve until the women are free, which will take a revolution.

Al Hussein Mosque, Khan el Khalili, right where the bomb went off recently.

But the mosques are beautiful.
The best books I read on this subject are
Geraldine Brooks, Nine Parts of Desire, eg http://www.islamfortoday.com/9parts.htm
and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel, eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infidel_(book)