Raising Their Voices

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.