By John R. Bradley

A few weeks after Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak was deposed, a small women’s rights group held a demonstration in Cairo’s Tahrir square to mark International Women’s Day.
Or at least they tried to. Inspired by the 18 days of largely secular mass demonstrations during which women had fought alongside men on the front lines, the organizers had called for a million-woman march. Their goal: to ensure that the revolutionaries whom they anticipated would soon be taking control of the reins of power would put female emancipation at the heart of their reform agenda.

A few dozen women turned out and the demonstration proved to be an ominously brief and sordid affair. For even these mostly veiled women were not safe from sections of the Tahrir mob, who quickly turned angry and violent. They screamed insults at the women, sexually assaulted some of them, and informed them – in addition to any hovering journalists who cared to listen – that their proper place was in the home washing dishes and taking care of their children and menfolk.

Other female demonstrators were also reportedly sexually assaulted and tortured after they were arrested by the Egyptian military, who it turned out would be handing over the reins of power to no one anytime soon. A number were even given “virginity tests” to prove they were promiscuous and thereafter present them as completely beyond the pale for most conservative-minded Egyptians.

Shocked feminist activists, usually from the English-speaking elite, then told international media with a heavy sigh that a revolution that failed to advance the rights and security of half the population was no revolution at all. It is now clearer than ever that they were correct. Nor by any stretch of the imagination could such a revolution be rationally described as liberal and freedom-loving.

Indeed, a year after the birth of the so-called “Arab Spring,” the aborted women’s rights demonstration in Tahrir square could be taken as symbolizing Egyptian liberals’ broken dreams of creating a secular, and by default a more pro-women’s rights, society. By extension, the triumph of political Islamism in Egypt and throughout the Middle East means that, if anything, women’s rights are under threat as never before.

For all but the starry-eyed, of course, there was never likely to be any other outcome – as a quick glance at unfolding events in the Arab world’s most secular country, Tunisia, should have made clear. From independence in 1956 until its Jasmine revolution, Tunisia had been the most pro-women’s rights country in the history of the Islamic world. Polygamy was outlawed; the veil was banned in government institutions and severely discouraged elsewhere; abortion was made legal on demand; the country initiated the most advanced family-planning campaign the Third World had ever seen; and even prostitution was regulated and legalized in the belief that it was the best way to protect the women who worked in the profession.

A year on, the red-light districts have been firebombed and closed, there have been mass demonstrations calling for all women to be veiled, universities have been evacuated because of sit-ins by activists demanding that fully veiled students be admitted to segregated classes, and unveiled female professors of religion have been hounded off campuses. Meanwhile, the veil is back with a vengeance, with bearded zealots prowling the streets and castigating women refusing to cover themselves for their alleged lack of modesty and respect for Islamist norms.

The question of women’s rights cannot be divorced from broader social trends, and in the Arab world that means the coming dominance of political Islam. In Tunisia as in Egypt and Morocco, Islamists have trounced their liberal opponents in elections; in Libya all laws that contravene Shariah have been abolished and polygamy has been legalized; and in Yemen the Saudi-backed Islamist party Islah, along with its powerful ally the Hashed tribal confederation, will likewise fill the vacuum after President Ali Abdullah Saleh era finally ends. In Syria, the only secular Arab country left, the Muslim Brotherhood and more radical Islamist militias are waiting in the wings.

As Islamist parties throughout the Arab world, bankrolled by Persian Gulf monarchies, continue to entrench themselves in the political arenas while Islamizing society from below, the space left for secular-minded liberals will become ever-more scarce. We can certainly take for granted that International Women’s Day next month will draw even fewer women onto the streets than it did last year, and provoke an even more intolerant reaction from the bigots where it actually is observed.

John R. Bradley is the author of “Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution” (2008) and, most recently, “After the Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked the Middle East Revolts” (2012). This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter.