The women's movement and the mobilization for legal change in Egypt : a century of personal status law reform

Since the early 20 th Century, Egyptian modernists and feminists have been pushing for reform of the Personal Status Law. The Egyptian Women's Movements have undergone several changes in perspectives and strategies in meeting their most prominent demand, reform of the Personal Status Law. Yet, despite the multitude of strategies adopted for bringing about the reform, the women's movements have never been wholly successful. However, a glimmer of hope began to appear in the 1990s with the re-emergence and spread of the Islamist women's movement in Egypt. Working from within the framework of Islam and the indigenous culture, the women involved have been more successful in engaging the establishment and more conservative elements of society in a legitimate dialogue in the public sphere on the need to reform the Personal Status Law in an attempt to grant more rights for women. Furthermore, it appears that they have succeeded in engaging the often neglected, albeit instrumental, informal public sphere in the debates on the necessity of Personal Status Law reform. After introducing an overview of a century of shifting strategies in women's demand for Personal Status Law reform, this thesis will examine how Islamist, as well as secular, women's groups and individual activists (feminists) have been using alternative channels and the framework of Islam to mobilize toward legal reform. In the process, I will be examining the most recent Personal Status Law reform of 2000 and its significance as a partial outcome of the changing articulation of women's rights by Islamist women activists