In February, the Cabinet referred the draft of a new personal status law to parliament following the approval of al-Azhar, the National Council for Women (NCW), and judicial bodies.<a href="#ref_1">[i]</a> There was no public debate of the bill until some of its provisions were published in state-affiliated media outlets. While the proposed law does introduce some positive reforms &mdash;it moves the father&rsquo;s parental custody up to the fourth ranking from the eighteenth, establishes a legal framework to deal with conflicting issues during the engagement period, and affirms visitation rights&mdash;overall, it was a disappointment for the feminist movement, which undermines a century-long struggle to modernize the law to ensure greater rights for women. There are several problematic provisions in the law, most significantly Article 6, which gives a woman&rsquo;s male guardian the right to seek an annulment of her marriage on the grounds of unfitness. The bill thus retains the philosophy that has long undergirded the personal status law, which sees women, regardless of age, education, and life experience, as lacking the competence to manage their personal affairs and those of their children (Elsadda, 2021).&nbsp;
&nbsp;
The bill met with broad opposition that quickly coalesced around several political campaigns, among them the social media initiative &ldquo;My right to guardianship,&rdquo; launched by the Women and Memory Forum. Seeking to change widespread social stigma about women&rsquo;s competence, the campaign called on women to share stories of their experiences with the personal status law.<a href="#ref_2">[i]</a> Within a few days, hundreds of women had responded with personal narratives about their travails with society and Egyptian bureaucracy, detailing the practical effects of their lack of legal guardianship over themselves and their children. Some women could not get married without a male guardian present; others were barred from conducting bank transactions on behalf of their minor children or even enrolling them in school, decisions about education being the exclusive right of fathers. All of them were exhausted by their prolonged battles with society and the courts, and all of them were frustrated by a law that views them as second-class citizens without full legal competency. In preserving men&rsquo;s privileges, the bill ignored all these aspects of women&rsquo;s plight. More importantly, the campaign revealed Egyptian policymakers&rsquo; disregard for women&rsquo;s lived experience in the 21st century and their lack of interest in addressing women&rsquo;s issues in law.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Part of the frustration with the bill stems from its timing. Its release coincides with a wave of feminist activism geared toward ending sexual harassment in Egypt and more broadly changing society&rsquo;s view of women and their place in their public sphere (Wahba, 2021). The state has been more responsive than usual to this wave of activism, showing a willingness to meet some of the movement&rsquo;s demands. Coming in the midst of this engagement, the personal status bill therefore raises questions about the state&rsquo;s real stance on women&rsquo;s issues. More urgently, it raises the question of how policies and laws impacting women&rsquo;s lives are shaped. Who are the main actors in the policymaking process? This essay takes up these questions by looking at the regime&rsquo;s exclusive control of the legislative process and its disregard for decades of feminist activism demanding equality in marriage between men and women. This article is particularly concerned with the internal part of the singular equation of policy-making, through partnership with "State Feminists", while I focus on the external part of ignoring international pressure in forthcoming follow-up to this article.
&nbsp;
Channels of Negotiation between the Feminist Movement and the State&nbsp;
Laws have long been used to subordinate women to society&rsquo;s dictates and its patriarchal values. Since its inception, the Egyptian feminist movement has thus worked to change laws that diminish women&rsquo;s rights (Elsadda, 2019). Because it is the state that shapes policies and passes laws, feminists have had to bargain with state institutions for greater rights, putting the feminist movement into a constant dialogue with the state. Historically, Egyptian post-colonial regimes exploited these channels of dialogue strategically for political gain, alternately using them to contain the feminist organizations demanding change and portray Egypt as a modern state that links women&rsquo;s rights with its international obligations.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Over the past century, the feminist movement has used these channels to lobby for a new personal status law. These efforts resulted in several piecemeal changes to the law, for example the codification of the marriage contract to limit divorce and polygamy with conditions, in particular by giving women the right to break the marriage contract in some cases. More recently, these pressures resulted in giving women the right to dissolve a marriage in exchange for giving up all financial claims according to the so-called Suzanne Mubarak law (khul&rsquo;) (Abdelhady, 2021). These were partial rather than comprehensive reforms of the law due to the fact that negotiations with the state were always dependent on state will, which determined the bounds of &ldquo;acceptable&rdquo; women&rsquo;s rights at its own discretion. Consequently, the State has required negotiations to take place within the framework of the legal acts enacted by the Egyptian legislature in 1920 in imposing the dominance of the religious institution in this area of Egyptian law.
&nbsp;
Although most changes to the personal status law were codified in amendments or separate supplementary laws, they did not stand on firm ground because they were associated with the regime and therefore opposed by some in society for this reason. For example, after the fall of the Mubarak regime in 2011, these gains again became the object of debate, seen as part of the legacy of the toppled regime (Elsadda, 2011). Although they were ultimately not reversed, the opposition they encountered demonstrates the danger of linking women&rsquo;s advances with the agenda of the state and its institutions. The alternative became clear in that moment: As the public sphere opened up after the revolution, independent feminist groups and other civil society organizations capitalized on it to put some women&rsquo;s issues on the public agenda (Boutros, 2017). But these efforts did not result in marked changes to the personal status law, partly because these groups did not center it in their work and partly because opposition political forces adopted a very slim feminist agenda that doesn&rsquo;t include this law. Moreover, the state lacked the political will for change under the rule of the Supreme Council, and even the repressive amendments proposed during the Muslim Brotherhood reign didn&rsquo;t materialize into actual change of the law. The window of opportunity was not long open, and the public sphere was soon severely curtailed through legal bans on demonstrations, which deflated organized action, and an assault on civic associations, which took the form of prosecutions and new laws regulating their operation (Abdelhameed &amp; Naber, 2016).&nbsp;
&nbsp;
State Feminism: Between Feminist Action and State Will
As members of committees and councils overseeing changes to the statutory framework governing women&rsquo;s rights in Egypt, &ldquo;state feminists&rdquo; have always been organically bound to the instruments of state. Like all other political actors, they&nbsp; worked to accommodate the desire for greater women&rsquo;s rights within the narrow framework allowed by the instruments and will of the state. They are thus well aware of the limits and rules of this partnership (Allam, 2019). The NCW&mdash;the principal seat of state feminists since its formation in 2000&mdash;has long acted as a liaison between the feminist movement and the state, championing feminist demands at opportune moments, which resulted in several feminist gains. In its work, the NCW seeks to balance the competing claims of various parties&mdash;the demands of the women&rsquo;s movement, which are the product of feminist organizations&rsquo; and initiatives direct contact with women in society, and waves of international pressure from the UN or international organizations seeking to link women&rsquo;s rights in Egypt with the UN agenda and international conventions signed by Egypt&mdash;with opportunities for state engagement, which reflect the temporary willingness of the state to negotiate changes to women&rsquo;s status with the feminist movement. Through this approach, the state was able to effectively coopt the feminist agenda, accepting some feminist demands at the expense of others.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
In 2011 and 2012, feminist groups sought to escape the grip of state feminism, posing a new model of feminist action in Egypt based on pluralism. With the proliferation of feminist groups and their diverse political leanings, new modes of advocacy emerged, including popular mobilization and political organization. The new model was short-lived. As the margin for expression narrowed, these initiatives were no longer capable of organizing and networking and in turn they found fewer opportunities to influence state policies.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
The shuttering of the public sphere and the marginalization of feminist groups and organizations allowed state feminists, first and foremost the NCW, to return to center stage. But this time they were operating within new parameters. The regime was no longer interested in negotiating with the feminist movement, and policies were no longer responsive to international pressure. Under the new terms of the partnership, the current regime sought to monopolize policymaking on women&rsquo;s issues.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
The terms of this reconstituted partnership may explain the NCW&rsquo;s inability to respond to the popular rejection of the personal status bill, despite the oversight powers it enjoys under Law 30/2018. In my view, however, there is another reason for its impotence: The NCW is wholly divorced from the reality of women&rsquo;s lives in Egypt. With the closure of the public sphere and the sidelining of independent feminist organizations and initiatives, the NCW lost its tether to women&rsquo;s lives and no longer represents them. In contrast, feminist organizations are intimately familiar with women&rsquo;s plight due to the support they offer, including legal services in cases of divorce, khul&rsquo;, alimony, childcare, and other formidable issues must navigate under the personal status law. These organizations understand the weaknesses of the law and are proposing methods to remedy them. In contrast, the NCW has failed to absorb this reality given its current partnership with the regime.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Ultimately the frustration and rejection occasioned by the law in the ranks of the feminist movement are simply a reflection of the crisis of unilateral policymaking by the regime and attempts to dictate the bounds of what is acceptable when it comes to women&rsquo;s rights, particularly in the institution of marriage. Numerous initiatives like &ldquo;My right to guardianship&rdquo; and the campaign for a uniform civil status code are striving to open up alternative negotiating channels, overstepping the framework of the NCW-state partnership. These initiatives rely on narrative and the power of stories&mdash;a frequently used tool in recent feminist activism. Through social media, the feminist movement is striving to take its engagement with the law to a public sphere that has been stifled for years now. The follow-up commentary to this one focuses on the international community's influence on such laws.&nbsp;
------------------------------
<a href="#endref_1">[i]</a>The Cabinet approved the bill on January 20. The minutes of the Cabinet meeting are available at <a href="https://www.cabinet.gov.eg/Meeting/Details/4596?fbclid=IwAR36lLaidM02_GDAidViFx9aP0Jk7D9QvS5Yb57onhMhUGu19vSjSWwbnb8">https://www.cabinet.gov.eg/Meeting/Details/4596?fbclid=IwAR36lLaidM02_GDAidViFx9aP0Jk7D9QvS5Yb57onhMhUGu19vSjSWwbnb8</a>.&nbsp;
<a href="#endref_2">[ii] </a>The Women and Memory Forum is a group of researchers working to change stereotypes of women in mainstream culture in Egypt. See <a href="http://www.wmf.org.eg/">http://www.wmf.org.eg/</a>.
&nbsp;
Image courtsey: Ahram Online
References
Abd El-Hameed, D., &amp; Naber, N. (2016). Attacks on feminists in Egypt: The militarization of the public sphere and accountable solidarity. Feminist Studies, 42 (2), 522.&nbsp;
Abdelhady, A. (2021, February 27). The personal status law: If you wish, wish for the moon [Qanun al-Ahwal al-Shakhsiya: In &lsquo;Ashiqt &lsquo;Ishaq Qamar]. Masr360. https://bit.ly/3lFS7iN. [In Arabic]
Allam, N. (2019). Smoke and mirrors: State-sponsored feminism in post-uprising Egypt. Social Research: An International Quarterly, 86(1), 365&ndash;386.&nbsp;
Boutros, M. (2017). Place and tactical innovation in social movements: The emergence of Egypt&rsquo;s anti-harassment groups. Theoretical Sociology Journal, 46(6), 1029.&nbsp;
Elsadda, H. (2011). Women&rsquo;s rights activism in post-Jan25 Egypt: Combating the shadow of the first lady syndrome in the Arab world. Middle East Law and Governance, 3(1&ndash;2), 84&ndash;93.&nbsp;
Elsadda, H. (2019). Against all odds: A legacy of appropriation, contestation, and negotiation of Arab feminists in postcolonial states. Journal of Feminist Scholarship, 16(4), 53&ndash;64.&nbsp;
Elsadda, H. (2021, March 20). My right to guardianship: The beginning and the significance [al-Wilaya Haqqi: al-Bidaya wa-l-Maghza]. Shorouk. https://bit.ly/3tISwnp. [In Arabic]&nbsp;
Wahba, D. (2020, August 6). A new #feminist_revolution? Dis:orient. https://www.disorient.de/magazin/new-feministrevolution.

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