We condemn unconditionally the attacks on women in Egypt.

Women played leading roles in all the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa. Their courage and leadership was unprecedented and unmatched. But now we have women being attacked in the streets in Cairo and told to go home and give birth to presidents and forget about running for president. The new constitution being offered by the new government in Egypt makes clear it sees the president always being a man.

These attacks on women are horrific under any circumstances. But they are even more horrific and nauseating because at least some of the forces carrying out the attacks are people who participated alongside the women in the movement that brought down Mubarak. These attacks and those who are carrying them out have to be condemned and severely opposed.

We need to see the danger this means for the movement. The old regimes are trying to cling to power through divide and rule. In Egypt they are turning the Muslims against the Copts. In Libya they are turning tribe against tribe. In places like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain they are turning Shiite against Sunni and so on. Now here in Egypt we have men attacking women and splitting the movement along gender lines. Not only is this nauseating and unjust in the extreme to see these courageous women attacked by men who think they are superior and who want to dominate and rule over these women. But it is also extremely dangerous for the revolution. These attacks on women will increase division amongst working class and middle class people along gender lines. This will open the door to the old regime and elements of the old regime to hang on and open the door to the reactionary mullahs. The entire movement must condemn these attacks.

It is also nauseous to see the hypocrisy of the US regime and its mouthpiece Hilary Clinton. She criticises the attacks. But her and her class and its representatives have worked with these misogynous regimes all along. As long as the oil kept flowing and the region was stable they did not care about the oppression of women.

A 2008 survey by the Center for Womens Rights in Egypt showed that 83% of women were harassed, 98% of foreign women were harassed and 62% of men admitted to harassing.

Sean.