What’s really holding Arab women back?
July 10, 2012
Mohamed Morsi’s election as Egypt’s president has prompted widespread fears that women will lose whatever ground they had gained. What’s in store for the future?
By Nina Easton, senior editor-at-large
FORTUNE — The name-brand polling company Gallup wants to upend Western perceptions of women’s status in the Arab world with research concluding that conservative Islam is not what’s preventing their economic gains. The problem,concludes Gallup’s new poll, is a cultural byproduct of men’s high unemployment rates, low education levels, and general dissatisfaction with their lives.
That is a provocative argument, and could lend further credence to a broader case that the U.S. should bolster Egypt’s fledgling democracy and struggling economy by….”