At altmuslim, Raouf Ebeid asks why, “when we see more progressive attitudes about women emerging in the presumably more conservative Gulf countries, do we see the opposite trend in countries like Egypt, whose capital Cairo was once considered ‘Paris on the Nile’?” 
Such counter-intuitive developments, Ebeid continues, can be chalked up to the differing economic trajectories of Middle Eastern states, as well as, relatedly, to the varying degrees of emphasis placed by their respective governments on education:
Although there is little doubt that wealth, or the lack thereof, is contributing to the diverging trends in the region, it does not fully explain why we do not see the regressive trends in Egypt manifest in other Arab countries like Syria, Jordan or Morocco, which also lack the Gulf’s wealth. The trends in Egypt are in part the result of an inferior educational system, at all levels. For the past 30 years, Egypt has invested little in its education system and managed it poorly through an endemically corrupt and inefficient centralised system.
It is too early to decide if either of these trends on the status of women in the Middle East will continue. What is certain, however, is that the divergent developments we are seeing today are as much a function of economic, educational and social factors as religious ones. It is therefore imperative for the United States and the West in general to understand the changes taking place and to support institutions that encourage further emancipation of women and discourage the counter-trends in countries like Egypt.
Continue reading at altmuslim.