“The appalling assault on Ms. Moussa, a conservative Muslim who wears the Islamic headscarf(*), has finally exposed the myth that the battle for women’s rights in Egypt is between liberals and Islamists. In reality, it is a battle between one camp that uses religion as a tool and another one, equally pious, that wants to detach religion from the political equation.
Mervat Moussa did not head out to the Brotherhood headquarters to reject Islam, or to demand sexual freedom, but to protest the Brotherhood’s arrogant alienation of other political parties and its oppression of political debate. The slap on her face, in a way, symbolized a bigger slap and a sense of betrayal felt by a wide section of society. Egyptians witnessed how their elected Muslim Brotherhood president and his party have opted for domination rather than consensus in their gallop to consolidate their power, and in the process have adopted many of dictator Hosni Mubarak’s policies. Egyptian women were the first to bear the brunt of those policies.”
The Muslim Brotherhood’s treatment of women reveals its agenda for Egypt – The Globe and Mail.
* Knowing a bit abt women wearing a headscarf in Cairo…. I’d say it’s not necessary to wear a hijab to be a conservative there… smthg as a 98% of women I saw in 2008 wore it,
(many unable to take it off, as they told me… “bcos my father and bros would cut my neck off, one after the other!”)
Al-Must'arib (the vocational Mossarab) 
This is so important: these revolutions have been led almost exclusively by men. In the background, half of the country’s populations are facing backlashes. Part of the wider struggle for secularism, crucial to emphasise it.
In the egyptian revolution women have been outstandingly visible…. TOO visible for many men wherever they came from. They have been abused and rejected explicitely by Police, army and salafis and muslim bros but also tacitely by guys on the secular lines. Egyptian society is deeply machist. even those who call for a renovation and secularisation of the country fall in this crap. It’s anthropological, sociological or simply educational, but really… guys there are machists in a vast majority. Those who behave “as westerns do” in terms of respect for our girl’s independence and self-decission are considered “gayish”… and deserve nothing but different grades of disagreement from the rest of society… It’s a generalisation but…. it’s what u will find on a 90% of cases with egyptian guys, religious or not…. sad but true!
So as far as I could see, this revolt started with a girl (a hijabi girl) calling for people to gather in Tahrir and clim for reforms and changes in the country. And for many women has been a first time to feel strong and brave enough as to lead this revolt.