Egyptian women have played an unprecedented role in the Arab Spring democratic movement, possibly changing women’s perception about their own rights and role. We question whether these events have translated into better outcomes within Egyptian households. We conjecture that potential changes must have been heterogeneous and depended on the local intensity of protests and women’s participation over 2011-13. We exploit the geographical heterogeneity along these two margins to conduct a double difference analysis using data surrounding the period.We find a significant improvement in women’s final say regarding decisions on health, socialization and household expenditure, as well as a decline in the acceptation of domestic violence and girls’ circumcision, in the regions most affected by the protests. This effect is not due to particular regional patterns or pre-existing trends in empowerment. It is also robust to alternative treatment definitions and confirmed by triple difference estimations. We confront our main interpretation to alternative mechanisms that could have explained this effect.

The Arab Spring seems to represent a new era of emancipation for women in the Arab world. Yet, it remains to be seen whether women will be afforded the opportunity to play substantial roles in the futures of their respective countries, or whether they will be marginalized, secluded and silenced. In this paper, I try to examine and chronicle roles played by Arab women during Arab Spring, the concerns and challenges they face and what strategies women should adopt to ensure their rights, in post-revolutionary periods. The researcher also argues how the new model of young women leaders like Ms. Karman and Asmaa Mahfouz deconstructs the prevalent narratives concerning the representation of Arab women which centers upon notions of women’s sexuality, reductionist interpretations of religion and Orientalist representation of women to justify women’s subordination. Finally, this paper concludes with the fundamental questions which need to be answered and the strategies which should be adopted regarding whether and how Arab women will indeed benefit from the ongoing change in the Middle East.