Gameela featured in Newsweek

Gameela was featured in this week's Newsweek Magazine in an article called 'The Women's Revolution.' Find an excerpt of the story below:

A ripple suddenly runs through the crowd. The commotion announces the arrival of Gameela Ismail, a TV presenter turned activist and politician. Ismail is the ex-wife of Ayman Nour, who in 2005 contested the presidency and then served five years in prison on what his supporters say were trumped-up charges of forging party-member signatures. (Ismail also used to work for Newsweek as a Cairo stringer.) While her husband was in jail, Ismail emerged as a leading voice of opposition to the regime—and paid the price. She was harassed, attacked in the media, and banned from work.

Ismail ran for Parliament in the elections of 2010 and was soundly defeated by a businessman affiliated with Mubarak’s National Democratic Party. But, she says, “I didn’t lose because he was a man and I’m a woman. I lost because I was with the opposition and he was with the ruling party. I lost because he had access to the security agencies and to the workers inside the polling station.” The elections were widely condemned as fraudulent, and the Parliament they brought to office was dissolved soon after Mubarak’s ouster.

Today, Ismail is back on TV—and back in politics. This fall she will run for Parliament again, likely as part of a coalition of liberal and left-wing groups. She admits that female candidates face the same problems as always—social prejudice, a lack of party support and funding—but is nonetheless optimistic. The revolution is a lesson for women about what they’re able to accomplish, she says. “We, as women and feminists, failed to get our rights. But we were able to get freedom for the whole of Egyptian society. We did for Egypt what we couldn’t do for ourselves. We were in the front lines of the revolution. And I am so proud—as a woman and a citizen.”

Around her, the slanting afternoon sunshine illuminates the busy, dusty square with its piles of garbage, its jerry-built entertainments, its poor, curious, and cheerful crowds. “If we want to be in a better position, we have to put in the effort,” says Ismail. “I don’t expect the military council to hand out privileges and roles to women. I don’t expect the interim cabinet to come looking for us and ask us to participate. But I’m not waiting for an invitation.”

Read the full article here.