January 29, 2012

Arab Women Make Inroads in Higher Education but Often Find Dead Ends

Arab Women Make Inroads in Higher Education, but Often Find Dead Ends 1

Thomas Hartwell for The Chronicle

Omaima Abou-Bakr (standing), a professor at Cairo U., talks with research assistants at the Women and Memory Forum, a group she helped found to introduce women's issues into the higher-education curriculum.

By Ursula Lindsey

Cairo

Much has changed since Omaima Abou-Bakr was an undergraduate at Cairo University in the mid-1970s. "I was in that generation when it was unthinkable for women to stay unmarried," she says. "It was the natural thing that by the fourth year of undergraduate studies, you were already engaged."

Today, after pursuing graduate degrees in the United States, Ms. Abou-Bakr is a professor of English and comparative literature at her Egyptian alma mater. Women make up almost half of the

Print Subscription

Digital Subscription

Already have an account? Log In Now.