Taa Marbouta, the secret of the Egyptian Women

The year 2017 has been declared by the Egyptian President as the Year of the Egyptian Woman.

Following this declaration, the National Council of Women (NCW) launched an awareness-raising campaign entitled “Taa Marbouta” to promote women’s social, political and economic empowerment in Egypt.

The term Taa Marbouta refers to the additional letter " ة" applied to word endings in Arabic, particularly adjectives, designating them as feminine. The logo of the campaign demonstrates this letter and calligraphically looks like two arms bound together.

The slogan of the campaign, “ Taa Marbouta is the Secret of Your Power”, shows that the designation as "feminine" should no longer be considered an obstacle to achievements.

Taa Marbouta campaign addresses not only women, but the community at large, and seeks to alter how society views women’s roles. The campaign has over 48 million viewers on social media and 12 million viewers on TV.  Recently, the World Bank in the context of the Women Economic Empowerment Study has collaborated with the National Council for Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and USAID to launch three Public Service Announcements (PSAs) to commemorate the Year of Women and advocate for women’s labor force participation #Montega (meaning productive).

The PSAs focus on  Female Labor Force participation with the aim to encourage women to be productive members in the economy following earlier PSAs developed by NCW which addressed gender-based violence and sexual harassment.

The three PSAs build on each other and contain messages to the woman herself (to create a sense of agency) and to society at large (especially men) with a focus on breaking stereotypes.