From ‘Women of Egypt’ Facebook page, young Christians protected Muslims at prayer. Image taken by young woman Nevine Zak.iBeyond the Veil| We are getting some stories out of Egypt about the participation of women in the protests. We’ll share them here. Jake Bialer writes for Huffington Post:

This is in a country where women typically don’t have a large public role. Before their last election, Al Jazeera reported that even with election reforms, women would only hold 12 percent of the seats in the Egyptian parliament.

In reality, the situation isn’t very different from America, where women owned 16.3% of seats in Congress and lost seats in the fall 2010 elections. We must look to countries in Latin America where 4 of 14 presidents are women. via AOC

Unlike prior protests, the women this week were relatively free from sexual harassment, writes ABC News.

We reported previously on a 2008 study done by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights showing that 83 percent of all women surveyed had been sexually harassed. In a followup to the report, the Mubarak government distributed 50,000 copies of “Sexual Harassment: Causes and Solutions” to imams nationwide.

The U.S. State Department warned female travelers to Egypt that “Unescorted women are vulnerable to sexual harassment and verbal abuse. The Embassy has received increasing reports over the last several months of foreigners being sexually groped in taxis and in public places.”

In October 2009, we reported that Egyptian women were embracing martial arts, after the October 2006 attacks during the Eid holiday that follows the Holy Month of Ramadan. No one believed the women’s stories until video and pictures appeared on blogs.

During the current protests in Egypt, all reports are that sexual harassment of women has been at a minimum.