Aliaa Ismail '14 has been named among Apollo's 40 Under 40 for Art & Tech, which annually highlights young professionals for their pioneering work at the crossroads of art and technology.

Holding a Bachelor of Science in architectural engineering and a Bachelor of Arts in Egyptology from AUC, Ismail is an Egyptologist, director of the Theban Necropolis Preservation Initiative and director of the 3D Scanning, Training and Archiving Centre at Luxor's Stoppelaere House. She produces large-scale 3D scans in the Valley of the Kings and is currently working on the Tomb of Seti I. "Every day we start work at 5:30 am. My team and I head into the tomb and I make sure everything is running smoothly and fix any problems that pop up," she said.

Ismail is also responsible for training team members, coordinating with the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and communicating with the media and Factum Foundation, a not-for-profit conservation organization in Madrid.

Her work, which has been featured in National Geographic's “Lost Treasures of Egypt" and "Secrets of Egypt’s Valley of the Kings,” aims to offer the public access to archaeological and historical sites while simultaneously protecting and preserving them from further damage. 

"The Theban Necropolis Preservation Initiative is all about digital heritage preservation for future generations. We work to digitally preserve all the Theban tombs at the highest possible resolution by taking 3D scans of their walls," she explained. "This ambitious project also aims to transfer the knowledge of 3D scanning to the local community in Luxor and so far, we have been doing so effectively. I am working on site with an all-Egyptian team, whom I have trained myself."

Ismail has been managing this project since it began in 2016. Its timeline includes four working years (2016 and 2019-2021).

The young Egyptologist was also selected to take part in an exclusive panel discussion titled "Future-Proofing the Past," which took place on September 27 and focused on using technology in the preservation of artifacts.  

"I am delighted and proud that Aliaa is being featured in this prestigious list and has been chosen to be one of the very few panel discussants for an online event," said Salima Ikram (YAB ’86), distinguished University professor of Egyptology and international archaeologist. "Aliaa has combined Egyptology, architecture, and technology in her career, and her work is a superb example of a successful marriage between the humanities and sciences that advances and furthers art, history and technology."

Ismail herself was also pleased, especially as she was not aware of her nomination. "Honestly, it feels great to be nominated and chosen. This achievement brings me great honor," she said.

As of July 2021, John Meloy became AUC’s new dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. He earned his PhD in history from the University of Chicago and has a track record of academic achievements, including a record of research and publication in Islamic history, with a specialization in the Mamluk era.  

Furthermore, previously serving as chair of the Department of History and Archeology, associate dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and director of the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut, Meloy brings with him years of exemplary higher education experience to AUC.

Why did you decide to join AUC?

There was a convergence of factors, but mainly my decision was driven by the opportunity to contribute to AUC and to live in Egypt again.

You have extensive experience at higher education institutions, such as AUB, along with your research expertise. How will you build on this experience during your time at AUC?

I believe my experience in Beirut will help in my work here in Cairo, but I also recognize that each of these two institutions is unique. The real challenge, I think, is to be creative and collaborative in achieving our goals.

What is your vision as dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences?

My vision reflects the school’s vision statement: excellence in teaching, research and creative expression. Given the diversity of disciplines within HUSS, we are well-positioned to serve as the nexus of the local and the global in manifold ways.

What is your plan to further strengthen the visibility of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences?

Strengthening visibility is a never-ending project, achieved through publicizing faculty and student achievements and, whenever possible, extending what we do to the broader public. 

The critical skills our students acquire from our various disciplines give them the means to continue learning after they graduate. It’s not so much teaching them what they need to know now, but rather teaching them how to figure out what they need to know and giving them the skills and traits to teach themselves: sharpening critical thinking, cultivating curiosity and creativity, fostering individual and social awareness, and strengthening effective communication. 

Lifelong learning is the only way to prepare for the future.

What are your priorities during this coming year?

My priority are the people in HUSS. 

I hope to ensure that the faculty have the support they need to achieve their scholarly objectives, the students are getting the most out of their education, and our curriculum gives them the best possible springboard for their success.

Some fun facts: 

Favorite book?

Favorite of all time?  That’s a tough one. I’m usually pleased with whatever I’m reading now, which tends to be different things at once.  Vikram Seth’s Two Lives, which I found on an open bookshelf in the faculty housing, offers an intimate portrait of two quite different lives joined in the middle of the 20th century. 

Since coming to Cairo, after not living here for a long time, I’ve become interested in the extensive growth of the city, so I’ve turned to David Sims’ Egypt’s Desert Dreams, and Yahia Shawkat’s Egypt’s Housing Crisis is next on the list. A shoutout to AUC Press!

Favorite music?

My tastes are eclectic: Bach, Brubeck, BB King, the Beatles. Other letters of the alphabet are acceptable too.

Favorite activity? 

 Swimming.

Favorite Egyptian food?

 I wouldn’t mind eating a ta’amiya sandwich now.

Your hero/role model?

 All the great teachers I’ve had.

Greatest inspiration?

People who are great researchers and teachers.

Something not a lot of people know about you? 

A memorable spring break in college was spending a week on a Greyhound bus riding across the United States.

Best accomplishment?

Maybe not the best, but an accomplishment, is that Greyhound bus riding across the United States.

What problem do you wish to solve in the world? 

Wow. Where to start? 

AUC's alumni left their mark at Egypt's Entrepreneur Awards, taking home a number of awards. The event is held to honor the country's brightest entrepreneurs. You can find the full list of awardees here. 

 

Best Egyptian Product: Salah El-Dardir '12

CLEO Pharmaceutical Industries 

 

FIntech: Omar Abdelwahed '16

Valify

 

Food and Beverage - Fast Casual: Sameh El-Sadat '05, Tarek El Nazer '06, Basel Mashhour '04

TBS Holding Ltd.

 

Food and Beverage - Fine Dining: Ayman Baky '96

Baky Hospitality Group LLC

 

General Tech Services: Tarek Bakry '02

zVendo

 

Media and Advertising: Dina Aly '04

Matter

 

Next Generation Family Intrapreneur of the Year: Shahira Diab '98

La Poire

 

Tourism: Youssef Fayez '04

Les Concierges Egypt

 

Transportation and Logistics: Omar Hagrass '10

Trella

 

UN Sustainable Development Goals - Environmental Sustainability: Yaseen Abdel-Ghaffar '09

SolarizEgypt

At its recent meeting, AUC's Board of Trustees approved the tenure of Assistant Professors Rania Samir, management; Nesrin Badawi political science; and Diaa Noureldin, economics. 

 

"Professors Rania, Diaa and Nisreen are all prime examples of AUC's commitment to excellence, and it  is a privilege to count them among our most dedicated faculty members. I am delighted to know that they will be educating AUC students for years to come while carrying out impactful and pioneering research. AUC continues to be fully committed to tenuring excellent faculty," said

Provost Ehab Abdel Rahman.

Samir has taught at AUC for 12 years, with the first four years being an adjunct faculty member.

"It is a great achievement that I have been working hard for during the past eight years," Samir said. "It will give me the drive to excel more in the different facets of work — teaching, research and service work."

Teaching in the Department of Management, her research interests include internet marketing, social media and innovation adoption. She has published a book on the Adoption of Web-based Marketing in the travel industry with Lambert Academic Publishing in 2011.

"AUC is a competitive environment that requires continuous self enhancement," she added. 

For Badawi, who teaches public and international law, tenure is a part of doing something she cherishes. 

"With tenure becoming a scarce commodity, particularly for mother academics, I feel extremely privileged and rewarded for a career that has been my passion for the past decade," she said. 

She has been teaching at AUC since 2010, and going into the next phase of her career, she intends to focus on examining the scope of judicial discretion and its impact on public life in Egypt. Her research interests include Islamic jurisprudence, international humanitarian law and the relationship between international law and Islamic law. She has experience working with UNHCR in refugee law and has offered consultancy work to several organizations on humanitarian law and Islamic law.

"I am extremely grateful to the tremendous support I have received from my department and my colleagues at AUC," she said. "I know I couldn’t have gotten there without their help and support. I am also indebted to my husband and my family without whom this wouldn’t have been possible and to my children who have shown great patience for the past years."

Noureldin, who teaches economics, has taught at AUC for 13 years. His research interests include econometrics, time series analysis, forecasting, quantitative finance and macroeconomics. He currently serves as advisor to the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies and as a research associate and thematic co-leader at the Economic Research Forum, a regional think tank focusing on the Middle East, in the theme of macroeconomics of natural resources, structural transformation and growth.

“Many of my mentors back in the United States wanted me to work with Bernard O’Kane, professor of Islamic art and architecture in AUC’s Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations because he is one of the most distinguished scholars in this field,” recounted Mai Mohamed Kolkailah ’21 on what made her join AUC.

At that time, Kolkailah was a Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston prior to pursuing her graduate studies.

After immersing herself in the Art of the Islamic Worlds Department there and working with several other museums in the field, she wanted to specialize in Islamic art and architecture due to the “significant lack of diversity within the curatorial teams” she recognized. Her curatorial supervisor highly recommended AUC’s program. Later, she indeed joined the University and received the Nadia Niazi Mostafa Endowed Fellowship in Islamic Art and Architecture.

“The deficit of Arabic expertise among Islamic art specialists at museums is primarily what motivated me to focus on this field,” said Kolkailah. “In our increasingly geopolitical world where Islam is often misrepresented and thus misunderstood, I realize my role as an Arab American, Muslim woman in dismantling cultural stereotypes and presenting Islamic art within contexts that elucidate nuanced understandings of the Islamic culture.”

Kolkailah’s goal is to become a scholar and curator of Islamic art and architecture, hoping to publish her graduate research and obtain her PhD in the next few years. “AUC’s program not only gave me the specialized Islamic art training necessary for that but also provided me with the platform opportunities and academic credibility I needed to achieve my goals,” she asserted.

Indeed, two of her favorite courses turned out to be those by Professor O’Kane, namely Decorative Arts and Art of the Book, attributed to the wealth of information she acquired about Islamic art as opposed to just architecture.

“I feel like all my favorite moments at AUC happened, thanks to Professor O’Kane, from our adventures on field trips visiting Islamic architecture to our intriguing debates in class, his library assignments that felt like scavenger hunts for books, and, last but not least, joining the admirable initiative of publishing on Wikipedia for our final papers,” narrated Kolkailah. “Quite frankly, my graduate school experience would have been average if it wasn’t for his mentorship.”

Yet Kolkailah emphasized that “one of the perks of finally doing what you love is that you find most, if not all, of the courses you take are interesting.”

She recalled a particular course, Hadith, led by Ahmed Khan, assistant professor in the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations. “The class was outside of my specialty, and I took it as an elective. I was out of my depth, to say the least,” she reflected. “The challenge of catching up and the pressure of going head-to-head with graduates specializing in Islamic studies is precisely why this seminar resonated with me. The knowledge I gained from Professor Khan definitely honed my understanding of Islamic material culture.”

And on that note, just like the course was unexpectedly one of her memorable ones, Kolkailah concluded that “life doesn’t always play out according to the scenarios we plan,” emphasizing that “whichever way my professional and academic journey unfolds, I hope to make my mentors and department proud as a token of my appreciation for the knowledge, time and effort they have invested in me.”

One particular thing she’s grateful for is how supportive her department was when her father passed away. "I am grateful to all my professors for trying to reach out and sharing words of comfort,” she stressed. “My father was an extraordinary man, and I would not have become the woman I am proud to be today if it wasn’t for him.”

“Unfortunately, science as a field, to many, is associated with masculinity, and I wanted to challenge this myth,” said Heba EL-Deghaidy, chair of the Department of International and Comparative Education at AUC's School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

A prevalent myth claims that women are “no good” at physics, but just taking EL-Deghaidy as an example, many female members of her family are professors in physics and chemistry, and her educational background is in science education. She also observed numerous women who chose to study the various fields of science throughout her career, confirming that the myth merely stems from a stereotype, which many studies support but aren’t conclusive.

With that in mind, she took it upon herself to explore and document the reality behind women in science in general and in the Middle East, in particular.

“Research on gender-science stereotypes illustrates that there are differences between female and male youth in STEM (science, technology engineering and mathematics) school subjects. Boys are seen to be more into STEM subjects than girls,” elaborated EL-Deghaidy.

“There is even subtle and blatant stereotyping of women in physics laboratories in Western countries, such as Canada, Europe and the Unites States, identifying many ways in which stereotypes affect professional interactions and impact the careers of women. However, this argument differs based on the location. Based on rsesearch, in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Morocco and Western Asia, there is an imbalance in favor of women,” she said.

When it comes to Egypt, EL-Deghaidy clarified that data is limited, difficult to find and sometimes conflicting to one another.  “The Global Gender Gap Report 2021 includes data on 156 countries, including Egypt, comparing them on the index benchmarks and illustrating gender disparity on a scale from 0-100 in political empowerment, economic participation and opportunity, educational attainmen, health and survival. The educational attainment includes the gender gap in STEM fields,” she said.

“However, there seems to be an increase in the number of women joining physics as a major. At Ain Shams university for example, a study in 2015 showed an increase in the number of females entering physics as a major between the years of 2011-2014. Similar results from Assiut University show that physics is more appealing to women than men mainly due to job opportunities," explained EL-Deghaidy.

Additionally, other factors attract individuals to specific fields, a topic which more recent studies focus on. For instance, Effect of culture on women physicists’ career choice: A comparison of Muslim-majority countries and the West focused on Muslim-majority (MM) countries that excel in female representation in physics when compared to Western countries. The results revealed that cultural, economic and societal norms play an important role in helping both genders define their interests and identities.

The study also investigated the factors that both draw women to and push them away from physics, highlighting five cultural areas where being a woman and physicist aligned in Muslim-majority countries: religion, social interactions, community goals, femininity and family life.

• Religion was a driving force and motivational cultural factor for pursuing physics and having a stance in life. In MM countries, religiosity and gender identity are congruent with physics identity. This is contrary to the West where science and religion can be at odds.
• Social interactions with the opposite gender were less encouraged than in Western countries. Educational settings were mainly gender-segregated, limiting exposure to gendered views related to physics that affect persistence. The limited social interaction was a seamless gender identity boundary congruent with physics identity.
• The outward expressions of femininity for participants in public spaces are tied to expressions of modest clothing and adornment being able to cross gender boundaries by giving more attention to women’s intrinsic intellectual contributions rather than their appearances. Women’s physical attractiveness is not valued in the physics community as an expression of membership. This is contrary to the West, where appearances are linked with feminine identity.
• Communal goals, femininity and physics identity were well-aligned. Physics is seen as a subject that serves not only agentic goals but the general public too. Saving humanity and fields linked to biophysics and technological advancement were all shared by the participants as congruent with communal goals as part of their Islamic religious culture.
• Families influenced study and career choices, especially as parents valued learning and education and had high expectations of their daughters.

But how about studies and actual employment? How large is the gap and are there as many women employed in the industry as those who studied it? EL-Deghaidy elaborated that studies have identified what’s called a “leaky pipeline” that reveals a decrease in the number of women being employed after completing their studies. Taking Egypt as an example, in 2018, women didn’t exceed 24.2% of the overall workforce (CAPMAS).

“In physics, women mainly work in research and teaching positions than in industry and business,” she noted. “In academia, seven universities in Egypt compared the gender distribution of physics department faculty positions at the rank of demonstrator to full professor. Results showed that the majority of women are found at the demonstrator levels with less women being promoted to associate and full professors. Reasons for this drop are attributed to shortage in research facilities and funding support.”

Yet, El Deghaidy chooses to look at the silver lining.

“Despite the difficulties, there are various role models in the field, dating back to Sameera Moussa, the first female Egyptian nuclear physics- and recently, Elham Fadaly '13, who won the Physics World 2020 Breakthrough of the Year with her team at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands," she asserted. "I do expect this pattern to continue as long as cultural norms are consistent. “

For Soraya Altorki, professor of anthropology, the study of anthropology is more a look into different perspectives on life than it is a science. That’s why she established the Soraya Altorki Award in Ethnographic Research, giving students the chance to write publishable work and increase their interest in anthropology. Each Spring, the Award Committee will select the best piece of ethnographic, for a $1000 prize.

“My hope is that [my students] have somehow picked up a perspective,” Altorki said about the award. “That's why and I feel so grateful for this opportunity. That's why I established an award for more of the graduate students to write some graphic piece that will help understand these different situations around us. I have a passion about anthropology.”

Altorki’s love for anthropology runs deep. She is the first Saudi Arabian woman to get a PhD in the subject, after have graduated from the University of California in Berkley in 1973. She attended boarding school in Alexandria in the mid 50s, then graduated from AUC. The study of anthropology was relatively new in the Arab world when she specialized in it, but she believes it is one of the most important subjects today. 

“One is all the more enriched by learning and practicing anthropology,” she said. “It teaches this, I think, respect for all human beings and appreciation of their culture everywhere, wherever they are. And that, I think, is something very much needed today, that we listen on equal terms to others, and not to kind of use our own perspective to judge other societies.”

What drew her to study it in the first place is the human interaction involved. Labs, she said, are not her forte, but having a casual chat with someone teaches you more than any textbook can ever. And it teaches you to let down your preconceived notions about individuals and societies. 

“We sit and chat. And we come out of it changed ourselves. We discover more about our own humanity in the course of learning about the show. That's very appealing. I don't find it in other fields,” she said. 

She likes to describe anthropology as “enriching,” saying that when one travels as an anthropologist, it is humbling, for you are able to have dialog with people on equal terms. 

“We need to look at others as equals that sometimes to realize we are not really we don't go much further with this technology than they do with their simple way of life,” she said.

Most of all, she believes anthropology is fun. Going to a new culture, learning the language, and living there is an experience you don’t get anywhere else. 

Most of Altorki’s research focuses on gender and women’s issues. This, however, was not a choice. When she moved back to Saudi Arabia to complete fieldwork for her PhD, she was only allowed to work with women. Her research continued in that area, but she has ventured into different directions since, including family units, religion — Islam in particular — and Arab societies.

Altorki moved back to Saudi Arabia after completing her PhD, hoping to be a part of the change in women’s education and the emerging field of anthropology in the region. While she ran into some road bumps that eventually got her to leave her home country, she finds achievement in witnessing her students change their perspectives her at AUC. 

She recalled a time when some students were making fun of how people in Saudi Arabia eat with their hands. “I told them ‘ I want you to know that my family sat down on the floor. And we ate with our hands.’ And there’s a moment of silence. When I think that their perspective is beginning to change, knowledge they can get anywhere, the sis where I feel greatly rewarded.” 

And it’s in these students that she wants to invest time and knowledge, so thatchy grow up to understand the world from different perspectives, so that they view others as equals, and appreciate the diversity surrounding them. 

In a survey conducted by UN Women, more than 99% of Egyptian women and girls surveyed said that they had experienced some type of sexual harassment during their lifetime. Today, multiple national initiatives and campaigns have been initiated as part of awareness-raising efforts, and students of Bahia Shehab (MA '09), professor of practice in design and founder of the graphic design program, have recently joined the cause.

In their Advertising and Branding course, students were asked to conceptualize and create a 30-second radio ad on one of four topics: sexual harassment, protection of the environment, worker’s rights or street children.

“Our course focuses on communication as a tool for social change, so all of our briefs in the course help students understand advertising not only from a commercial perspective but from also a social one,” said Shehab. “Students are encouraged to think of different challenges we are facing as a community and try and create communication solutions that address that.”

Five female students took on the topic of sexual harassment, creating radio ads tackling a range of different scenarios relating to the issue. We spoke to the students to get their insights on their projects and what they aim to convey.

“Mara Wahed Al 3alaya...” (“Once, Someone Called Me A...”)

 

In her radio ad, Salma Zidan, graphic design junior, focuses on the objectification of women and their sexualization on public streets and in Egyptian culture at large. Titled “Mara Wahed Al 3alaya… (Once, Someone Called Me A...), the ad features many women narrating the different objects they’ve been referred as, including a box of matches, pudding, a cat and more, concluding with a message that such objectification isn’t descriptive, cute, funny, flirty or whatever men might think it is.

“I chose this topic because it really hits close to home, and it’s something that’s always bothered me and bothers almost all women,” reflected Zidan. “I hope that it both makes women feel heard and validates their annoyance and anger as well as reaches men and informs them how we will no longer accept this.”

"Unsafe on the Streets"

 

Verbal sexual harassment and its normalization are what Habiba Abouseif, graphic design and integrated marketing communication junior, chose to embark on through her project. “Nowadays, it's very normalized to do this with the excuse that ‘it's not physical' or ‘we didn't touch you’ and, therefore, they feel it's okay, which is very appalling and inappropriate,” she said.  

In the middle of the rise of sexual harassment cases in Egypt, Abouseif felt that not many have been discussing verbal harassment, despite its very strong effect on women, which, in many cases, can be the same as physical sexual harassment. In her ad, she presents real-life examples of phrases women often hear on the streets by men, mixed with voices of girls sharing their comments and perceptions of the experience.

“I wanted to showcase how this makes girls feel – that we don’t feel ‘happy’ or ‘flattered’ when we hear such phrases. People really belittle its effect on us,” she asserted. “I want this to reach many people and to teach them that it isn't okay, that there should be a limit, that it shouldn't be normalized to harass girls in any form or way, and that it really affects their lives negatively.”

"Don't Ask Us Why We Don’t Speak Up"

 

Addressing what stops many women from speaking up about their sexual harassment experiences, Nariman Alaswad, graphic design junior, discusses victim-blaming in her radio ad. Her project features a man speaking about how women are frequently blamed for the way they dress and whether they’re veiled or not when that’s not the reason harassment happens. He talks about how harassers can abuse anyone, even men like them. “I specifically chose a man to do this ad because I wanted the ad to be engaging and heard by men. I wanted it to be a sort of a conversation from a man to the other men,” she said.

“I wanted to point that out because of people's reactions and the blame that they put on the girl. Girls are too afraid to speak up about what is happening to them. The reason I chose it is that now sexual harassment happens a lot, and girls started to have some courage to talk about it, and the ads are mainly empowering women to speak up, but what I want is to talk to the people who go against these girls,” said Alaswad.

“I want them to stand behind these girls when they speak up about their incidents instead of blaming them. I wanted to show society how they are very judgmental and always against women. I really want these words to be heard because I believe that it can result in a change. Someone may change the way they think after listening to this ad. Even a minor change would be helpful,” she said.

"It's Everywhere, Every Day, On All Sides"

 

Pursuing a unique take on the matter, Jessica Gamil, graphic design senior, decided to opt for a rap song in her radio ad. In her project, she stresses the fact that harassment doesn't only happen everywhere but also to all the different body parts, focusing on public transportation, streets, and even workplaces and highlighting its different forms, like staring, catcalling or touching. What's more, she discusses the idea that harassment can be from families in the form of neglect.

"I also wanted to highlight that culture has an important role in supporting this kind of harassment," said Gamil, referring to victim-blaming statements like "it's because you're a woman," that, in a way, encourage the harasser's behavior. "I want to highlight that men literally harrass everyone, including those wearing face veils and even young girls, so there is no blame on our way of dressing or talking."

Last but not least, Gamil intentionally uses a powerful and fearless tone during the ad to convey strength and encourage women to speak up without fear. She argues that if women were to be blamed for anything, it would be for not speaking up when such uninvited acts of harassment occur because if they did, sexual harassment would no longer be tolerated and men would be afraid of women coming forward with their experiences.

Why Radio Ads?

It’s not uncommon for sexual harassment awareness campaigns to be conducted through different media forms, but radio ads are quite a unique take on methodology.

When asked about the choice of radio ads, in particular, Shehab said, “Our design students work mostly with visual data so engaging them in a brief where there are no visuals, only pure concepts where they have to create with words and sound is always an interesting exercise to witness. It pushes them out of their comfort zone and forces them to use new tools that they have not used before. I'm very proud of their contributions and very happy that they will be shared with our AUC community.”

We witnessed a bold act of bravery a few weeks ago when a woman stood up to a child harasser in Cairo's Maadi neighborhood, exposing his crimes to the world. Catching him on camera, she confronted him and circulated the video on Facebook, causing nationwide outrage and leading to his arrest. 

Intervening in a case like this may seem easy, as it is the right thing to do, but there are several factors that can play into a person’s decision to intervene or not. If everyone were to take action when witnessing harassment, the fight against it would progress quickly, but there are barriers that prevent this. Carie Forden, professor and chair in the Department of Psychology, and Lameese El Desouky, assistant professor of psychology, explain the psychological factors that help explain why people act or don’t act in these situations. 

 

The bystander effect

“When we are in a public space and other people are around, we often assume that someone else will take care of the problem, so we don't act,” Forden said. “In the Maadi case, there was no one else witnessing the incident, so the woman who intervened likely felt that she had to take responsibility for intervening.”

She added that we’re ironically more likely to get help if one person is nearby in an emergency than if many people are nearby.

El Desouky explained this as “diffusion of responsibility.”

 

Social comparison

“In this, we look around to see how other people are acting as a way to help us decide what to do. If they treat the situation as normal, we are less likely to intervene. The problem is of course, that everyone is looking at everyone else to see what should be done, and that makes it more likely that no one will act.”

 

Fear of conflict 

As humans, we naturally prefer to maintain harmony in social situations. The fear of making someone upset or of us being attacked or ridiculed is often a barrier to speaking up. 

When people don’t speak up in an incident like this one, they will often use self-justification, according to Forden, or denial to avoid feeling guilty. 

“People also may downplay the seriousness of the abuse and fail to realize the long-term effects it can have on children, particularly if no one stands up for them and makes it stop,” she said. 

 

How to Normalize Speaking Up 

 

Recognize the social traps and be aware of how social psychological factors can affect your decision-making.

“If you're in a crowd and something happens, remind yourself of the bystander effect and social influence so that you don't look to other people to decide what to do,” Forden said. 

 

Prepare yourself ahead of time

Take some time even right now to think about what you would do if you were witnessing this kind of situation so you don’t have to figure it out while it’s happening. 

 

Practice speaking up in other situations 

“Get comfortable with speaking out and standing up for what you believe. Practice it in small ways so you can practice it in big ways when necessary,” Forden added. 

 

Speak up so that others will 

El Desouky said that people feel more encouraged to speak up when they see others do so. 

“They should know that if they don’t speak, then it’s possible that no one will,” she said. 

 

See the humanity in everyone

 “Value and respect children, especially their rights to control access to their own bodies,” Forden said. 

 

Avoid self-justification

It’s important to get comfortable with being wrong and making mistakes. You should recognize when you are justifying something that you did wrong. 

“Don't beat yourself up about it, but accept it, learn from it, and do better next time,” Forden said.

 

Get comfortable talking about uncomfortable things 

It’s no question that sex is considered a taboo topic in many cultures around the world. Forden says that one of the best things adults can do for their children is to be relaxed when they ask questions. 

“Answering honestly, using science rather than fear or guilt to address children's questions about sex is really all we need to do. In particular, teaching young children about body integrity, for example, allowing them to refuse to kiss or hug a relative if they don't want to, is important. We can also teach them to say "no," run away, and tell a trusted adult if someone touches them or approaches them in a way that makes them feel unsafe,” she said. 

Teaching children this at a young age can instill in them the right knowledge, integrity and bravery for dealing with situations, even into their adult lives. 

"Normal People"

In many cases, abusers seem like “normal people,’ and people are often in disbelief that this person could be a sexual predator. However, Forden said that most abusers usually are your “normal” day-to-day people, as they’re even close family members. 

“That's why it's important to teach children how to speak up, to teach them openly and honestly about sex in an age-appropriate way, and to believe them when they report abuse,” she said. “As a society, we also need to respect and value children more. Adults abuse children because children are powerless.”

El Desouky explained that some abusers are disturbed people. 

“For instance, this person may have been bullied, experienced social rejection, and have little social support from friends and/or family. Someone who is disturbed might also be engaged in addictive behaviors that are harmful to them, potentially to cope with a hardship,” she said. 

Seeing these factors could help identify abusers. 

 

Looking at the system

Now, should the law take into account psychological conditions of abusers?

“No, the law should not, and cannot, excuse those with psychological conditions,” said Jason Beckett, assistant professor of law. “But it should be a factor in sentencing and rehabilitation. However, this is very expensive to do well.”

Beckett said that from a law perspective, the most important thing to do is ensure an environment where sexual violence reports are taken seriously and compassionately. 

And at the core, the fight against sexual harassment can only be tackled by shaking up the systems on which society is built on. 

“Harassers and rapists are produced by systems of everyday sexism and institutional misogyny,” he said. “We need to address how we teach men and boys, how we encourage misbehavior (boys will be boys, policing women's clothing and choices, etc.) and we need to change an entire culture of sexism. That will not be easy, and men should feel obliged to do most of the hard work, we are, after all, the problem.”