by: Ziad Amin

The new sexist campaign “5aleha Te3ans” calling to boycott women has recently gone viral on all social media platforms.

Although it is supposedly launched to threaten women with spinsterhood, official statistics have shown that Egypt has more male than female spinsters!

Ironic, right?

Other campaigns flooded the internet in reaction to “5aleha Te3ans”, but the most important question remains how many unmarried men do we have in Egypt? and How many unmarried women? Who’s the real spinster?

Internationally, we don’t have the answers to these questions since some countries actually refuse to use the word “Spinster” at all to refer to an unmarried woman at any age.

But in Egypt, we use this word all the time. Its definition varies from one governorate to another. Some governorates label the woman a “Spinster” after the age of 25, what a joke!

In general, “Spinster” refers to the unmarried woman after the age of 35. She’s perceived as a total failure in life to still be single at this age. But an unmarried 40 year old man is totally…Okay?

But the REAL meltdown was when the official figures came in. According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), the total number of unmarried persons in Egypt in the age group of 40 to 75 years or more is 760.9 thousand people; of which 429.934 thousand are men (56.5%) and 330.965 thousand women. Who would’ve thought? Can you hear the men clapping back? I guess not.

 

According to the 2017 census data, the figures show that the higher the age of males after 40 years, the less the prevalence of “Spinsterhood” among them, meaning that the age group of 40-44 years is the highest in the number of unmarried males compared to the categories in several age groups older or younger than that specific age.

The official data released by the Statistics Authority below reveals the total number of unmarried males and females in both urban and rural areas according to different age groups. Hey Spinster Men, how are you feeling now?

As expected, women did NOT hold back. Many other campaigns followed on social media defending women and shading the senseless campaign.

5aleik Fi 7odn Omak“, “5aleih Y5alel” and “Rabna Nagadha Noosa” are some of the campaigns created to snap back at “5aleha Te3ans”.

One of the funniest reactions to the sexist “5aleha Te3ans” campaign was Ayten Amer‘s post on Instagram saying “We perform Istikhara prayer to turn you (Men) down“; which had her fans laughing out loud in the comments.

Who do you think has the last laugh now? The internet might witness a ton of upcoming campaigns and hashtags like “5aleha Te3ans”, but the real numbers don’t lie. Because I guess men can now be called “Spinsters” too, yikes.