There is a time lag between an idea being promoted and accepted and that idea being fully absorbed into a cultural framework. While the discourse on women's rights in Egypt dates back to the early 1920s and while women activists have worked and continue to do so in order to promote those rights and ingrain them in local culture, it often seems that they're talking to themselves. There remains a huge discrepancy between feminist and popular discourses on men and women and their ideal gender roles in society. The organisers tried to include activists from the different fields involved in the issue.
Research concerning women's images in newspapers and print media gives ambivalent conclusions.
On one hand, features directly concerning women's issues and rights have witnessed significant progress in content and quantity. It is, however, in incorporating these attitudes in other writings that the discrepancy appears. Thus several speakers pointed out the healthy media attention to women's political participation that has accompanied the on-going parliamentary elections. Yet turn to the Crimes Section in any newspaper, and you might be shocked. The treatment and representation of women involved in crimes, whether as aggressors or victims, seems to be coming out of the 19th century.