Marwa Hafez, an Egyptology graduate at the faculty of Tourism and Hotel Management in Suez, was hired in 2006 to work at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo as part of a group of 26 new guides. Of all of them, however, Hafez was the only woman, a position that, just as she was entering the labor market, made her feel lonely and, at times, intimidated. “It was not easy at all, for a young woman in her 20s, to be around them,” she recalled.
Coming from a small village in Sharqiya governorate, Hafez managed to carve out a niche for herself over the years, until she was eventually able to take the leap and open her own business as a tour guide in what’s still a rare move. “In the [tourism industry] most workers are men, there was no real support,” Hafez told Al-Monitor. “Preparing tours is a business: tickets, hotels, cars, drivers. And all of these are just male, male, male and male,” she added.
