A group of students, faculty and community members listened Friday as Egyptian journalist and human rights activist Gihan Abou Zeid shared her perspective on the series of revolutions in her country.

Event organizer and professor emeritus Sudarshan Kapoor said the visit from Abou Zeid was arranged through the Santa Cruz Resource Center for Nonviolence.­ She was scheduled to speak at a banquet there Sunday and stopped by Fresno State before going to Santa Cruz.

“We get a lot of information from all different sources,” Kapoor said.­ “We wanted to hear someone who really had witnessed things.”

Abou Zeid spoke for more than hour about the expanding role of women as involved participants in the transformation of Egypt.

She said women were part of all stages of the revolution and as crowds flooded Tahrir Square to protest in 2011 against President Hosni Mubarak, women joined in.

“It used to be people only focused on our femininity as an issue,” Abou Zeid said.­ “But when we were out there no one asked, ‘Why are you here?’ The community discovered we are Egyptians and women.”

She showed a series of pictures, several of them with her in the photo, of the crowds in the square protesting.­ Each time a picture showed women, often not wearing veils and conversing openly with fellow protesters, she would come back to her main point: the fact that they were women did not diminish their inclusion.

“She emphasized strongly that they were participating as equal citizens,” Kapoor said.­ “They were there because they were concerned citizens.”

Abou Zeid said the revolution has had three stages: the anti-Mubarak protest movement in 2011, after Mohamed Morsi was elected in 2012 and following his ouster by the army on July 3.

In each stage, she described the evolution of various groups and factors in the country’s political and social development.

Two groups in particular, Egyptian Christians, called Copts, and young men became allies in the same efforts of the women organizations, she said.

“One of the results of the revolution is that it raised the energy of the Christian community,” she said as she showed pictures of a burned Coptic church with a woman surveying the damage.

“They are acting as full citizens and participating in events with full powers.­ As individuals they are everywhere in political parties and community organizations.

Those people””after what happened to them””their voice got louder.­ They are resisting.­ Coptic people were away from politics, and now they are full engaged.”

She said the several women’s organizations against harassment and violence have men in its leadership.

“For the first time in our lives, we see young men involved in women’s organizations,” Abou Zeid said.­ “I really was surprised to see this support from young people.­ They respect the issue.”

The issue, however, is not limited to what happens in the capitol city of Cairo or the major port city of Alexandria. She said the struggle for women in upper and lower Egypt is different.

“In the smaller communities it’s discussions about early marriage [fighting against lowering the minimum age a girl can marry], violence against women or women participating at all,” she said.­ “Those issues still need a lot of work in the poorer areas.­ In Cairo, I can talk about advocacy issues.­ I can talk about the constitution.”

After Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood party, was elected, Abou Zeid said there was concern among many women that a religious government would damage progress they made.

The election, she said, gave the extremists implied permission to enforce their own rules.

“Having Muslim Brotherhood rule the country encouraged extremists to attack people,” Abou Zeid said. “They attacked un-veiled women and Christians.”

She said middle-class neighborhoods were safe in the capital, but poorer sections of the city or rural areas were dangerous.

She said a young girl shared her story at a women’s organization conference that showed the pervasiveness of the issue of the veil as a political symbol.

A girl won an award at an all-girls school, but during the award ceremony the headmaster called on to the stage the runner-up.­ Confused, the the winner questioned the headmaster.

At that point the headmaster said, “You are not veiled.­ You are a bad role model.”

At the convention, Abou Zeid said the girl spoke about the lack of choice for women.

“I’m Muslim and it’s easy for me to put on a veil.­ But I would not expect anyone to force me.­ I’ll do it if I want that.­ This is discrimination.”

While her bravery was heartening, Abou Zeid said, the fact is that this, and worse, happens to many girls that they never hear about.

“We have seen a lot of things like that,” Abou Zeid said.­ “She was lucky because we heard about it.­ But there are a lot of women and girls that this happens to and we don’t hear about it.­ It happens a lot away from Cairo.”

As a result, she said, fashion became a political statement.­ How she and her daughter decided to dress sent a message as clear as the signs she held in the pictures urging the regime to “Go Out.”

“Each one of us on a personal level were resisting any attack on personal freedom,” she said.­ “My daughter and I decided to go out in public for the first time in our lives without wearing sleeves.­ I used to consider what might provoke people when picking out my clothes.­ For them [extremists] it’s big.­ I wore a skirt as well.­ I used it as a way to say, ‘No.’ It was political resistance against them.”

With the July 3 removal of Morsi by the military, Abou Zeid said many people have adopted a more positive attitude toward the army compared to how they felt in 2011.

“People believe the army saved us from Muslim Brotherhood,” she said. That is the common feeling among the Egyptians.­ Behind the scenes, the army is playing the game, and they are looking to establish power.­ How much power they will keep for themselves””we won’t know until the constitution is done.­ We expect a lot.­ But the Egyptian people are different now than we were in 2011.”