Contrary to the reigning impression given in the western media and by the international financial institutions (IFIs), which explicitly or implicitly attribute the lack of foreign direct investment (FDI), sluggish economic growth and consequent lack of employment creation in Egypt and Tunisia to the instability and uncertainty initiated by the Arab Spring uprisings of 2010-2011, this paper argues that the causality is actually reversed on the domestic side as well as strongly constrained by the global economy. The paper looks directly at the economic situation of women in 2010, and the expectations for improvement that the overthrow of the anciens regimes entailed, in comparison to the economic situation of women in the two countries as of 2017. While formal political participation of women has been enhanced by some measures in both cases, in neither case has there been much economic improvement, as measured by labor force participation, employment and unemployment rates, and professional and entrepreneurial opportunities. Some measures even show deterioration, such as the rising rate of child poverty in Egypt and the increased intimidation of female protesters demonstrating in Tunisia against rising taxes and the freezing of employment in the public sector. The failure, even deterioration, of the economic situation of women and families is due, first, to the lack of a meaningful economic program on the part of the governments that came to power in 2014 in Egypt and Tunisia, programs that should have addressed the gender, class and spatial inequalities that drove the uprising's demands for bread, freedom and social justice. Instead governments have pursued the programs demanded by the IFIs, such as devaluing the currency and cutting public spending, that maintain recession-like conditions and high unemployment. The situation had been exacerbated by stagnation in the EU economy in particular, with slow growth of demand for Egyptian and Tunisian exports, and stagnation in overseas investment. This analysis is based on interviews in Egypt in 2012, 2013, and 2014, and in Tunisia in 2015, plus data from government, NGO, Arab Investment and Export-Guarantee Corporation, ESCWA, African Development Bank and IFI documents, plus media sources reporting from within Egypt and Tunisia (e.g., Al Monitor and the Oxford Business Group).