“On a Very Personal Level, My Body Was Affected”

“ON A VERY PERSONAL LEVEL, MY BODY WAS AFFECTED” FEMINISMS AND THE BODY IN PRESENT-DAY CAIRO Wetenschappelijke verhandeling Aantal woorden: <21.935>

Lotte Debrauwer Stamnummer: 01403615

Promotor: Prof. dr. Koenraad Bogaert

Masterproef voorgelegd voor het behalen van de graad master in de richting Politieke Wetenschappen afstudeerrichting Internationale Politiek Academiejaar: 2018-2019

Deze pagina is niet beschikbaar omdat ze persoonsgegevens bevat. Universiteitsbibliotheek Gent, 2021.

This page is not available because it contains personal information. Ghent University, Library, 2021.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... 4 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...... 4 ABSTRACT ...... 5 Introduction ...... 6 PART 1. Women and the Feminist Struggle in Egypt ...... 9 Women and Feminism in Egypt: 1919-2011 ...... 10 Women in the Egyptian Revolution: 2011-2014 ...... 16 A) The Eighteen Days ...... 16 B) Supreme Council of the Armed Forces ...... 18 C) Morsi ...... 23 D) Sisi ...... 25 PART 2. Towards a Typology of Feminism and the Body ...... 28 Theoretical Framework: the Body ...... 33 PART 3. Research Project & Findings ...... 36 Explanation of the Research Project & Research Question ...... 36 Methodology ...... 37 A) Interviewing ...... 37 B) Reflexivity ...... 40 Findings ...... 42 A) On 2011-2014 ...... 42 B) On 2018 ...... 43 PART 4. Discussion and Conclusion ...... 55 REFERENCES ...... 63

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are some people who sincerely deserve my gratitude for their contribution to the realization process of this dissertation. First of all, there is my supervisor, Joachim, who managed to keep me on the right track, especially for the conduct of my research in Cairo. Second, there is all of my respondents, who willingly took part in the interviews although they might have been asked to talk about these issues many times before. Third, my roommate Ahmed from Cairo has been the most amazing host and friend I could wish for. He helped me with some contacts, and we also shared some very inspiring conversations that helped me reflect about the matter in a profound way. It was so rewarding to have him around in the city that never sleeps. Fourth, Marlies, who has guided me on my first day in an overwhelming city like Cairo and put me in touch with some interesting people. Fifth, I want to express my gratitude and warmth for Sien, who has taken the time to proofread the dissertation. And last but not least, of course, I want to confess my love and appreciation for my parents, who have given me the time, space, and resources to make this dissertation something that I can be proud of.

What is a researcher without her data and contacts? And what is a person without her peers and loved ones? Thanks you all! I could not have done this without you.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

D-CAF: Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival

EFU: Egyptian Feminist Union

NCW: National Council for Women

OPANTISH: Operation Anti Sexual Harassment

SCAF: Supreme Council of the Armed Forces

ABSTRACT

Women and feminism have received tremendous attention within the body of literature on the Arab Spring in general, and the Egyptian context in particular. This dissertation compares this period (2011-2014) with present-day Cairo. The data for present-day Cairo have been collected by interviewing eleven Egyptian artists who are somehow linked to feminist creative dissent. These respondents, as well as several cases from earlier years, have then been categorized into a typology of feminism. This typology helps to distract the main challenges within the feminist struggle today compared to the revolutionary period, which is the research question at the heart of this dissertation. The main theoretical concept that is used to do this, is ‘the body’, as studied from the field of performance studies. The three challenges that have been identified in the discussion section are: the veil, depoliticisation of women’s issues, and the non-modification of both the typology and the body politic. The overall conclusion is that these debates have not been modified substantially when compared to the revolutionary period; and the body politic carried out by the regime is even said to have returned to the pre-2011 order. The goal of this project is to form an impetus for further research on feminism and the body in contemporary Egypt and the Arab region as a whole.

Introduction

The spectacular events in the Arab world in 2011 are to be understood as the culmination of a process of protest and revolt that had been going on for years in most of the countries in the region (Bogaert, 2013, p. 318). The protestors did not only call for more political rights and freedom, but also for a more just and social economic policy (Bogaert, 2013, p. 318). Interestingly, most of the male icons of the Arab Revolutions were dead and clothed men, whereas for women, their iconism and ‘fame’ was mainly built upon their disrobement (Kraidy, 2016, p. 13). When looked at from a multi-country perspective, the power of imitation was key in the formation of the activist-citizen in the different Arab countries during the Arab Spring (Tripp, 2013, p. 208). Crucial to the spread of the protests throughout the world was the use of citation and intertextuality, both in a historical and geographical way (Spellman-Poots, Webb, & Werbner, 2014, p. 15). Tripp (2013, p. 209) makes an important point in stating that to understand the ‘why here, why now’ question of the Arab uprisings, it is crucial to have good knowledge of the historical and spatial context of the region. Yet, answering this question goes beyond the scope of this dissertation. In this work, the focus will be on one country in particular, which is Egypt. More specifically, it is the city of Cairo, where the research took place in March 2018, that is central here. The years between 2011 and 2014 have been flooded with an overwhelming body of research on feminism and women’s rights, often from a narrative of exceptionalism. After 2014 however, attention faded. This dissertation wants to look at different forms of feminism and issues within feminist debates, with the main focus on the concept of ‘the body’. More specifically, a comparison will be made between the period 2011-2014 and today. The research question that will be answered is the following one: What are the main challenges within the feminist struggle in Cairo today compared to the revolutionary period? To make this comparison, a research project in Cairo has been conducted in which several artists who are linked to feminist creative insurgency have been interviewed. The goal of answering this question is to bring clarity; to shed light on some of the debates that are relevant within Egyptian feminism, so that this work can be a starting point for scholars who want to either dig into one specific aspect, or to link these findings to other political trends in Egypt or the Arab region.

In part one, I will start with a concise historical explanation on feminism and women’s rights between 1919 and 2011. This historical framework is important to understand certain trends that are still present today. Second, the role of women within the revolutionary struggle is discussed. This happens through a chronological overview of the different ‘phases’: the Eighteen Days, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the Muslim Brotherhood, and Sisi. In the SCAF and Muslim Brotherhood section, several cases of feminist creative insurgency will be addressed. These will be used later on to compare with present-day cases of feminist insurgency and feminism in general. In part two, there will first be developed a typology of feminism. This typology is created in interaction with the empirical data from the field. It is of course partly arbitrary and does not pretend to be complete, yet it will provide a richer picture of the people who are actively trying to improve women’s lives in Egypt. Later on, this typology will be used to compare several cases of feminist creative insurgency from the revolutionary period with my interviewees. The angle from which I will be looking at my data, and thus the main concept within my focus on feminism, is ‘the body’. This concept will be discussed in the second part of part two. Part three is the research project itself. Firstly, the project and research question will be explained. After, a section on the applied methodology will be provided. Finally, the findings will be presented, which means in essence that the different respondents will be classified within the typology of feminism. Additionally, there is also a short section on the revolutionary period and the position of the current regime towards women’s rights. In the last and also the most fundamental part, the research question will be answered. The focus will be on three main challenges that are still relevant today when compared to the revolutionary period: the veil, depoliticisation of women’s issues, and non-modification of both the typology and the body politic. In general, the conclusion is that the main aspects and challenges within the feminist struggle have largely stayed the same when compared to the period 2011-2014, and the body politic carried out by the regime is thought to be a copy of the pre-2011 order. Before moving on to the actual body of this dissertation, it is important to emphasize that the research has been conducted in a very specific arty, leftist, middle class circle in Cairo, and therefore really felt like a ‘bubble’. This bubble was also mostly secular. I did not aim for either religious or secular people, yet because of my snowball sample a very specific subgroup was formed, as will be discussed shortly in the methodology section. It would be dangerous to

start generalizing the conclusions drawn in this context to other parts of the Egyptian population. Furthermore, the project is nothing more than an exploration in the subject matter. It may and should be taken to much more sophisticated levels of abstraction when engaging with the subject in future academic research.

PART 1. Women and the Feminist Struggle in Egypt

Before elaborating on the matter, it is important to define the main terms that are used throughout this dissertation. To do that, the definitions of Elgousi (2016, p. 60) are used here. To start with, feminism1 is to be

invariably engaged in resistance to prevailing notions of gender. While feminism must be seen as an activist demand for political and economic reform, it has always been informed by a serious reflection on the nature of sexual difference and the mechanisms by which sexual difference is enmeshed in, even created out of, relations of power and oppression. (Elgousi, 2016, p. 60)

Gender means “creating differences between girls and boys and women and men, differences that are not natural, essential, or biological” (West and Zimmerman, as cited in: Rees, 2017, p. 7). There is an important distinction between sex and gender that suggests a substantial gap between “sexed bodies and culturally constructed genders” (Butler, 1999, p. 10). Gender is about social roles of girls, women, boys, and men and the relationships that exist between and within those roles (Chanter, 2006, p. 5). Chanter states that there is no ontological or metaphysic power that determines which gender roles are attached to a gender. These roles are shaped by different cultural, social, economic, and political conditions, expectations or obligations within the family, the nation, and the community.

A feminist movement then is defined as

a combination of social theory, political movement and moral philosophies that are driven and motivated by the liberation of women from the subordination to men. On the one hand it is critical of patriarchy, and on the other it promotes an ideology committed to women’s emancipation. At the heart of feminist social and political analysis is the challenge of the public/private divide in politics, which has historically denied women access to the public political arena and therefore compromised the representation of their interests. (Elgousi, 2016, p. 60)

1 This definition is used as a general base upon which the different types of feminism I will discuss later are built. 9

In this first part, the historical background on women and feminism in Egypt will be provided, followed by a more comprehensive account on the role of women in the period 2011-2014.

Women and Feminism in Egypt: 1919-2011

Studying gender, women issues, and institutionalized feminist arrangements in postcolonial states differ from Western institutionalized feminism due to the particular setting in which “the woman issue” emerged during and in the aftermath of the colonial encounter. Its embeddedness and imbrications with discourses of colonization, modernization, national identity, and development complicate any politics on women’s rights and ideologies of gender. (Van Raemdonck, 2015a, p. 245)

I have chosen to limit the historical account on women and feminism in Egypt by starting from the 1919 Revolution. It is the time when Egypt frees itself from British colonial rule. This struggle is relevant within the course of this dissertation because the link between colonialism and the women’s cause is important to understand Egyptian feminism today.

Egypt was occupied by the British in 1882 and was declared a protectorate at the beginning of the First World War (Baron, 2005, p. 1). In 1919, the famous Egyptian leader Saad Zaghlul was exiled (Elgousi, 2016, p. 54). The reason for his removal was that he had been pleading for independence of the Egyptian people. When Zaghlul was exiled, revolt broke out all over the country and the 1919 Revolution was born (Elgousi, 2016, p. 54). This Revolution has different meanings for different parts of the population (Al-Shakry, 2012, p. 99). However, the overall goal never was to radically transform society or class relations (Al-Shakry, 2012, p. 99). Instead, it was a nationalist Revolution in which the assertion of territorial grounds in the face of British colonialism was central (Al-Shakry, 2012, p. 99). In the context of this Revolution, the artist Mahmud Mukhtar made a sculpture called ‘The Awakening of Egypt’ (Baron, 2005, p. 1). The sculpture is a peasant woman who is lifting up her veil with one arm and her other arm rests on the back of a sphinx that is getting up, or in other words: “juxtaposing Egypt’s ancient pharaonic glory with her modern awakening, Mukhtar’s sculpture thus depicts modern Egypt as a woman” (Baron, 2005, p. 1). Baron finds

the choice for a peasant not surprising, as within nationalist thought, peasants are seen as culturally authentic; urban men and women are more Westernized and thus less tied to Egyptian territorial grounds. In essence, says Baron, this peasant woman embodies the nation. The statue became a symbol of both women’s rights and Egyptian nationalism (Baron, 2005). Presenting countries in the Arab region as a woman is a widespread practice, especially in the context of the colonial struggle (Baron, 2005). This is reflected in Fanons (1965, p. 28) writings on Algeria: “Algeria is virtually independent. The Algerians already consider themselves sovereign. It remains for France to recognize her”.

("Egypt Awakening by Mahmoud Mokhtar. A Statue Commemorating the Renaissance of Egypt.," 2014)

Behind the representation of ‘Egypt as a woman’ was the goal of the nationalist movement to induce a sense of belonging that is present within families, on a national scale (Baron, 2005, p. 5). This familial rhetoric claimed that the nation was a family in which all people, whatever race, class, or ethnicity, were united. Women were often talked about as ‘Mothers of the Nation’ (Baron, 2005, p. 5). Using women as markers of the cultural identity of the nation was in fact a tool to erase the plurality within the diverse category of women (Abouelnaga, 2015, p. 38). This monolithic discourse forced women to accept a far-reaching uniformity on different levels: political, social conduct, and so on: there was no room for difference.

In the whole Arab region, women participated in the struggle for national independence (Elgousi, 2016, p. 13). Women’s rights movements rose as a part of or in reaction to the nationalist struggle, and issues of nationalism, women’s rights, and anti-colonialism inevitably became interwoven (Baron, 2005, p 9). This does not imply that all feminists wanted to approach the nationalist project in similar ways or that all female nationalists had the same views on women’s rights. Instead, Baron warns that there are particular specificities within feminism and nationalism and therefore they need to be considered both together and separately. In the protests of 1919, there is one particular event that has been discussed, studied, and narrated extensively in Egyptian collective memory: the ‘ladies demonstrations’ for independence of March 1919 (Baron, 2005). These protests were planned and organized around Huda Sha’rawi, a leading feminist, and her elitist social circle. Historically, Egyptian feminism mostly voiced the interests of middle and upper class women (Amireh, 2000, p. 232). The feminists around Sha’rawi claimed to speak for ‘all Egyptian Women’ and reinforced the image of one, united nation by using the family rhetoric (Baron, 2005). Importantly, the women’s demands were solely focused on the nationalist cause and feminist goals were falsely attributed to these marches later (Baron, 2005). The revolutionary potential was in the fact that the women were challenging the status quo by navigating themselves through public space and the political landscape, yet they never posed a substantial challenge to male authority (Baron, 2005). Both the religious and the secularist male nationalists supported existing feminist efforts during the struggle for independence (Elgousi, 2016). More specifically, the nationalists used ‘the woman question’ “as the field upon which they pitched their battles” (Elgousi, 2016, p. 54). However, when men started to occupy state institutions after independence, they blocked female political participation (Baron, 2005). This somewhat disconnected women’s relationship to the nationalist movement and the nation-state. In sum, the nationalist movement did put an end to British occupation, yet it did not grant women a status as full citizens (Baron, 2005). This frustration was the base for the emergence of the Egyptian Feminist Union (EFU) (Elgousi, 2016, p. 55), which transformed the women’s movement into a national one (Talhami, as cited in: Elgousi, 2016, p. 55). The leaders of the EFU went to feminist conferences to debate about the woman question with feminists from all over the world (Abu-Lughod, 2013, p. 148). Other organizations that started working on a much larger scale were Women’s Wafd, the Society for Egyptian Ladies’ Awakening, and Mother of the Future (Baron, 2005, p. 11).

Egypt was granted partial independence in 1922 (McBride, 1968). Under the monarchy, there were several leaders: Fuad 1, the former Sultan who was in charge for twelve years; Farouk, who became the king of Egypt in 1936 and stayed until 1952; and Fuad 2 , the child of Farouk who was given the throne to appease the protestors against his father (McBride, 1968). This strategy proved to be ineffective: Farouk, known as a decadent monarch, was ousted by the 1952 military coup led by Gamal Abdal Nasser and the Free Officers, which transformed Egypt into a Republic (Al-Shakry, 2012, p. 99). After that, Muhammed Naguib was appointed president. In 1954, Naguib was accused of a murder attempt on Nasser in collaboration with the Muslim Brotherhood. As a consequence, Nasser was first appointed prime minister and two years later elected as the second president of Egypt in elections in which he was the only candidate (Al-Shakry, 2012, p. 99). The new era called ‘Nasserism’ was born, which was a military dictatorship combined with an ideology and practice of social welfare and a charismatic anti-imperialist rhetoric (Al- Shakry, 2012, pp. 100-101). Through a policy of co-option, a ‘state bourgeoisie’ was created at the top in which both new technocrats and old industrial, financial, and commercial bourgeoisie with vested interests were represented (Al-Shakry, 2012, pp. 100-101). However, Nasser succeeded in improving the living conditions of Egyptians by developing a strong public sector with investments in free education, consumption, and big infrastructural projects such as the Aswan dam and the nationalization of Suez (Bogaert, 2013, p. 321). This politic created a new middle class that was very supportive and loyal towards the regime. In the later neoliberal era, it was this group that was one of the main victims of economic reform and cuts in public spending. Under Nassers reign, women were granted more and more political and economic rights (Elsadda, 2011). The right to vote for women was introduced in 1956. In July 1962, president Nasser announced free university education for both men and women (Elgousi, 2016, p. 56). In sum, women were transformed from passive subjects to active citizens in the public sphere in Egypt (Elsadda, 2011). Yet, this contrasted heavily with the female subordination in the private sphere: concerning legal guardianship, mobility, and divorce, male domination was the order of the day, especially through the Personal Status Laws (Elsadda, 2011, p. 89). Moreover, independent women’s organizations were shut down (Abu-Lughod, 2013, p. 148). The first years of the presidency of Sadat in the 1970s was a very tumultuous time in Egyptian history: it was the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, more commonly known as the Six-Day War which meant an enormous victory for Israel (Elgousi, 2016, p. 57). In 1974,

the peace treaty with Israel was eventually signed (Elgousi, 2016, p. 57). Under Sadat’s presidency, the role of the state was diminished considerably (Van Raemdonck, 2015a, pp. 248- 249). Initially, it looked as if the commitment to gender equality that was seen in the Nasserist era, would disappear under Sadat (Elsadda, 2011, p. 90). However, Gehan Sadat, Sadats wife, started to play a crucial role in reforming the Personal Status Laws (Elsadda, 2011, p. 90). These reforms benefited women and were quickly labeled ‘Gehans laws’. It was also under Sadat that employment equality between men and women was guaranteed by presidential decree (Elgousi, 2016, p. 57).2 Attention for women’s rights issues was rising on an international level as well, with the first International Women’s Conferences organized by the United Nations in 1975 (Van Raemdonck, 2015a, p. 248). Nevertheless, the proposals of these conferences did not make it into the Egyptian Parliament as they were targeted by a counter-campaign that wanted to protect ‘authentic family values’. As the Sadat regime did not adopt these international measures, more and more civil society organizations, both formal and informal, religious and secular, started to pop up. For the Mubarak regime, that was installed in 1981 after the assassination of Sadat, gender had a decorative character (Abouelnaga, 2015, pp. 36-37). This means that the state preserved the image of ‘women’s rights’ and its importance according to its own interpretation while suppressing civil society organizations to avoid that they would mobilize against the regime. The Sadat and Mubarak period was the era of neoliberal policy reform and rapprochement towards the United States (Abu-Lughod, 2013, p. 149). This led to the withdrawal of some important protective laws for women that were installed earlier by Nasser. Women’s rights organizations became a big and growing industry in Egypt in the 1980s and international funding was essential for most of these NGOs (Abu-Lughod, 2013, p. 149). Within many of these organizations, this spurred heated debates about their independence and the (im)possibility to push through their own agenda instead of being strategically co-opted by foreign funders. The National Council for Women (NCW) was founded in 2000 under Mubarak (Van Raemdonck, 2015a, pp. 249-250). The council was led by Suzanne Mubarak until 2011 and most of the members were part of the elitist circles surrounding the National Democratic Party (NDP), the party of the president. In the beginning of the 2000s, different laws were passed

2 In terms of salary, financial compensation, promotion, and retirement. 14

concerning marriage contracts and the family court system (Elsadda, 2011, p. 92). It is generally believed that these laws were a product of the power and leverage of Suzanne Mubarak rather than a real change in the mindset of Egyptian society. The NCW sought to appropriate other women organizations and claimed to speak in the name of all Egyptian women (Elsadda 2011, p. 92). As NCW members were considerably more present in mainstream media than other activists, it was Suzanne Mubarak and her projects that were remembered as the advocates of women’s rights (Elsadda, 2011, p. 92).

Throughout the twentieth century, women’s rights were still being advocated for officially, though only when they were in line with existing state policies (Abou-Bakr, 2015, p. 182). The overall approach was that of state feminism (Abou-Bakr, 2015, p. 182). The concept of state feminism was first introduced by Hermes (as cited in: Abou-Bakr, 2015, pp.182-183) in 1987. It is usually interpreted as women’s activism in collaboration with state’s bodies and policy makers (Abou-Bakr, 2015, p. 182). The controversy surrounding this term is about the risk of activists losing their independence and being co-opted by the state (Abou-Bakr, 2015, pp. 182- 183). Before 2011, state feminism was the order of the day: the state adopted a form of co- option that was characterized by an inability to address the plurality of women’s demands (Abouelnaga, 2015, p. 37). Under the Mubarak regime for example, the state tolerated demands calling for the improvement of women’s conditions, as long as they were placed within the discourse of a ‘religious renewal’ and were thus undermining political Islam (Abou-Bakr, 2015, p. 194). As state feminism is still relevant for today’s context, I will get back to this term in part 4 of the dissertation.

Women in the Egyptian Revolution: 2011-2014

In this part of the literature section, several aspects of the role and views concerning women during the Egyptian revolution will be discussed. The different ‘stages’ of the revolutionary struggle between 2011 and 2014 will be explained: from the revolutionary outburst and the Eighteen Days, to the transition period under the SCAF, towards the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood until today’s regime in which President Sisi is in charge. When discussing the SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood, several short case studies will be included to go more in depth on certain aspects. These case studies will be crucial when comparing between 2011-2014 and 2018 in part 4.

A) The Eighteen Days

Similar to the way in which people came together as a reaction to the horror image of Boazizi burning himself in Tunisia, people gathered in Alexandria in 2010 after the terrible picture of the mutilated face of Khaled Said , an ordinary Egyptian citizen (Tripp, 2013, p. 206). Police reports claimed that Khaled Said died because of asphyxiation after swallowing marijuana (Wahdan, 2014, pp. 58-59). Yet, it was obvious that Khaled had been beaten to death by the police. The critics were highlighting police brutalities and started a weekly silent protest in which they stood on the street wearing black clothes, with their back to the passers-by (Wahdan, 2014, pp. 58-59). They wanted to avoid antagonizing the police, because under the Emergency Law, that has been in place for more than 30 years, the policy has wide options to harass and arrest protestors (Kraidy, 2016, p. 67). This group was the first to announce the marches on January 25 2011 (Wahdan, 2014, pp. 58-59). The 25th of January is actually a state holiday in Egypt, also called ‘Police Day’, commemorating a battle between Egyptian police officers and British colonial soldiers in 1952 (Al-Bendary, 2011). Yet, in 2011 there did not remain considerable respect for the police, as they had become the symbol of the repressive Mubarak regime (Al-Bendary, 2011). Tahrir Square was occupied on the evening of Friday January 28 (Sabea, 2014, p. 75). The marches towards the main Square started immediately after the Friday prayer had finished. As the people were marching, there was the so-called ‘battle of the bridges’, referring to the fights on the Qasr al-Nil and the Galaa bridges leading to Tahrir. It is often said that the protesters who were fighting security forces were a very heterogeneous group: young, old, men, women,

veiled, unveiled, poor, rich, and so on (Sabea, 2014, p. 75). During the marches towards Tahrir people were shouting silmiyya (peaceful) as tensions with the police were rising (Sabea, 2014, p. 75). By night, the Square was re-occupied completely accompanied by a very clear message from the protestors: ‘we are not leaving until the Presidents leaves’ (Sabea, 2014, p. 75). Tents were put up, blankets and food were distributed and the Square was full of live entertainment: the protestors had come to stay (Sabea, 2014, p. 75). The initial outburst in Cairo sparked protest in other parts of the country, such as Alexandria, the Delta region, the Canal Zone, and Upper Egypt (Sabea, 2014, p. 75). The performance of non-violence in the protests in Egypt (but also in Tunisia, Bahrain, and initially in Yemen, Libya and Syria) was central to their political formation and strategies (Tripp, 2013, p. 212). This way, they wanted to oppose the state violence, as well as divide the security forces and facilitate the spread of the message that the people would reclaim what was rightfully theirs. However, the non-violent protests were often responded to with atrocious violence by the security forces (Tripp, 2013, p. 212). This violence had the goal to curtail any form of public resistance. As the Eighteen Days were unfolding, the now famous slogans ‘the people want the downfall of the regime’ and ‘bread, freedom, and social justice’ were heard extensively throughout the Square (De Smet, 2014, p. 283). Moreover, as the occupation of Tahrir and thus the absence of the state became a semi-permanent situation, new forms of self-governance started to develop (De Smet, 2014, pp. 296-297). For example, the protestors in Tahrir redirected electricity from the state’s network to plug in their speakers at the Square (De Smet, 2014, p. 287). Governance in Tahrir provided the people with an alternative: “throughout the 18 Days, Tahrir evolved from an instrument of political and human emancipation to emancipation itself” (De Smet, 2014, p. 299). On January 29, Omar Soleiman was appointed vice president (Sabea, 2015). Thirteen days later, on February 11, it was this man that emotionally announced Mubarak’s resignation (Sabea, 2015). An overwhelming feeling of joy and success flooded the country, as Egyptians thought they had finally reached the momentum that would lead them to full democracy (Sabea, 2015).

During the uprising, a liberal-secular feminist coalition of sixteen organizations was formed, called the Coalition of Egyptian Feminist Organizations (Van Raemdonck, 2015a, p. 251). They strongly opposed the NCW, which was only an illegitimate defendant of the old and

corrupt Mubarak regime in their eyes. The building in which the NCW was housed was set on fire by outraged activists. The council stopped their activities for one year due to this incident. Women made up 20 to 50 percent of the protestors in Tahrir (Hafez, 2012, p. 38) and relations of equality were part of the resistance against the Mubarak regime (Butler, 2011, p. 7). Moreover, harassment seemed to have disappeared from the public sphere during the Eighteen Days (Bamyeh, 2011). Butler (2011, pp. 7-8) wrote about how the protest movements in Tahrir broke down gender difference through their division of labor. This was shown by the way in which people organized themselves in a horizontal way to take care of the Square: cleaning the toilets, setting up beds on the pavement, setting up medical stations, and so on. What is central to her argument is that all these actions are political because they break down the distinction between the public and the private sphere. From the moment regimes start to topple, it is difficult to sustain the unity and solidarity that characterized the protests (Spellman-Poots et. al., 2014, p. 8). For example, after Ben Ali resigned in the Tunisian Revolution, Islamists started waving the black flag of Salafi Islam in public. As a reaction, the secularists then did the Harlem Shake, which was highly criticized by the new Islamic regime. In Egypt, the terms ‘revolution’ and ‘the people’ became more and more ambiguous through time, as they were being instrumentalized for the agenda of all kind of different groups, who used these terms whenever it would fit them with the goal of claiming ownership over ‘the people’ and ‘the revolution’ (Sabea, 2014, p. 83).

B) Supreme Council of the Armed Forces

This is not a free society if a woman cannot walk down the street without fear of being harassed, attacked, or even molested. Women have a right to participate in Egyptian society as equals – and this revolution will have achieved nothing if it does not recognize the basic right of the Egyptian women to exist, to demonstrate, to work, to live and walk the streets with dignity. (Younis, 2011)

In this section, there will first be given a limited overview of the SCAF period. Afterwards, three separate cases of feminist creative insurgency will be discussed: the Aliaa Al-Mahdy case, the Baheya Ya Masr case and the Samira Ibrahim case.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forced (SCAF) took over the interim government shortly after the ousting of Mubarak (Sabea, 2014, p. 80). It was led by Mubarak’s Defense Minister, General Hussein Tantawi. During the SCAF period, the ruling elites tried to marginalize the revolutionaries from the construct of ‘the people’ (Sabea, 2014, p. 82). To do that, they reinstalled thuggery law, which gave them the power to arrest and punish a large range of individuals, including protestors. It was in this context that the familiar construction of gender came back at the forefront in the form of sexual attacks on female protesters and virginity tests forced on women held captive by the army (Sabea, 2014, p. 80). The assaults on female protesters on International Women’s Day in March 2011 meant a cold shower for both the activists and international observers, who were still in the spirit of gender equality, freedom, and harmony that was so typical for the January Revolution in Tahrir (Elsadda, 2011, p. 85). On December 20 2011, one of the most important women’s marches, targeted against the military regime, was organized (Abaza, 2013). The iconic slogan ‘Egyptian women are a red line’ was heard everywhere along the route from Tahrir Square towards Talaat Harb. On the walls along the way, the blue bra (cf. infra) was painted dozens of times. Yet, the parliamentary debates from January to June 2012 included different proposals for reactionary laws in order to enforce control over women’s bodies (Abaza, 2013). Part of these draft bills was a proposal to lower the marriage age for women, a draft that promoted female circumcision, and a rejection of a law that allowed for women to request a divorce. More and more voices were also criticizing laws that had been passed since the 2000s with the approval and active involvement of Suzanne Mubarak (Elsadda, 2011, p. 84). The women’s cause in Egypt is tightly linked to former First Lady Suzanne Mubarak and thus to the corrupt regime that the January protesters opposed themselves against (Elsadda, 2011, p. 84). This forms an important challenge for feminist activists in the country. In November 2012, a woman was stripped on the street by the SCAF to her blue bra and jeans only (Abouelnaga, 2015). This image of the woman lying on the street was shown on all front pages and was omnipresent on the Internet. It became a symbol of the brutality of the SCAF. This case invoked the ‘Why did she ever go there?’ question, which was used from that moment on by counterrevolutionary forces to blame the women for the assaults. In essence, says Abouelnaga, the discussion on assaults was reduced to the presence of the female protestor in public space, which was often seen as illegitimate. The assaults that occurred during the revolutionary struggle were not the introduction of harassment as a strategy in Egyptian public life (Abaza, 2013). May 25 2005, also called Black

Wednesday, marks the first time when women were publicly assaulted in modern Egypt. These women had gone to the Journalists and Lawyers Syndicates to contest a constitutional amendment that would provide for the passing of power to Mubarak’s son Gamal when Hosni Mubarak would resign. The attacks were committed by thugs, who were on pay by the ruling National Democratic Party.

Aliaa Al-Mahdy

On October 23 2011, a young woman called Aliaa Al-Mahdy, also called ‘The Naked Blogger of Cairo’, posted a naked picture of herself on her blog and called it ‘Nude Art’ (El Said, 2015, pp. 115-117). She is standing up, looking straight into the camera and is wearing accessories that one might expect to see on a prostitute, such as fishnet stockings and a flower in her hair. Al-Mahdy wanted to emphasize the freedom over her own body. She is not a passive, docile woman in this picture, the role that is usually expected from women in nude art. Instead, says El Said, she is combative and self-assured. El Said also argues that Aliaa, by posing completely naked in an assertive way, reverses the power relation of the male control over the female body. Al-Mahdy was the first woman in the Egyptian Revolution to use nudity as a tool of political contestation (El Said, 2015, pp. 115-117). She declared she was a secular, liberal3, feminist, vegetarian, individualist Egyptian (Kraidy, 2016, p. 5). The criticisms to Al-Mahdy’s actions, from whatever group in society, had one thing in common: moral judgment through a frame of shame and dishonor that is linked to the unclothing of the female body (Abusalim & Al-Najjar, 2015). Eventually, she sought political refuge in Sweden because of death threats in Egypt (Kraidy, 2016, p. 5). The fact that Al-Mahdy later joined Femen only strengthened the claims that she was completely alienated from the Egyptian context (Kraidy, 2016, p. 184). Abusalim and Al-Najjar (2015, p. 151) argue that it was “the non-conventional combination of the message and the medium, in that political and social messages were communicated through uncovering the human body”, that created the environment of widely spread moral judgment. The actions of Al-Mahdy were hardly ever connected to the revolutionary context and its idea of freedom, including freedom of the female body (Abusalim & Al-Najjar, 2015).

3‘Liberal’ in the Egyptian context almost always means ‘non-Islamist’ (Kraidy, 2016, p. 193).

Baheya Ya Masr

Baheya Ya Masr is a movement that was founded in 2012 (Sami, 2015, p. 95). The name ‘Baheya’ is important, as it refers to the figure in Mahmoud Mokhtar’s famous sculpture ‘Egypt’s Awakening’ (cf. supra) (Sami, 2015, p. 95). It is a typical peasant name and came to be known as the symbol of Egypt as an independent state (Sami, 2015, p. 95). The name ‘Baheya’ is also strongly linked to the poet Ahmed Fuad Nijm and the singer Sjeikh Imam, because they have a famous song together about a Baheya (Sami, 2015, p. 95). The song is overtly revolutionary, and was heard in many student and worker protests in the 1960s and 1970s as well as in Tahrir Square in 2011. Very characteristic for the protests of Baheya Ya Masr was that many activists were carrying pictures of prominent Egyptian women as they were marching: Nefertiti, Umm Kulthum (a famous singer), Fatem Hamama (a famous actress), and so on (Sami, 2015, p. 95). In the corner of these pictures, there was usually written el-sitt, which means ‘the woman’ in colloquial Arabic. Sami identifies different levels on which this term is operating. First of all, it is a reminder that women have been successful singers, activists, politicians, etc. in the past. Second, they are all equal, in terms of citizens that have made their contribution to Egyptian society. Third, el-sitt is also the nickname of the famous singer Umm Kulthum, used in the meaning of ‘a lady’, a woman with a highly respectable social status. By using this nickname, Baheya Ya Masr indirectly says that street protest and political engagement are socially respectable roles for women, thereby creating a strong signal towards the attempts to keep women out of the public sphere. Baheya Ya Masr has been very effective in using well-known public figures from Egyptian nationalist discourse and national culture in a strategic manner (Sami, 2015, p. 95). In doing so, says Sami, it has been able to locate itself as a movement within the nation and thus gain popularity. Moreover, it took these figures a step further then the nationalist discourse itself: the figures were resignified so that they opposed the conservative gender discourse and hegemonic practices (Sami, 2015, p. 95). As such, the movement has “legitimized Egyptian women’s active citizenship role” (Sami, 2015, p. 95).

Samira Ibrahim

Samira Ibrahim was arrested on March 9, 2011 while marching in a demonstration on International Women’s Day (Kraidy, 2016, p. 170). A few months later, a video was circulating

in which Ibrahim was testifying about the virginity tests imposed on her by the army (Kraidy, 2016, p. 170). She said she wanted to take this injustice to court (Kraidy, 2016, p. 170). While spreading her story, Ibrahim repeated many times that she had not had sexual intercourse before, thereby affirming the dominant discourse that carries the idea that virginity of non-married women is crucial (Kraidy, 2016, p. 172). In December 2011, the court condemned the military, declaring that virginity tests are not legal and a clear violation of human rights (Kraidy, 2016, p. 171). However, one year after Samira was violated, the military doctor who performed the virginity test was eventually released (Mohsen, 2012). The virginity test was said to have never occurred (Kraidy, 2016, p. 171). According to Mikdashi (2011), the point of virginity tests is not to check if a woman is a virgin, but to threaten and humiliate women and ultimately to show the male domination over the female body. It is important to keep in mind that virginity testing is long in history and wide in geography and definitely not a typical Egyptian or Arab practice (Kraidy, 2016, p. 170). Kraidy gives one example, namely British authorities that used the technique in the 1970s as an instrument for border control. There was a stunning discrepancy present in the amount of media attention Aliaa Al-Mahdy (cf. supra) and Samira Ibrahim respectively received: whereas Al-Mahdy was catapulted into fame that crossed the borders of Egypt, Ibrahim’s case was not spread extensively (Kraidy, 2016, pp. 174-176). A famous mural painted by Ammar Abo Bakr opposes both figures. Kraidy (2016, p. 174) believes it is a contemporary depiction of the classic dichotomy between the virgin and the whore.

In the mural, there is a piece of text that compares the two women:

Samira Ibrahim, twenty- five years old, nakedness and a virginity test in front of officers and soldiers were forced upon her, and she rejected that her story not be told, so she lodged a judicial complaint with the Egyptian judiciary. No interest . . . no notoriety . . . no media . . . no one answers. Aliaa al Mahdy, twenty years old: she went naked and unveiled her body entirely of her own will, the public and the media rushed toward her, nearly three million people saw her picture, and there were no less than fifty articles and numerous television programs. (Abo-Bakr, as cited in: Kraidy, 2016, p. 175)

Aliaa Al-Mahdy versus Samira Ibrahim. ("Women in Graffiti: A Tribute to the Women of Egypt.," 2013)

C) Morsi

Just as in the previous section, there will first be provided a more general account on women under the Muslim Brotherhood regime. After that, a more concrete and richer picture will be created by using a case: the one of belly dancer Sama El-Masry.

After the 2012 elections, the Muslim Brotherhood came to power (Wahdan, 2014, p. 61). Since Nasser, this conservative Islamist party had been operating mostly under the radar (Wahdan, 2014, p. 61). Their candidate, Mohamed Morsi, became the first democratically elected president in the history of modern Egypt (Wahdan, 2014, p. 61). The year after Morsi was elected was characterized by even more violence on ‘the people’ in the name of ‘the people’: the Port Said massacre in which 74 football fans were killed, the killing of demonstrators in the presidential palace, and the second Mohamed Mahmoud massacre while commemorating the first one are but a few examples of the horrific events of this period (Sabea, 2014, p. 85). In June 2013 a second wave of (post-election) revolution erupted (Sabea, 2014, p. 85). Many of the original protesters of 2011 were also active in these protests.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been well known for its very conservative views concerning gender relations (Van Raemdonck, 2015a, p. 251). For example, they suggested that women should be completely forbidden to play roles in films, and it should be avoided that they appear in the public sphere (Sami, 2015, p. 91). If it was unavoidable for women to appear in public, they should be rendered invisible. This is why, in the parliamentary elections of 2000, in which it was legally obliged to include a female nominee, her picture was left out of the form and a rose was printed instead. Under the Muslim Brotherhood, gang rape occurred on a very regular basis (Abaza, 2013). The most common explanation for sexual harassment as a tool for political exclusion is sexual frustration that has grown out of taboos and religious rules (Abaza, 2013). Abaza labels these explanations too simplistic, because it was the Morsi state itself, while claiming to be the defender of the Islamic moral, that was the main perpetrator. Instead, says Abaza, gang rape is “a repertoire designed to smear the Square”. The accountability for gang rape was blamed on the woman, who should not have gone to the Square to protest in the first place (Abaza, 2013). Similar strategies to discredit female protesters have been observed in Yemen and Libya (Abusalim & Al-Najjar, 2015, p. 140).

Sama El-Masry

Sama El-Masry is a belly dancer who became famous by posting satirical belly dancing videos on the Internet, in which she criticized the Muslim Brotherhood and especially their ideas about women and women’s bodies (El Said, 2015). The most interesting thing about Sama El-Masry is that belly dancing, often perceived as immoral and shameful, is used as a form of resistance (El Said, 2015). This paradox is reinforced by taking away the elements of sexuality that are inherent to belly dancing and replacing them with satirical elements: funny faces instead of seductive looks, and conservative rather than sexy clothing (El Said, 2015). El-Masry, as opposed to Aliaa Al-Mahdy, was praised by liberals and her actions were very clearly seen as an act of resistance (El Said, 2015). Why? El Masry’s resistance was effective because she reached the masses by embedding herself in popular culture (belly dancing and folkloric music) and by using newspaper headlines and slogans from Tahrir (El Said, 2015). Just like Al-Mahdy, El-Masry has clearly declared that she does not address the women’s question in general and is not a part of the overall feminist agenda, although she did use “the most feminist of resistance techniques: her body” (El Said, 2015, p. 128). Her videos succeeded in alienating the Muslim

Brotherhood (El Said, 2015). Yet, when the Sisi regime came to power, the videos El-Masry made were used as pro-army propaganda (El Said, 2015).4

In sum, the SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood both emphasized the importance of hierarchy and obedience, and did not see women and men as deserving equal treatment (El Said, 2015, p. 110). Under their reign, attacks on women were very common (El Said, 2015, p. 110). Many women were encouraged by activists to testify about what had happened to them and as a result a wave of testimonies flooded the Internet (Abouelnaga, 2015). This way, documenting harassment became part of documenting the Revolution.

D) Sisi

Morsi was ousted on July 3, 2013 by the army, under the auspices of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (Kraidy 2016, p. 70). After a few months under an interim government led by Sisi, he became the new president of Egypt. Sisi won the controversial May 2014 elections with 96 percent, a number similar to pre-2011 ‘elections’, in which the regime obviously manipulated the vote (Kraidy, 2016, p. 70). Between July 2013 and June 2014, 36.000 people were arrested for political participation ("Comrades from Cairo: everyone’s right to protest," 2014). Nevertheless, the reason for the popularity of the army shortly after the ousting of Morsi, was the fact that they talked about stability, which was the main thing Egyptians were longing for after a three year long period of turmoil, death, and violence (Abaza, 2014, p. 180). What was not talked about at all during the ‘new beginning’ of the Sisi regime, was that Sisi was actually the head of military intelligence under both Mubarak and the SCAF, and the defense minister under Morsi (Kraidy, 2016, p. 86). As soon as the coup had taken place, Sisi started building a personality cult (Kraidy, 2016, p. 84). His face was seen all over the city: on billboards, walls, banners, shops, etc. He was depicted as the savior of the nation, a ‘Super-male’, who was extremely strong and powerful (Chakravarti, 2014). This was exemplified by the sale of Sisi-mania: several male consumer products that promised men they would acquire some of the virility and solidity of the new leader (Chakravarti, 2014). Moreover, Sisi actively performed the cult that was built around him, for example by making biking trips through the streets of Cairo to underline his fitness to lead the country (Kraidy, 2016, p. 87).

4 This is a video posted after Sisi came to power: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcXXy-Jb6wU.

(Chakravarti, 2014)

After the male-targeting of the Sisi-products, female garments became a new branch for the Sisi-industry (Chakravarti, 2014):

The suggestion that these items of 'intimate' female clothing might carry a charged message, around the Super-male's sexualised domination of helpless and submissive femininity, found iconographic parallels in the emergence of posters and cartoons depicting the new leader as the White Knight riding to the rescue of Egypt.

(Chakravarti, 2014)

Sisi was the new leader of the Egyptian state and thus also of a body politic that was not willing to address the permanent problem of sexual harassment (Kraidy, 2016, p. 217). Moreover, the fact that sexual assaults were myriad during Sisi’s first week in office is not coincidental, yet “reflects that sexual violence in the Square resonated with the violent takeover of power in the country” (Kraidy, 2016, p. 217). Abou-Bakr (2015) labels the military intervention as a turning point in the relationship between women’s organizations and the state. In August 2013, the NCW organized an international press conference, in which the speakers, ‘representing all Egyptian women’, expressed their strong support for the military regime (Abou-Bakr, 2015). The Muslim Brotherhood was condemned in a very hard fashion and a demand was made to add them to the international list of terrorist organizations (Abou-Bakr, 2015), what was realized in December 2013 (Kraidy, 2016, p. 71). With some feminist and human rights groups forming an exception, the author Abou-Bakr identifies a return to the pre-2011 situation. More specifically, it means that the NCW and its allies keep silent about the state’s human rights violations. Although the reports of sexual assault and torture by the police and security forces were rising, the NCW refused to deliver any statement on these issues. Unconditional support for the authority and power of the security forces have been a constant characteristic of the NCW ever since (Abou- Bakr, 2015). To conclude, the NCW may have a strong political bias and may have strong linkages with the state’s 3 July regime (Abou-Bakr, 2015).

PART 2. Towards a Typology of Feminism and the Body

It is very dangerous to see feminism as a solely Western and secularist movement (Abu- Lughod, 2013, p. 44). One cannot simply study ‘feminism’ in the Egyptian context without taking into account the colonial encounter or the importance of religion. If the researcher only looks from his or her own frame of reference, there is a whole world of meaning that will be left out. Therefore, what I want to do here, is to use a typology of feminism in the context of the Egyptian Revolution, which does not pretend to be complete, but that will provide a richer picture of the activists who are actively trying to improve women’s lives in Egypt. Later on, I will use this typology to compare several cases of feminist creative insurgency from the revolutionary period with my respondents. I want to emphasize that this is not simply a model I force upon my data. Instead, the model has been created in interaction with the data. The data have been the starting point for classifying the types of feminism; in other words: my methodology is inductive and my research qualitative.

Western feminism The first type of feminism discussed here is Western feminism. This is also sometimes called ‘liberal’, ‘universal’ or ‘first world feminism’. In this type of feminism, “liberal culture is the acultural norm and should be the universal standard by which to measure societies” (Abu- Lughod, 2013, p. 84). It sees the Islam as a religion that promotes gender inequality and opposes itself to the religion as such (Elgousi, 2016, p. 54). The model of agency often used within Western feminist thinking is not always suitable to study women who have lived in societies that are not liberal democracies (Mahmood, 2001, p. 203). Mahmood (2001, p. 203) therefore pleads for an understanding of agency as “ a capacity for action that historically specific relations of subordination enable and create” instead of defining it as resistance to domination and suppression. Abu-Lughod is more overtly skeptical for the Western feminists in citing that “agency is easily overlooked if you actively erase it” (Dusenbery, as cited in: Abu-Lughod, 2013, p. 9). Mohanty (1988, pp. 81-82) even goes a step further in stating that Western feminists need the concept of the ‘third-world woman’ for their self-presentation as secular, liberated and in control of their own lives. The main skepticism this form of feminism receives is that the Western notion of gender is positioned within the frame of colonial imperialism (Van Raemdonck, 2015a, p. 245). Mohanty (1988, pp. 72-73) criticizes the tradition within Western feminism to frame women 28

from the non-Western world as a coherent and homogeneous group united through their oppression: ‘women’ as a delineated category of analysis is ahistorical and ignores the different sociocultural contexts. This entails a monolithic understanding of sexual difference, namely that men exploit and women are exploited. Such a binary division, says Mohanty, quickly falls into the trap of reductionism and simplification. Additionally, Butler (2006, p. 41) points at the instrumentalization of Western feminism to reaffirm First World primacy. The Bush administration, for example, used feminism and the ‘liberation of Afghan women’ as a legitimation for the military interventions.

Postcolonial Feminism To understand the origins of postcolonial feminism, I will look at one analysis on the representation of Arab women by Bavard (2017). Bavard discusses three avatars of Arab women that have dominated Western imagery: the odalisque, the victim, and the rebel. This is what Abu-Lughod (2013, p. 88) calls ‘gendered orientalism’5. The odalisque avatar was created in the period of Napoleon (Bavard, 2017). In this imagery, often expressed through paintings, women are laying down in a very sensual manner, waiting for the men to come in (Kahf, as cited in: Bavard, 2017). In essence, this is a “indigenous body that is sensualized by the European reverie” (Bavard, 2017).

Auguste Renoir, Odalisque, 1870 (Bavard, 2017)

5 Orientalism itself is “a way of seeing that imagines, emphasizes, exaggerates and distorts differences of Arab peoples and cultures as compared to that of Europe and the U.S. It often involves seeing Arab culture as exotic, backward, uncivilized, and at times dangerous.” (“What is Orientalism?”, 2011). 29

During the colonial period, the representation of femininity shifted from sensuality towards oppression (Bavard, 2017). This avatar, what Bavard calls ‘the victim’, is built around the ‘backwardness of Islam’ and its patriarchic views. From the turn to the twentieth century onwards, a central discourse that emphasized the strong need to ‘save’ women and ‘emancipate’ them was used (Bavard, 2017). The erotic garment and clothing of the Arab women was slowly being removed from paintings; instead the colonial eye focused fundamentally on the veil as the ultimate symbol of oppression (Bavard, 2017). This was of course a legitimization for the civilization mission of colonial powers: this mission was the only possibility for Arab women to escape the harem (Bavard, 2017).

“Arent’you Beautiful? Take off your veil!” : 1957 propaganda poster of the French Army (Bavard, 2017)

The image of this oppressed Arab woman (‘the victim’) is still being used by the West today, in particular to legitimize an interventionist policy (Bavard, 2017). In the context of the Afghan war, there were pictures published on the front page of the New York Times, showing Afghan girls who had stripped of their burkas (Butler, 2006, pp. 141-142). Butler describes a visit to an American political theorist who had put these pictures on his refrigerator as a sign and reminder of the success of democracy. More generally, the actions undertaken by the girls were framed as acts of liberations and gratitude towards the American army. This, says Butler, was a strong symbol of ‘successfully exported American cultural progress’, or in other words, “white men saving brown women from brown men” (Spivak, as cited in: Abu-Lughod, 2013, p. 33). Similarly, several women who decided independently to take off the veil in the context of the Algerian war, re-veiled themselves after declarations by the colonizers that it was due to the French ‘liberation’ that these women were no longer victims of oppression (Fanon, 1965, p. 62).

Also within academic work and Western media, this narrative of ‘the victim’ is still very much present (Bavard, 2017). Within Western feminist writings, says Mohanty (1988, p. 66), non-Western women are homogenized as one big powerless and oppressed group. These Western feminist writings on women in non-Western parts of the world must be understood within the structure of the worldwide hegemony of Western scholarship. Most of the work that is being published about women’s issues in the Arab world, is written in English or French (Elgousi, 2016, p. 69). The third avatar is ‘the rebel’ (Bavard, 2017). This image was born during the Arab Spring and is built upon the visibility of many women during the protests of 2011. In this narrative, the ‘victim’ has not disappeared. Instead, it is opposed to a few ‘emancipated’ rebels that follow ‘our’ steps and look like ‘us’. The victim and the rebel coexist: it is the rebel that is trying to step up for the voiceless victim. The Western focus on Arab women’s bodies does not stop here, yet it takes another form: an obsession with nudity, in contrast with the other obsession with the veil. Nudity and nude protest, through this universalist Western framework, are seen as acts of liberation of Arab women and these people are celebrated within Western feminist circles and magazines, for example Aliaa Al-Mahdy who posed on the cover of ‘Elle’ (Bavard, 2017). In other words, in this third avatar of ‘the rebel’, the us vs. them divide is still very much present.

(Bavard, 2017)

This analysis by Bavard illustrates the approach of postcolonial feminism: they try to deconstruct so-called ‘universal’ notions of womanhood and oppression.6 In essence, this is a school that is very critical towards the ‘globalization’ of feminism (Van Raemdonck, 2015a).

In other words, it is only in so far as 'Woman/Women' and 'the East' are defined as Others, or as peripheral, that (western) Man/Humanism can represent him/itself as the center. It is not the center that determines the periphery, but the periphery that, in its boundedness, determines the center. (Mohanty, 1988, p. 81)

Islamic Feminism Whereas secular feminists maintain their claim for women’s equality as a basis for human rights, the Islamic feminists stress that women’s rights are fundamental privileges granted by Islam, and that their current status in society has nothing to do with Islam (Elgousi, 2016, p. 71). Islam has instead been misinterpreted in “patriarchal and often misogynistic ways over the centuries when the Sharia has been misunderstood and misapplied, particularly the Muslim family laws” (Elgousi, 2016, p. 71). Islam as a theology does not require discrimination against women, which is why most women accepted Islamic rights when these were being created (Elgousi, 2016, p. 14). This type of feminists believe that gender equality can be reached within Islam (Elgousi, 2016, p. 54). The main reason this has not occurred yet, is that traditions and sacred texts have been widely misinterpreted in the past. Therefore, the question we need to ask ourselves today is not about the presence, but about the application of women’s rights in contemporary Arab societies (Elgousi, 2016, p. 29). Islamic feminists strongly oppose male domination and discrimination in their societies and criticize that “radical interpretation of the teachings of the Qur’an has been used as a tool for the suppression of women under the name of Islam” (Elgousi, 2016, p. 29). As confusion about what this form of feminism entails may appear (because of the multiple possible understandings of Islam), one specific definition is used here, that of Moghadam7 (as cited in: Elgousi, 2016, p. 61): “a Qur’an centered reform movement by

6 There is this illustrative example of postcolonial feminism, namely an online strip series called ‘Qahera’, which is the Arabic name for Cairo. The series can be accessed here: http://qaherathesuperhero.com/post/61173083361 7 Valentine Moghadam is an activist and academic working for women’s justice and also the head of the Gender Quality and Development Section at UNESCO.

Muslim women with the linguistic and theological knowledge to challenge patriarchal interpretations and offer alternative readings in pursuit of women’s advancement and in refutation of Western stereotypes and Islamist orthodoxy alike”. To advocate for gender equality within the frame of Islam has always meant to find an intermediate space between the fundamental secular rejection of religious references in the gender debate on the one hand, and religious conservatism on the other hand (Abou-Bakr, 2015, pp. 194-195). Islamic feminism still faces fundamental difficulties to get accepted, also among women (Elgousi, 2016, p. 61). It is possible that there is overlap between postcolonial and Islamic feminism. Islamic feminism shares certain ideas with the postcolonial tradition, for example their opposition towards the West. However, it is perfectly possible that a postcolonial feminist does not see gender equality achievable within Islam. Because they are not one and the same, I opt here to separate them as two distinct types for the sake of clarity.

Before moving on to the theoretical framework, I want to stress here that this is definitely not the only typology of feminism one can make. This typology, retrieved from a specific setting, is a first attempt for categorization and I use a rather simple scheme that suits the Cairene context. Not every single person who sees him or herself as a feminist perfectly fits within these categories, as I will show in the findings. In sum, the categorization used here is definitely a large simplification of the immense spectrum of feminism.

Theoretical Framework: the Body

The Egyptian revolution has, so to speak, lifted the curtain on an explosive, performing body that has slipped away from the grip of power and sought to challenge its sociocultural and linguistic constraints. Like an actor on stage who acquires a new sense of agency through performance, the individual citizen in revolt performs an existential act aiming to reclaim the uninhibited, free body from the regime and its cognitive hold.

(El-Khatib, 2013, p. 104)

There is one concept that is important within all types of feminism and that is ‘the body’. The body is also the angle from which I will be looking at the findings of my field work in Cairo, because studying a certain phenomenon requires a point of entry into the subject matter (De Smet, 2014, p. 288). In this work I choose to use the body as my point of entry. In this dissertation, I look at ‘the body’ from the perspective of performance studies. Performance is built into the very nature of political behavior itself and is never a one-way action (Tripp, 2013, p. 203). The Other for whom the performance is being performed forms a constitutive part of the Subject that is performing (Tripp, 2013, p. 203). The Egyptian regime, says Tripp (2013, p. 205), should be understood as part of a larger performance that reproduces power. The performative is thus both at the center of the state policy as well as the resistance towards this state. Concerning gender, the starting point is the idea that the acts through which gender is being reproduced are similar to performative acts in theatrical contexts (Butler, 1988, p. 522). In other terms, gender is real only to the extent that it is performed (Butler, 1988, p. 522). Every single individual learns from a very young age to perform gender specific movements, sounds, gestures, facial expressions, and clothing (Schechner, 2002, pp. 151-152). Crucial to studies that are dealing with the body is the focus on what bodies can do rather than on what they are (Rees, 2017, p. 7). As Foucault (1977, p. 25) puts it: “the body is (…) directly involved in a political field; power relations have an immediate hold upon it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs.” . In essence, the body is the site of state violence (Kraidy, 2016, p. 173). This is why, says Rees (2017, p. 6) the story of bodies is the story of societies.

The body implies mortality, vulnerability, agency: the skin and the flesh expose us to the gaze of others, but also to touch, and to violence, and bodies put us at risk of becoming the agency and instrument of all these as well. Although we struggle for rights over our own bodies, the very bodies for which we struggle are not quite ever only our own. The body has its invariably public dimension. Constituted as a social phenomenon in the public sphere, my body is and is not mine. Given over from the start to the world of others, it bears their imprint, is formed within the crucible of social life; only later, and with some uncertainty, do I lay claim to my body as my own, if, in fact, I ever do. (Butler, 2006, p. 26)

Referring to the immense amount of studies discussing the role of digital media during the Arab Spring, Kraidy (2016, p. 10) reminds the reader that it is in fact the body that is the essential political medium as “for politics to take place, the body must appear” (Butler, 2011, p. 3). Butler points out that it is the appearance of a body to other bodies that creates a space between them that allows them to appear. The political action emerges from this ‘in between’. Abouelnaga (2015) criticizes Foucault for treating the experiences of the human body as if they are no different for men and women. Instead, the body is divided into one that appears in public to speak and act and another feminine, sexual, and laboring body that is located within the private and pre-political sphere (Butler, 2011, p. 6). This feminine body is a precondition for the other body to act and as such becomes the “structuring absence” (in Butlers words) that enables the public sphere to exist. The male body, especially in the Middle East, has not been a subject of analysis in a systematic way, as the idea of a body is usually associated with women (Ghannam, 2013). This association of the body with the female, says Butler (1999, p. 16), “works along magical relations of reciprocity whereby the female sex becomes restricted to its body, and the male body, fully disavowed, becomes, paradoxically, the incorporeal instrument of an ostensibly radical freedom”. However, it is wrong to assume that men are not impacted by social regulations and expectations (Ghannam, 2013). Above, I mentioned that I will use the typology of feminism to compare some cases of feminist creative insurgency from the period 2011-2014 with the present-day viewpoints of my respondents. Kraidy (2016) describes two types of bodily creative insurgency: the so-called ‘burning man’, and the ‘laughing cow’. Burning man is a very radical and explosive manner of dissent, in which the body puts itself physically at risk of dying, for example the self- immolation of Bouazizi in the Tunisian context. This form of insurgency is expressed through one-time outburst and direct confrontation. The laughing cow, on the other hand, is a much more incremental and latent form of activism. It uses the human body in a more symbolic way, for example by using revolutionary humor. These modes of insurgency intertwine permanently.

PART 3. Research Project & Findings

Explanation of the Research Project & Research Question

In March 2018, I went to Cairo for one month to conduct my research. I had the opportunity to do an internship at D-CAF (Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival), a three- week art festival that was organized at that time. I was assistant-coordinator of one of the meetings. The goal of this internship was to make it easier for me to find contacts. At the heart of the project were the interviews with these eleven people. During my time in Cairo, I have tried to adopt this focus on ‘the body’. However, there is a limitation connected to this approach. The climate in Cairo is tight, in the sense that many people are afraid to speak out in public or to ‘perform’ bodily resistance. I have experienced that the forms of dissent people use today are not overtly performative, yet rather subtle. In other terms, I have been focusing on what Kraidy (2016, cf. supra) calls the ‘laughing cow’ type of bodily creative insurgency. ‘Laughing cow’ is a more incremental and latent form of activism. It uses the human body in a much more symbolic way. The art scene is an excellent context in which to study this form of dissent because it is indeed a more latent and highly abstract and symbolic form of creative insurgency. This is why I have chosen to select artists who work around notions of gender, women’s rights, and the body for my interviews.

To what extent have debates and viewpoints about the body and feminism been challenged by the events of 2011-2014? Critics often refer to an Arab ‘Winter’ when talking about the current situation. What are the main challenges? Can the different types discussed in the typology still be recognized? These questions are all pertinent and I have summarized them in the research question I want to answer:

What are the main challenges within the feminist struggle in Cairo today compared to the revolutionary period?

The goal of answering this question is to bring clarity. I want to shed my light on some of the challenges that are relevant within contemporary Egyptian feminism, so that this work can be a starting point for scholars who want to either dig into one specific challenge, or to link these findings to other political trends in Egypt or the Arab region. On a scientific level, I believe this research project to be relevant because there is very little attention for contemporary Egyptian feminism. The years between 2011 and 2014 have been flooded with an overwhelming body of research on feminism and women’s rights, often from a narrative of exceptionalism. After 2014 however, attention faded. Instead, the revolutionary struggle should be a starting point for further research into the present-day circumstances and debates, because the 2011-2014 period contains many outings of what is at the core of Egyptian feminism. The relevance is also grounded in society. Research on feminism and the body is important from an emancipatory point of view. It is useful if the academic world develops a nuanced understanding of the circumstances in Cairo and the role of women in particular. This may be of great use to policy makers, both nationally and internationally.

Methodology

My research project is qualitative in nature: I conducted eleven in-depth interviews with artists in Cairo. What distinguishes qualitative from quantitative research is the intimacy at its core (Camfield, 2014, p. 34). The establishment of intimacy in research brings about care, empathy and vulnerability in the research relation (Camfield, 2014, p. 26). The researcher needs to find the right amount of empathy, enough to gain trust, however at the same time limited so that the research focus does not get lost (Cop & Kleinman, as cited in: Camfield, 2014, p. 27). Still, there is often a ‘respondent burden’ in qualitative research, both in time and in information respondents give (Camfield, 2014, p. 19). In this section, I will first explain how I conducted these interviews and selected my respondents. Second, I will reflect on my own position as a researcher through the concept of reflexivity.

A) Interviewing

First of all, I will explain how I selected my respondents. As I was looking for cases of feminist creative insurgency, I started by going through the D-CAF program to see if there were any artists active in this field that were going to perform at the festival. I contacted some of 37

them and these people formed the starting point for my snowball sampling. This means I asked these ‘starting points’ to give me the contact of other members of a specific population (Meuleman & Roose, 2014, pp. 195-196), in this case artists who were working around gender, women’s rights, or the body. The main weakness that is typical for this approach is that the starting points determine the ultimate sample, which is often limited to a very specific subgroup, in my case the bubble of a mostly secular arty, leftist, middle class social circle (Meuleman & Roose, 2014, pp. 195-196). I used the format of semi-structured interviewing, in which a topic list is the main tool. A topic list enumerates the different subjects and themes that are to be discussed during the interview (Meuleman & Roose, 2014, pp. 325-326). It helps the respondents to discuss the central concepts in a more concrete and ‘digestible’ manner. Hence, the semi-structured interview balances between structure and flexibility (Meuleman & Roose, 2014, p. 326). In the interviews, I always started the conversation by talking about the artistic work of the respondent. These questions and discussions were different for every interviewee. Nevertheless, I tried to use these very concrete topics to dig deeper and to approach the more fundamental subjects of my topic list, which is shown below. Most of the interviews did not address all of the topics included and often the conversation took us to other, related subjects. Sometimes, I confronted interviewees with claims of other respondents.

Topic List

 artistic work of the respondent

 placement of the gender aspect within the revolutionary struggle  meaning of feminism

 the body in Cairene public space  trends/evolutions in women’s status  relation gender & politics

 women and the current regime

The presence of a notebook can make people around the researcher behave in an unnatural way (Meuleman & Roose, 2014, p. 308). On the other hand, making notes ‘in the moment’ will generate the most comprehensive and reliable source of information (Meuleman & Roose, 2014, p. 308). I have decided not to record or note any of the interviews and conversations I had, for two main reasons. First of all, there was a safety reason. Under the Sisi regime, journalists have been intimidated and imprisoned, protestors have been killed and fear is overwhelmingly present in the Egyptian public sphere (Kraidy, 2016, p. 71). The disappearance and murder of the Italian researcher Julio Regeni in January 2016 is a case in point. Regeni was allegedly killed by security forces because he was researching trade unions in the country (Michaelson, 2018). People in Cairo, especially during election time8 when I was there, are very suspicious towards anything that might look like a journalist or a researcher. Therefore, it was better both for the interviewee and for me to just have an informal chat and avoid danger as much as possible. However, I would like to note that the places where my interviewees wanted to meet most of the time felt quite safe. Almost all of the coffee places and bars were located in Zamalek, the rather expensive middle class island in Cairo. The people I was speaking to were talking openly and rather loud about politics, the regime, and security; topics that are to be avoided in daily life in Cairo if one wants to stay out of risk. It occurred to me that these places must be some kind of ‘safe space’ for people that are critical towards the Sisi regime. Second, there was the ‘smoothness’ of the conversation. I thought that a record device or a notebook would create an artificial atmosphere in the conversation and people would be less willing to talk freely. In this dissertation, I anonymized all my respondents, which is a common practice within qualitative research for reasons of privacy (Meuleman & Roose, 2014, p. 96). Although some of my respondents are well known figures within activist circles and have personally chosen to speak up about feminism or other political themes, I opt here to take no risk whatsoever by mentioning their name, both for reasons of safety and privacy. Some of the respondents explicitly asked me not to mention their name.

8 The March 2018 presidential election resulted in victory for Sisi, who is now in his second term as the president of Egypt. He gained 97% of the vote. Several sources reported intimidation during the vote and all but one candidate had withdrawn before election day, allegedly under pressure from the Sisi regime. As Foreign Policy (Khorshid, 2018) put it: “The March vote will in no way confirm President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s popularity among the Egyptian people. This election campaign is merely an extension of the internal power struggle among the military and the regime’s security services, and it has nothing to do with democratic mechanisms worthy of the name.” 39

B) Reflexivity

Qualitative research is grounded in constructivist thought about the world around us (Meuleman & Roose, 2014, pp. 83-84). In Kantian terms, the only way we can ‘know’ reality is through our own perceptions of it (Meuleman & Roose, 2014, pp. 83-84). Meuleman & Roose argue that when the researcher is studying certain phenomena, one needs to take into account the cultural, social, and historical background of this researcher. This is what is called reflexivity: researchers should be conscious about the way in which their own perspective influences observations and interpretations (Meuleman & Roose, 2014, p. 162). Within performance studies it is a basic claim that no position is objective or neutral (Schechner, 2002, p. 2). To deny affect and positionality in research is nothing more than a performative contradiction, since we cannot understand things in any other way than from a particular point of view, which reflects our affective, social, cultural, and historical location (Cerwonka & Malkki, 2007, p. 37). I will shed my light on two different aspects of my own position: my subjectivity as a woman and mobility.

Subjectivity as a woman

There is no such thing as apolitical scholarship (Mohanty, 1988, p. 62). As a researcher, one needs to be aware of one’s ideological bias (Meuleman & Roose, 2014, p. 103). Just as Ghannam (2013, pp. 24-25) does in her book on masculinity in a Cairene neighborhood, I fully acknowledge that my gender (I identify as a ciswoman) shapes my research experience and my interpretation of the things I witnessed. I am aware of the limitation this has imposed on my research. In particular, this means that I have my own idea of what it means to be a (feminist) woman. I organized my interviews with certain preconceptions about the subject I engaged with. This may have provoked situations in which I did not ‘see’ specific data because I was so much embedded in my own frame of reference. I consider myself to be a feminist and this puts me on one side of the story, especially because I have a Westernized notion of feminism and women in particular. However, like Ghannam (2013, p. 25), I believe that “we need to approach any gender construction (..) from a multiplicity of locations and perspectives in the hope of weaving together different parts of the complex process (…)”. As such, the researcher’s body can also be an enrichment for the empirical analysis in the field (Cerwonka & Malkki, 2007, pp. 34-35).

Mobility

Rabinow (1977) struggles with the question of how to justify his presence in the field towards the local community. Like Rabinow, I have struggled several times to explain to people why I was there to study the situation. There is this inherent power inequality I experienced because I am studying a subject that interests me very much and I have the ability to travel there, yet for the people in Cairo these circumstances make out their daily life. In other words: “the world in which I feel a moral pull to intervene is the world of the privileged” (Abu-Lughod, 2013, p. 227). I also felt that many people are tired of talking about the Revolution. At times it felt like I was number thousand-and-one in a long row of researchers: “I feel like a spoiled child. I am here to study these issues, but I only realize now what an impact these things have had and still have on people’s lives and well-being”9. Cerwonka describes a scene in which she was allowed to be present during a strip search of a woman in the police station, her main field work site (Cerwonka & Malkki, 2007, pp. 33- 34). The nudity of the woman opposed to a police officer in uniform, and Cerwonka, a comfortably dressed researcher, confronted her with the unequal power relations between the former and the two dressed women. This insight is a direct consequence of Cerwonka’s personal investment in the research and her awareness about the situation, which I believe to be crucial.

9 Field notes, March 4, 2018

Findings

In the first part of this section, I will shortly focus on the period 2011-2014, which was already studied in the literature section. The goal of this is to amplify the insights on these events. It will also help me to develop my analysis. After, I will discuss the present-day situation, first in a more general manner. Thereafter, I will discuss my respondents and how they can (or cannot) be placed within the typology of feminism.

A) On 2011-2014

The glorification of women’s participation in the protests of 2011 may be interpreted as a counter revolutionary strategy: to frame women’s presence in the public sphere as an exception rather than a structural challenge of gender relations, facilitates the restoration of the pre-2011 gender norms (Pratt, 2013). Moreover, it was good for the image of the Revolution that there were women in the pictures because it gives the impression that things were peaceful.10 In reality, pursuing a feminist agenda after the Eighteen Days was an aspect that was largely ignored by most actors in society because it was seen as a less important part of the greater cause of the Revolution (Mohsen, 2012): “Many people said the Revolution was not the time to speak about women’s issues. But if 50 % of your population cannot be freely in the street, how then can you speak about a Revolution?”11. Throughout the different interviews, three different perspectives on this issue could be identified. One way of framing it, is that the women’s cause was a major part of the protests. This perspective mainly refers to the women’s marches to prove this point.12 A second perspective is that the women’s cause was always consciously separated from the ‘real revolutionary causes’, depicting it as a rather marginal subject.13 This is the perspective that is mostly adopted in the academic debate. A third way of looking at the issue is that the attention for women (through cases such as the blue bra) were there to distract the masses.14 If the people were worrying about the blue bra woman, they would not be thinking about elections, the fall

10 Interview with R6, March 30 2018, Cairo. ‘R6’ means Respondent 6, it is the way in which the interviewees will be referred to (see ‘Findings on 2018’). 11 Interview with R4, March 23 2018, Cairo. 12 Interview with R10, March 26 2018, Cairo. 13 Interview with R6, March 30 2018, Cairo. 14 Interview with R5, March 26 2018, Cairo. 42

of the regime, and Mubarak’s foreign money.15 The same mechanism was used by creating public debate about queer communities.16 Sexual assaults on female protestors have been discussed in the literature section: targeting women is a way of keeping them out of the public sphere (Pratt, 2013), as “to attack the body is to attack the right itself, since the right is precisely what is exercised by the body on the street” (Butler, 2011, p. 5). In other words, sexual assault can be understood as “the battle between two genders over the public sphere”17 . This battle operates on two levels: there is the physical battle (for instance when trying to save women from harassers), yet there is also the wider battle of to whom belongs public space and which rights derive from this.18 For example, the risk of assault made some of the women stay at home instead of joining the protests.19 Many members of the Operation Anti Sexual Harassment (OPANTISH) network were furious at the organized, leftist, revolutionary groups because many of them did not want to support their interventions officially.20 The main reason for their refusal was that they did not want to ‘defame the Square’.21 This has meant a psychological crackdown for the initiators of OPANTISH.22

B) On 2018

Women & the current regime

The women’s cause is sometimes used as a political tool to build the image of a modern, progressive state towards the outside world (Abou-Bakr, 2015, p. 185). The current regime uses women’s rights as a theme and ‘plays the women’s card’.23 The 90 women in Parliament and the four female ministers are often given as an example of the state’s dedication to the cause. 24

15 Interview with R5, March 26 2018, Cairo. 16 Ibid. 17 Interview with R6, March 30 2018, Cairo. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. In this video, a woman explains how she dresses herself to go to Tahrir in 2013: https://858.ma/TU/player/00:01:26.094

20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 Interview with R10, March 26 2018, Cairo. 24 Ibid. 43

Yet, the regime’s dedication is only located within certain domains: equal job opportunities are being discussed extensively, as opposed to domestic violence and rape 25 (domains in which the body is central). Women’s marches on International Women’s Day have completely disappeared and feminist organizations face difficulties to survive.26 In essence, it is clear that when looking at the state’s official policy towards women, it is nothing more than state feminism. As explained earlier, state feminism means that women collaborate with state’s bodies and policymakers to achieve certain goals (Abou-Bakr, 2015, pp.182-183). The risk is that these activists may lose their independence, be co-opted by the state, and end up only pursuing the goals that are important for this state (Abou-Bakr, 2015, pp. 182-183).

The current position of women in Cairene society as a whole is very hard to estimate. Most of the interviewees agree that there is more public debate about gender then before the Revolution. For example, a film has been produced two years ago about a woman in her search for a sperm donor.27 Moreover, the worldwide ‘#MeToo’ campaign has had considerable impact in Egypt. 28 More concretely, women would have more freedom of movement and more women would divorce their husband.29 It was also mentioned that harassment has declined slightly.30 On the other hand, clothing is more conservative and more women are veiled.31 This interesting link between the improvement of women’s lives and unveiling has been made by many of my interviewees. However, it is important to keep in mind that only one of the women I interviewed was actually wearing a veil (as my interview group was largely secular, cf. supra). Moreover, these debates about gender are often limited to very specific social circles.32 It is important to stress here that is not clear whether or not you can talk about ‘Egyptian women’ as a category. Judith Butler (1988, p. 523) distinguishes between acts that are being done in the name of women and acts that challenge the category of ‘women’ itself. She argues that the feminist idiom has often presupposed a kind of universalism concerning cultural experiences of women. Making ‘women’ visible as a category might not be an accurate representation of the actual concrete lives of these women. Butler advocates for a closer

25 Interview with R10, March 26 2018, Cairo. 26 Interview with R4, March 23 2018, Cairo. For a comment on the state’s policy towards feminists, read: https://www.awid.org/news-and-analysis/hunting- out-feminists-egypt. 27 Interview with R10, March 26 2018, Cairo. 28 Interview with R6, March 30 2018, Cairo. 29 Interview with R5, March 26 2018, Cairo. 30 Interview with R8, April 1 2018, Cairo. 31 Ibid. 32 Interview with R9, March 28 2018, Cairo. 44

examination of the category itself and the institutional and discursive means in which binary thought is grounded. Yet, other authors like Spivak and Kristeva (as cited in: Butler, 1988, p. 529) emphasize that in order to pursue a feminist political program, it is necessary to rely on an operational essentialism, in which women as a category are universalized for strategic purposes. From these observations, nothing more can be concluded than the enormous complexity and nuance that is involved in trying to understand the status of women in Cairo today, especially because this is not a delineated category. Pratt (2013) speaks of a gender paradox in her article: on the one hand women have been marginalized in many different ways since the ousting of Mubarak. On the other hand, one cannot simply deny the omnipresence of women and their images in public life.

Respondents and the typology of feminism

In my interviews, I talked to Egyptian artists about feminism and the body. In these talks we focused on what they are currently doing, because I want to compare the contemporary issues and challenges in the feminist struggle with the revolutionary period. I have categorized my interviewees into one of the types of feminism discussed in the typology. The result of this can be seen below, where I describe the respondents, their main viewpoints, and why they can clearly (or less clearly) be classified into one of the categories. As explained before, this categorization is not absolute and is a simplification of the actual situation, as “the interpretation of empirical details (…) is always a way of reading and dwelling in the world through theory” (Cerwonka & Malkki, 2007, p. 4). The incompleteness of the typology is also shown through the respondents that I have not been able to classify into one of the categories.

Western feminism R2, R6, R7, R9 Postcolonial feminism R4, R10, R11 Islamic feminism R4

Other R5 Unclear R1, R3, R8

Respondent 1 (R1)33

R1 is a woman who has set up a company that is making performances which blend social and artistic practices. I got in touch with her because I had seen in the D-CAF brochure that a performance she directed, about depression during motherhood, would be shown at the festival. I went to the office of her company in Ma’adi to do this interview. The interview proved to be irrelevant and I failed to categorize her.

Respondent 2 (R2)34

I got the contact of R2 through R1. R2 is a woman in her thirties. They have been working together in some performances in R1’s enterprise. R2 used to be a member of the Social Democratic Party and is now mainly active in the cultural field. She has been engaged in human rights issues for several years and has worked abroad for Amnesty International in London. Today, she is working on a documentary about sex work. We met in Club 28 in Zamalek, which was clearly a place for the upper middle class, based on the outfits of the people, the drinks on the table, and the prices. R2 is a Western feminist because she emphasizes the importance of the free will, which is central within liberal culture. She applies the Western understanding of freedom (the freedom to uncover the body). This is not surprising since she has lived in London for many years.

“I don’t want to forbid people from swimming either in a burkini or a bikini.”

“Girls have been sent out of University for wearing clothes that uncovered too much skin.”

“This society looks at women as something that you can buy or purchase.”

“The state supports the improvement of women’s rights, as long as it is within the mainstream traditional roles. Me, for example, I don’t fit in, because I don’t want to get married and I don’t want to have children.”

33 Interview with R1, March 15 2018, Cairo. 34 Interview with R2, March 17 2018, Cairo. 46

Respondent 3 (R3)35

R3 is a famous graffiti artist who has made some murals about violence against women. I got to know him through a mutual friend. The three of us met in the late afternoon for a tea in downtown36. After tea, we went to his studio and this was very interesting as different art works of the revolution were gathered there. There were also two friends of him there, one of them a member of the ‘Ultras’37. He was hiding in R3’s place, as shortly before I arrived in Cairo, the Ultras sang Sout-El-Horreya38 during a football match. The security responded with massive violence and several members (or so-called ‘hooligans’) fled their homes for some time. It is hard to say which kind of feminist R3 is or could be. He criticizes Islamists, yet that does not exclude the possibility of him being an Islamic feminist. It is not deductible from his quotes where to place him within the typology. Moreover, R9 told me that is not even a feminist at all.

“I painted the blue bra woman on a wall. And then Islamists painted my drawing black, just because of the naked body in the street.”

He feels indignant about the reactions towards the blue bra girl: ‘what took her there?’; ‘if she had worn decent clothing it wouldn’t have happened’, etc.

Respondent 4 (R4)39

R4 is a Canadian-Egyptian woman who was one of the driving forces behind a graffiti campaign that started in April 2013. It consisted of 30 artists, both women and men, whose goal was to raise awareness around gender-related themes in public space. I had read about her and then I saw her name on the list of attendants to the meeting I was coordinating for the D-CAF

35 Interview with R3, March 18 2018, Cairo. 36 ‘Downtown’ is the urban center of Cairo. 37 The ‘Ultras’ are a radical group of football fans who have been very active in the Revolution. 38 This is a song that has become very famous during the Revolution, translated as ‘Sound of Freedom’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgw_zfLLvh8

39 Interview with R4, March 23 2018, Cairo. 47

festival. As such, it was easy for me to find her contact and we eventually met after the meeting at the Greek Campus in downtown. R4 can be placed within Islamic feminism: she believes in gender equality within Islam (the problem is not the religion but the mentality) and has a non-Western concept of freedom (unclothing the body is not freedom). The last four quotes also show a postcolonial way of thinking and the last one is about ‘otherness’, which is central in postcolonial thought. So here, we do see the overlap between the two types of feminism. Therefore, I have placed R4 within both Islamic and postcolonial feminism.

“What’s really the problem is the mentality, the idea that we allow women to work.”

“For me, exposing and showing as much of your body as possible is not freedom. This is slavery. Because who are you showing it to? Who is the audience?”

“Wearing a veil is a part of who you are. It’s a part of your identity.”

She sees feminism as a Western concept and she does not want to associate herself with it because feminism “is white”.

“The massive unveiling of 2011 is not to be explained by a liberation of Arab women. It is much more complex than that.”

She often gets the remark: ‘You’re so liberal to be an Arab woman’.

“America started this war on terror targeted at the Middle East, and this is when we said: okay, if you think we are so different, we are going to emphasize every single part of us that is different than you.”

Respondent 5 (R5)40

R5 is a female dancer. She had a performance at the D-CAF festival called ‘The Resilience of the Body’. Originally, the performance would be performed on a trampoline. However, the gym where they were rehearsing burnt down, so they cancelled the project. A few weeks later, R5 made a trip to the beach in the unstable Sinai region with her family, what she calls “my own act of resistance”. In the way back, the car crashed against a checkpoint that was not lighted. She broke her back and felt how “on a very personal level, my body was affected”. She decided to keep the original title for the new performance, in which she runs circles on a scene while stating that she will not stop running until there is a more just world. We met in a coffee place in Zamalek. R5 fits within the category of ‘other’ because she consciously takes distance from the feminist struggle. She does not believe that women’s rights were a political issue that needed to be dealt with during the Revolution. In her last quote, she does refute the avatar of ‘the victim’ (Bavard, 2017) and underlines the importance of the individual.

“I’m not a feminist. I don’t have to fight for women’s rights.”

She thinks we need to transcend the category of gender in order to break away from it.

The blue bra and other cases of women’s abuse were only there to distract the masses according to R5. She says that rape and violence against women was not what the Revolution was about.

The responsibility is at the individual level, not with someone else that has to empower the woman: “If you are oppressed, then stand up and don’t let the oppressor do this to you.”

40 Interview with R5, March 26 2018, Cairo. 49

Respondent 6 (R6)41

I got the contact of R6 through R11. R6 is a female feminist activist who has been very active during the Revolution. She was one of the driving forces behind OPANTISH. Today, she is working on a film about women in prison who killed their husbands and the stigma that goes along with that. Officially she sold it as a social project about imprisoned women with the goal of preventing these murders from happening in the future. I met R6 in her apartment in Zamalek. R6 makes the connection between unveiling and freedom and can therefore be placed within Western feminism. She isolates the veil from Egyptian identity. This may reflect the opposition towards Islam that is typical for Western feminists.

“Egypt doesn’t have a history of veiling. It’s a very recent thing that mainly started in the 1990s. It’s not a part of our culture. Since the Revolution, so many women took off their veil.”

Respondent 7 (R7)42

I met R7 through R11, who recommended me to speak to her. R7 is a female dancer and choreographer who has also acted in a performance by R1 on female genital mutilation. I met R7 in a cafe in Garden City43. She recently made a dance performance about street harassment, based on interviews. She has travelled through upper Egypt to interview women on street harassment, using two basic questions:

1) If someone bothers you on the street, what is your reaction? 2) If it happened a lot over the years, did you change anything in yourself in order to deal with it? She used this research to create a performance based on baladi dance. This is a popular, sexual, folkloristic dance. She combined this dance with tahtib, which is an aggressive dance with sticks that is normally only performed by men. Her goal was to decontextualize the baladi dance and to spread a message opposite to its normal meaning: “women can be beautiful and

41 Interview with R6, March 30 2018, Cairo. 42 Interview with R7, March 31 2018, Cairo. 43 Garden city is a rather affluent, middle class neighborhood at a fifteen minutes’ walk from Tahrir. 50

strong at the same time”. Although R7 includes a local tradition in her most recent performance, she is a Western feminist embedded in liberal culture because she emphasizes the importance of the individual. Agency is understood as resistance to domination and suppression, as shown in the second and third quote. Moreover, just like R6, she sees veiling as a form of oppression.

“Women should dress more freely. At University many women and girls wear pants and shirts and try to look similar to men to emphasize that they are strong and to downplay the differences between women and men.”

“Women need to stop seeing themselves as victims. They are not victims, they are human beings, and they are complete and have their rights.”

“It’s the woman who will stop the problem, not the man.”

When talking about improvements in gender relations, she immediately points at the wave of unveiling since the Revolution.

Respondent 8 (R8)44

R8 is a woman in her thirties who has been actively protesting in the women’s marches during the Revolution. An Egyptian researcher I got to know (who acted as a starting point) told me I should contact her. Today R8 is working on a documentary about the changes that Egypt went through in the past decades, using testimonies of older women. She also acted in a satirical movie that criticizes the current absence of kissing in Egyptian movies. I talked to R8 in her apartment in Zamalek. R8 is a difficult case, because the two quotes presented below fit within different traditions: the first one fits within Western feminism (criticizing the impact of religion on the body) whereas the second one has attention for the postcolonial elements. Therefore, I decided to place her within the ‘unclear’ category.

44 Interview with R8, April 1 2018, Cairo. 51

“I think you can never be completely free if you feel like you need to protect yourself by covering parts of your body. “

“You can ask yourself: are women more liberated if they dress in a Western way related to colonialism? Or are they more liberated if we stick to our culture of veiling?”

Respondent 9 (R9)45

The same researcher that put me in touch with R8, also gave me the contact of R9, a female painter. R9 has a series of works called ‘Women in Black’ about the invisibility of Arab women in public space. She feels very uncomfortable with women wearing the niqab, “because other women can see me but I cannot see them”. R9 also made a series of paintings called ‘Trials to Paint Liberty’, in which she has painted women in bikini. She emphasized very much the word ‘trials’ in our conversation, as she still doubts about what liberty really is. R9 finds herself within Western feminism. She sees the uncovering of the body as the ultimate freedom, yet I suggest to call her ‘Western feminist with doubts’ because she underlines herself that she is quite not sure about it .

("Artsmat-Trials to Paint Liberty I,")

45 Interview with R9, March 28 2018, Cairo. 52

Respondent 10 (R10)46

I got R10’s number through R2. R10 is a young woman who is a feminist, women's rights advocate and storyteller. She is currently touring with a comedy that tries to challenge gender norms in a subtle way while targeting a mainstream public, for example through collaboration with the NCW. I met R10 in a small and trendy coffee bar in Zamalek. As soon as she arrived, she proposed to sit outside rather than be the only customers sitting inside within hearing distance from the bartenders. R10 is one of the fifteen participants in ‘Womanhood’47. This online interactive documentary discusses fifteen individual worldviews of Egyptian women on gender-related themes through an online ABC. The website locates itself within postcolonial feminism; they write that the goal is “to hear women’s ‘I’ in a postcolonial context” (Bavard, 2017). Both from the information on the website, as from the interview (she does not want to understand ‘Egyptian women’ as a homogenous category), it is clear that R10 is a postcolonial feminist.

“I am NOT a representation of Egyptian women.”

“Orientalism is really something that comes in and takes over a lot of the beliefs and of the overall value that we are trying to push for. It’s kind of a box where things are labelled. So if you don’t do it this way, you don’t fit in the feminist context. If you are veiled (…) you are an Islamic feminist. This concept requires a lot of awareness.” ("Womanhood: Orientalism", 2016)

Respondent 11 (R11) 48

R11 is a theatre maker in Cairo. I heard about her because I talked to her Belgian partner before while preparing the research project. She has made several performances discussing the Revolution in very direct ways, often balancing between activism and documentary theatre. The themes that occur in her plays are almost always related to social justice: human rights, gender, freedom of expression, and independence from colonial Western power structures. What she

46 R10, March 26 2018, Cairo. 47 http://www.womanhood-egyptian-kaleidoscope.com 48 Interview with R11, March 29 2018, Cairo. 53

often does, is giving ‘male’ parts to female actors to underline power relations. I met R11 in her apartment downtown. In 2016, R11 directed a play. The play is about a trial in 1916 in the small village of Nazlat al-Shobak. In this trial, Egyptian women stood up and testified that they had been raped by British soldiers. At this time, Egypt was still under British colonial rule. Taken up by the nationalist movement, their case promptly became a landmark before disappearing into oblivion. In the play, R11 links the historical events that took place within a colonial framework to today’s gender-related violence. R11 emphasizes herself, and also shows through the subject of her latest play, that she is a postcolonial feminist. By pointing at Egypt’s colonial history, she refutes universal notions of womanhood and oppression.

PART 4. Discussion and Conclusion

In this final section, I will dig into the three main challenges I have identified within the feminist struggle in Cairo today: the veil, depoliticisation, and finally the non-modification of both the typology of feminism and the body politic. Before moving on, I want to emphasize once again that I was active within a specific social circle in Cairo. The fact that almost all interviews took place in Zamalek exemplifies that I was conducting my research within a certain ‘bubble’. Therefore, I do not claim that I now understand feminism within the Egyptian context, for I only got to know one segment of the wide spectrum that exists. Actually, one could say that I solely got to know some aspects of the worldviews of these eleven artists at this particular time in Cairo, and from my point of view as a non-objective researcher.

The veil There is a plethora of reasons in literature that explain why women wear the veil, according to Mahmood (2001, p. 209). There are for instance functionalist explanations: avoidance of sexual harassment on public transport, lower cost for clothing for working women, etc. Other explanations understand the veil as resistance towards the hegemonic Western commodification of the body. Mahmood also underlines the importance of female modesty and piety, which is often ignored in analyses. Importantly, veiling should not be confused with a lack of agency (Abu-Lughod, 2013, p. 39). A first challenge for the feminists in Cairo today is their position towards the practice of veiling. Throughout my interviews, it occurred to me that the position women take towards the veil very much determines in which type of feminism they ‘belong’. The veil is ‘overdetermining’ a feminist’s viewpoints and sometimes stands in the way of dialogue between the different ‘types’ of feminists. This is no new challenge, as discussions about veiling have been omnipresent during the revolutionary struggle as well, especially under the Muslim Brotherhood regime. Even in the colonial context, in the sculpture of Makhtars ‘Egypt’s Awakening’, the liberation of Egypt is presented as a woman that is unveiling. It is highly important, for all types of feminists and scholars, to understand that the veil in itself can be a form of resistance, for instance against foreign intervention. Both in the work of Fanon from the 1960s, as in the 2018 interview with one of my respondents in Cairo, this idea was brought up, which underlines its ongoing relevance:

To the colonialist offensive against the veil, the colonized opposes the cult of the veil. What was an undifferentiated element in a homogeneous whole acquires a taboo character, and the attitude of a given Algerian woman with respect to the veil will be constantly related to her overall attitude with respect to the foreign occupation. (Fanon, 1965, p. 47)

America started this war on terror targeted at the Middle East, and this is when we said: okay, if you think we are so different, we are going to emphasize every single part of us that is different than you. 49

Depoliticisation In the findings section, I have shown that the Sisi state adopts state feminism, just as its predecessors did. The state preserves the image of ‘women’s rights’ according to its own interpretation while suppressing civil society organizations to avoid that they would mobilize against the regime (Abouelnaga, 2015, pp. 36-37). This strategy means a return to the pre-2011 situation, says Abou-Bakr (2015), exemplified in the strong support of the NCW for the Sisi regime. At the core of state feminism is the strategy of taking gender and women’s rights away from the public realm; it is to depoliticize these subjects through issuing well-designated policies that create the opposite impression: that the state is very much concerned with these ‘cultural’ and ‘societal’ themes. In this light, whereas violence against men was seen as political, violence against women was perceived as cultural (Abouelnaga, 2015, p. 43). This depoliticisation also took other appearances during the revolutionary struggle itself, for example in the ‘now is not the time’ argument. The refusal of several revolutionaries to support the actions undertaken by OPANTISH reflect the separation of women’s rights from ‘the real revolutionary causes’ and the political: they did not want to ‘dename’ the Square by supporting OPANTISH.

It is never, has never been the right moment to protest… in the name of women’s interests and rights: not during the liberation struggle against colonialism, because all forces should be mobilized against the principal enemy: French colonialism; not after Independence, because all forces should be mobilized to build up the devastated country; not now that racist imperialistic Western governments are attacking Islam and

49 Interview with R4, March 23 2018, Cairo. 56

the Third World, etc. Defending women’s rights “now” (this “now” being ANY historical moment) is always a betrayal-of the people, of the nation, of the revolution, of Islam, of national identity, of cultural roots, of the Third World.

(Helie-Lucas, as cited in: Abu-Lughod, 2013, p. 31)

While recognizing that “the frontier between the social and the political is essentially unstable and requires constant displacements and renegotiations between social agents” (Mouffe, 2007, p. 2), a second challenge for feminists is to take gender and women’s rights back into the political arena. For to locate the destitute outside of the political sphere and to label them as ‘depoliticized’ implies complicity with the dominant ways of establishing what ‘the political’ is all about (Butler, 2011, p. 4).

Non-modification of the typology (and body politic)

The actions of Al-Mahdy, Baheya Ya Masr, Samira Ibrahim, and Sama al-Masry lend towards the ‘burning man’ mode of creative insurgency, as Kraidy (2016) calls it. The feminists I talked to in the interviews lend more towards the ‘laughing cow’ mode of creative insurgency.50 Laughing cow uses the human body in a much more symbolic way (Kraidy, 2016): performing as a ‘strong’ woman instead of only a ‘beautiful’ one, painting the female bikini body as the ultimate form of freedom, or directing a play about the link between colonialism and gender-related violence, are but a few examples of this form of insurgency. In what follows, I will compare the cases from the Revolution with my respondents while using the typology of feminism, to see if the typology is still relevant today. Although the ‘type’ of bodily creative insurgency might differ slightly, the main points present within a certain type of feminism do not differ substantially between the revolutionary struggle and today.

a) Western feminism: Aliaa Al-Mahdy and R2, R6, R7, R9 In the literature section, Aliaa Al-Mahdy has been discussed as an example of “a radical western feminism that perceives a universal female existence and erases different cultural values and norms” (El Said, 2015, p. 121) and thus formed a menace for Egyptian national

50 Yet, almost all of them have previously put their life at risk during the protests. 57

sovereignty (Kraidy, 2016, p. 183). She never linked herself to the general struggle for women’s rights and control over their bodies (El Said, 2018, p. 128). Some of the main points of Al-Mahdy’s actions come back in what my respondents told me. In essence, just like Al-Mahdy, these women want to emphasize the freedom over their own body. First of all, the importance of the individual is an element that resonates in the interviews: R2 says that is up to a woman to decide which swimsuit to wear and R7 believes women should dress more freely. This element may, just like in the Al-Mahdy case, isolate Egyptian feminists with a Western focus from the national feminist struggle. Second, to understand one’s freedom as the freedom to uncover the body also resonates, for example when R2 says: “Girls have been sent out of University for wearing clothes that uncovered too much skin.” R9, the ‘Western feminist with doubts’, also expresses this view through her paintings ‘Trials to Paint Liberty’. Third, R7 wants to spread the message that “women can beautiful and strong at the same time” with her dance performance. This is similar to Al-Mahdy’s ‘Nude Art’: she is not a passive, docile woman in this picture, the role that is usually expected from women in nude art, instead she is combative and self-assured (Kraidy, 2016, p. 5). Finally, just like Al- Mahdy, R2 falls out of the category of what it means to be a decent woman: “Me, for example, I don’t fit in, because I don’t want to get married and I don’t want to have children.” Just like Al-Mahdy, R2 will face moral judgment because of this. Similarly, the women in the documentary of R6, who killed their husbands, face widespread social stigma because they don’t fit in the category that is forced upon them.

b) Postcolonial feminism: Baheya Ya Masr & Sama Al-Masry vs. R4, R10, R11

The cases of Baheya Ya Masr and Sama El Masry illustrate that to locate oneself in Egyptian nationalist discourse or popular culture can be crucial in being successful (El Said, 2018, p. 128). Both of these actions have been praised as acts of feminist dissent, as opposed to the actions of Al-Mahdy. Al-Mahdy is largely seen as a woman who has fallen into the traps of eurocentrism and has taken too much distance from the struggle of Egyptian feminists (El Said, 2018, p. 128). In the Baheya Ya Masr movement however, the history of the nationalist struggle and the idea of ‘Egypt as a woman’ was at the very heart of the marches. From this perspective, Al-Mahdy’s acts can be understood differently: “a naked woman means a defenseless Egypt, vulnerable to foreign intervention and humiliation, resonating with deep historical memories

that go as far as the 1919 Revolution against the British and their local consorts” (Kraidy, 2016, p. 168). 51 These two cases of creative feminist insurgency are located within postcolonial feminism. Baheya Ya Masr has a lot of attention for the particularities of the Egyptian context and its history, and more specifically the interconnectedness between issues of nationalism, women’s rights and anti-colonialism (Baron, 2005, p 9). Sama Al- Masry is embedded within popular culture (El Said, 2015). Her approach is postcolonial because she rejects universal norms and is very much opposed to the West (as expressed clearly in her pro-army video posted after Sisi came to power). She also emphasizes the strength of Egypt as a nation. The main anti-colonialist viewpoint that is present within the Baheya Ya Masr movement and the videos of El-Masry is also found within the ideas of the postcolonial feminists I encountered: the accusation that feminism is white (R4), the refusal to accept the image of the liberated Arab woman (R4), and the ‘box of orientalism’ (R10). The play directed and written by R11 is the most direct contemporary reflection of the idea behind the Baheya Ya Masr movement, as the link between colonial history, women’s rights , and nationalism is addressed here.

c) Islamic Feminism: Samira Ibrahim and R4

Samira Ibrahim is located within Islamic feminism. While spreading her story, Ibrahim repeated many times that she had not had sexual intercourse before, thereby reaffirming the dominant discourse that carries the idea that virginity of non-married women is crucial (Kraidy, 2016, p. 172). R4 is the only one of my respondents I classified within Islamic feminism. Just like Ibrahim, she is wearing the veil, and she emphasizes that it is part of her identity. As opposed to the understanding of freedom as the possibility to unclothe the body, R4 labels this unclothing as a form of slavery. There is thus another concept behind the word ‘freedom’ than in the discourse of Western feminists.

In the previous paragraphs, I have shown that the typology of feminism discussed in Part 2 is still relevant for today’s context. Although I do not claim that the worldviews of my respondents and the people in the cases I discussed earlier are the same, several elements are

51 The importance of nationalism and the idea of ‘Egypt as a woman’ within the policy of the Sisi regime is not the subject of this dissertation yet fully deserves further consideration in future research projects.

coming back. How come that this typology does not need modification after four years of revolutionary struggle?

Stating that Al-Mahdy posed a threat to the existing body politic at the time (Kraidy, 2016, p. 183), shows the interconnectedness between feminism and the body politic. After comparing different types of feminism from the revolutionary period with the present-day, one wonders if the body politic of the Sisi regime has also largely stayed unmodified when compared to the period 2011-2014. To finish this dissertation, I will now link everything back to the main concept: the body, and see that in fact, not so much has changed compared to the years of the Revolution. Although a Revolution has taken place, the main strategies to keep the female body imprisoned in the private sphere have largely survived the four years of turmoil. Embodiment and abstraction are opposites, and this manifests itself throughout the events of the Arab spring (Kraidy, 2016, p. 198). Male figures have mainly been referred to by their full name (“Mohamed Bouazizi,” “Khaled Said”), whereas when looking at female revolutionaries, some of them are called by their full name, and some only by their first name (Kraidy, 2016, p. 198). At the core of this difference lies the categorization of disrobement: women who remained fully clothed kept their full name (“Samira Ibrahim”), whereas women who have been (partly) naked and whose actions were seen as very radical on a corporeal level, are often only referred to by their first, private name ( “Aliaa”), keeping their existence limited to ‘the concrete’ and

(…) rejecting the possibility that women can be abstract individuals, which is another way of saying fully fledged citizens. The ultimate message of this approach is, unlike men, women are defined by their sex, and so will always be concrete, context bound. Women, revolutionary or otherwise, are always merely embodied. Men, not suffering from mere embodiment, transcend biology as standard- bearers of citizenship and humanity. (Kraidy, 2016, p. 199)

In 2016, 2,5 years after the coup that brought Sisi to power, a case painfully illustrated that the body politic has not been modified at all. On the fifth anniversary of the Revolution, Shaimaa al-Sabbagh, a female poet and activist was shot and killed in the streets while commemorating January 2011 (Kraidy, 2016, p. 218). Video footage and a stunning picture of al-Sabbagh started circulating online. Four years after the initial protests, the Revolution created

yet another martyr (Kraidy, 2016, p. 218). The murder on al-Sabbagh was a painful illustration of the vulnerability of Egyptian women, both naked and unclothed (Kraidy, 2016, p. 218). In essence, it displayed a return to the pre 2011 body politic, “a state of exception where life-and- death actions were unencumbered by the rule of law or the constraints of morality” (Kraidy, 2016, p. 219). Kraidy thus takes the statements about the body politic a step further: not only has the body politic been unmodified since 2011, the contemporary body politic is in fact a return to the pre-2011 situation. Chakravati (2014) in his online article also talks about a “re- established order”. Similarly, Abou-Bakr (2015, cf. supra) labels the contemporary adoption of state feminism also as a return to the pre-2011 situation. What does this pre-2011 order look like then? Well, it is sufficient to read what Abouenaga (2015, p. 40) wrote about it:

It is clear that the dominant paradigm governing women’s agency and subjectivity before 2011 was generated by a set of modern patriarchal values, set implicitly by society and consolidated crudely by the state, that reduced female identity to the corporeal body by which abuse, mutilation, isolation and harassment were justified culturally.

This is a reminder of what Butler said and what may be applicable to the Cairene context as well, namely that the body is divided into one that appears in public to speak and act and another feminine, sexual, and laboring body that is located within the private and pre-political sphere (Butler, 2011, p. 6). Furthermore, gender serves a social policy of gender regulation and control (Butler, 1988, p. 528) which makes it “impossible to separate out gender from the political and cultural intersections in which it is invariably produced and maintained” (Butler, 1999, p. 6). Applied to the Cairene context, the construct of Sisi’s masculinity (‘Sisi the Supermale’) is constantly being used as a tool to legitimize a military patriarchy (Abou-Bakr, 2015, p. 196). That is because the body is “as foundational to the fall of dictators as it is essential to their rise” (Kraidy, 2016, p. 10).

To summarize, there are three main challenges within the feminist struggle in Cairo today: 1. Dealing with the (obsessive) focus on veiling within feminist circles. 2. Finding a strategy to counter depoliticisation and take gender and the plurality of women’s demands back into the political arena. 3. Finding a way to engage with the fact that a) The Revolution has not substantially challenged the typology of feminism and the main arguments present within each type. b) The Revolution did in fact not modify the status of ‘the body’ yet rather reinforced earlier forms of body politic carried out by the regime.

The overall conclusion is that the debates and challenges within Egyptian feminism have not been modified substantially when compared to the revolutionary period; and the body politic carried out by the regime is even said to have returned to the pre-2011 order.

This research project has proven to be very interesting, yet it is nothing more than an exploration in the subject matter. I sincerely hope that other scholars will take it to much more sophisticated levels of abstraction when engaging with the subject in the future. My claims may be disputed, questioned, or even contradicted, yet I believe these themes are still worth researching, as it were only for the millions of Egyptians who have been fighting for justice for more than seven years now.

Even if the specter of death is the ultimate adversary of the rise of the revolutionary person, creative insurgency endures, for the struggle to reclaim popular sovereignty from the body of the tyrant is ongoing, however tortuous and arduous a path it follows.

(Kraidy, 2016, p. 223)

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