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Journal of Resistance Studies Number 2 - Volume 6 - 2020
18
Making a Scene:
Young Women’s Feminist Social
Nonmovement in Cairo1
Nehal Elmeligy University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Abstract
This paper argues that some women in Cairo, Egypt are part of a feminist
‘social nonmovement’ that predates the 2011 revolution, where they ‘make
scenes’, i.e. commit acts of everyday feminist resistance, by defying patriarchal
control over their bodies and behavior in public space independently from
one another, spurred by patriarchal oppression for most, and participation in
the revolution for some. Through interviews with twelve Cairene women in
2017, I investigate how and why they defy the social norms governing wom-
en’s use of public spaces and investigate the role of the 2011 revolution in their
different forms of feminist defiance. I analyze three acts of public feminist
resistance: women removing the hijab, defying street harassment, and moving
out of their parents’ and husbands’ homes. My findings contribute to the lit-
erature on recent Egyptian women’s feminist resistance specifically, and every-
day resistance studies in general. Only a quarter of my participants identify
the revolution as the main reason for their feminist epiphany and resistance.
Introduction
On January 25, 2011, Egyptians took to the streets to protest the 30-year
autocratic rule of Hosni Mubarak (Hass 2017). During the eighteen-day sit-
in at Tahrir Square in Cairo, citizens could not turn their eyes away from the
large presence of women. It was dicult for many Egyptians to comprehend
that women were leaving their homes and taking an active role in national
politics. is was shocking because historically in many Muslim majority
1 I dedicate this paper to my father, Mohamed, who passed away before I
nished my MA. I sincerely thank Ashley Currier, erese Migraine-George,
Ghassan Moussawi, Asef Bayat, Craig Brown, Armaghan Ziaee, Gabriella Nassif,
Dominique Lyons, Matthew Schneider, Noah Glaser, Brandi Lewis, Mahmoud
Hafez, and the reviewers for their support, comments and editing assistance.
NEHAL ELMELIGY
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societies the public sphere has always been perceived as the domain of power,
politics and religion, and as the ‘universe of men’ (Mernissi 2003,138).
In March 2011, the military forcibly removed protestors from Tahrir
Square who stayed after the toppling of Mubarak in February. Both men and
women were tortured and later jailed, however women had to go through
a series of virginity tests (Human Rights Watch 2017). rough this and
other similar measures, including death threats, sexual assault, and proposed
dress codes, the Egyptian state and society aimed to exclude and control the
increasing number of women protesting in public (El Said, Meari, and Pratt
2015).
When a General representing the army was interviewed on CNN
about this incident, he voiced the opinion of the majority of Egyptian society
regarding women’s morality and the public sphere: ‘[T]he arrested women
were not like your daughter or mine[...they] camped out in tents with male
protestors’ (Abouelnaga 2015,44). According to the General, respectable
women are conned to the private realm and comply with normative
femininity,2 but loose women ‘demonstrate boldness and courage and break
the segregation norms’ (Amireh 2017; El Said, Meari, and Pratt 2015,16).
To the state, loose women were a national threat in need of containment as
they transgressed traditional gender norms.
ese virginity tests, sexual assaults and death threats aimed at
controlling and terrorizing women aptly reect the socially and politically
constructed division between the public and private spheres, and the extent
to which this division informs how traditional Egyptian society and the state
view and treat women. Once a woman transgresses patriarchal boundaries
and steps into the (male) public sphere, her body and honor are subject to
public scrutiny; they are questioned and checked in eorts to delegitimize
women’s presence in public spaces. Egyptian women do not have a right
to use male spaces (exemplied in the street or traditional cafes, qahwas)
and if they are ‘unveiled the situation is aggravated’ (Mernissi 2003,144).
Consequently, a woman’s mere presence in a male dominated public place,
nontraditional behavior, or immodest clothing is enough to raise suspicion.
2 Normative femininity means traditional feminine behavior and presentation a
woman exhibits, complying with society’s patriarchal notions of womanhood. In
line with politics of respectability, normative femininity dictates that Egyptian
women must be modest, quiet, mostly homebound, obedient daughters and
wives, among others.
Journal of Resistance Studies Number 2 - Volume 6 - 2020
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But the women in Tahrir Square entered the political terrain, a symbol of
the public sphere, believing in their right to exist in this space and refusing
to be merely gendered symbols of honor. While the revolution of 2011
inspired some women to assert their right to be in public, for many others
the decision to defy patriarchal social and religious traditions concerning
public appearance was before then spurred by various personal reasons and
experiences. Regardless of the catalyst, I argue that when a woman in Cairo
asserts her right to be in public space by acting or appearing in a way that
society deems a violation of acceptable gender norms and feminine propriety,
she is committing an act of feminist resistance.
Cairene women, through individual, everyday acts of feminism, are
challenging the patriarchal and conservative social norms of how to appear
in the public sphere in growing numbers. Some women have removed
their hijab, called out sexual harassers in the street, and moved out of their
parents’ home. I nd these women’s stories worth exploring, considering the
parental, societal, and religious obstacles they face when carving new spaces
for themselves in public. rough interviews with twelve Cairene women, I
investigate how and why they defy the social norms governing women’s use
of public spaces through ‘making scenes’ (Creasap 2012). ese scenes can be
read collectively as public, feminist acts that together create what Asef Bayat
(2013) calls a social nonmovement. In a social nonmovement, individuals
carry out everyday forms of resistance that are repetitive and dispersed across
time and space, causing an unintentional but widespread impact. Building
on Bayat’s concept, I argue and emphasize that my participants are part of a
feminist social nonmovement, where women commit acts of public feminist
resistance by resisting patriarchal control over their bodies and behavior in
public space independently from one another (Bayat 2013). Furthermore,
I investigate the role of the revolution of 2011 in the dierent forms of
women’s public feminist deance.
is paper joins literature that sheds light on women’s everyday
resistance in the public sphere in the Global South and feminist literature
that challenge the public/private, masculine/private dichotomy in the Middle
East and North Africa (Alnass and Pratt 2015; Fabos 2017; Galana 2016;
Jabiri 2016; Moussaid 2009). Furthermore, I situate my above argument
and vision for the future of the feminist social nonmovement within the
emerging eld of everyday resistance. In line with Anna Johansson and
Stellan Vinthagen (2020), this study aims at changing the discourse on
resistance and what qualies as ‘real resistance’ (19). It contributes to this
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eld by shedding light on everyday, feminist acts of resistance that are non-
political’ or have ‘“private” goals, emotions or personal needs’ (Johansson
and Vinthagen 2020, 29). Finally, through this study, we gain a better
understanding of the feminist cultural shift underway in Cairo and its
potential to dismantle patriarchal manifestations in the public sphere, and
patriarchal institutions at large.
Background: Women in the MENA and Egypt’s
Patriarchal Public Sphere
Men and women in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) often inhabit
‘two dierent worlds’: the private and the public (Ghannam 2002,90).
Women, who are expected to be powerless and subordinate, are conned
to the private sphere, and men monopolize the public sphere as they are
expected to be powerful and dominant (Ghannam 2002). Sexual segregation,
as Mernissi (2003) calls it, is an integral part of this social and spatial division.
To prevent sexual interaction between men and women, societies developed
veiling and seclusion by relying on certain interpretations of Qur’anic verses,
allowing men and women to collaborate only for procreation when they
marry (Mernissi 2003). To prevent illicit relationships, restrictive codes of
behavior ensure women’s sexual purity and virginity (Moghadam 2003). A
woman’s sexual purity, or honor, is her primary duty towards herself and
her family, because her honor is by extension her family’s (Moghadam
2003). Men are responsible for protecting the family honor by controlling
female members, to the extent that they sometimes kill them due to ‘real or
perceived sexual misconduct’ in a crime dubbed ‘honor killing’ (Moghadam
2003,122-123). In this kinship system, men have rights over their female kin
that women do not have over themselves or their male kin. ese patriarchal
rights reduce women to objects that must be preserved until handed from
father to future husband, and views them as incomplete and in need of legal
and social dependence on a male gure (Frye 1990; Radicalesbians 1970;
Rich 1980; Rubin 1975).
e apparent ‘preoccupation with virginity,’ the heavy burden of
family honor that women carry, the division of society into public and
private spheres, and the lengths to which men go to police the lives and the
behavior of the women in their family force some women to ‘bargain with
patriarchy’ (Kandiyoti 1988; Moghadam 2003,122). By dressing modestly
outside the home, such as wearing the Islamic veil or hijab, women signal
Journal of Resistance Studies Number 2 - Volume 6 - 2020
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their belonging to the concealed private sphere, and use it to bargain with
patriarchy, or the male dominated public sphere, specically to partake in the
economic market. In Egypt, many women who wear the hijab do so out of
conviction, not as a bargaining tactic. Nevertheless, many Egyptian women
do employ occasional bargaining tactics in public. For example, when a
woman wants to leave her home at night, it is best if a man chaperones her so
she can ‘trespass into the men’s universe’ (Mernissi 2003,143). Otherwise, she
should expect men to harass her. Unfortunately, societal traditions consider
women’s presence in the public sphere both oensive and provocative, which
automatically exposes them to harassment (Mernissi 2003).
Everyday Resistance and Cairo’s Feminist Social
Nonmovement
Despite the hostile public sphere and patriarchal hierarchy of Egyptian
society, many women are refusing to bargain with or abide by the rules of
patriarchy. However, recent research on Egyptian women’s feminist activism
narrowly focuses on the revolution of 2011 as catalyzing their deance and
resistance to sexism and normative gender roles (El Said, Meari, and Pratt
2015; Hafez 2019; Hatem 2011; Mourad 2013; Ramadan 2012; Sholkamy
2013; Tadros 2016). While the revolution is a source of social change,
including ‘a heightened sense of gender awareness’ on the part of women,
scholars considering it the main catalyst for propelling women’s resistance
overshadows other factors that awakened Egyptian women’s feminist deance,
and that some women’s deance started before the revolution (Moghadam
2003, 23). In fact, accounts of Egyptian women challenging patriarchal
social norms of how to appear in public, which predate the revolution or
are not related to it, populate news articles (Darwish 2012; Debeuf and
Abdelmeguid 2015; Gamal 2015; Nkrumah 2016; Primo 2015).
Furthermore, much of the social movement literature assumes
that women who engage in feminist resistance belong to feminist activist
groups (Al-Ali 2000; Moghadam 2005; Sandberg and Aqertit 2014). Even
researchers who work on ‘marginalized forms of resistances, such as hidden
and everyday resistance, as in James C. Scott’s work, still tend to privilege
certain “political” forms of resistance’ (Johansson and Vinthagen 2020, 29).
Not all women can assume the risks of participating in feminist political
activism in patriarchal societies and under authoritarian regimes, but
they can participate in resistance outside formal social movements. While
everyday acts of resistance do not necessarily originate from a declared
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feminist agenda, they could have ‘important, if unintended, consequences’
in society (El-Kholy 2002,15). Such ordinary public feminist acts slowly
chip away at the patriarchal system in place, inspiring other women to do
the same, resulting in an unorganized feminist ‘popular mobilization,’ or a
feminist social nonmovement (Zaatari 2014,55).
Some women who live in Cairo are now part of a feminist social
nonmovement. Here, I build on Asef Bayat’s (2013) ‘social nonmovement’
and add ‘feminist’ to clarify its nature. A social nonmovement refers to
‘collective actions of noncollective actors’ (Bayat 2013,20). In a social
nonmovement, individuals carry out similar everyday3 forms of resistance
separately from one another; these forms of resistance, in the case of the
Cairene women, take place in public and are feminist. As part of this feminist
social nonmovement, women’s public feminist practices can be exemplied
by having short hair, smoking, and retaliating against male harassers, among
others, all of which are actions that the patriarchal Egyptian society deems
inappropriate and unfeminine. e simultaneity and accumulation of these
forms of resistance normalize these women’s behaviors. e more women
‘assert their presence in the public space, the more patriarchal bastions they
undermine’ (Bayat 2013,21). e power of these women’s practices lies in
their ‘ordinariness [original emphasis],’ in their occurrence one day after the
other at the hands of dierent women on separate occasions in dierent
places (Bayat 2013, 88). Despite their ordinariness, these noncoordinated
‘everyday forms of resistance’ demonstrate the potential of women to
challenge and change patriarchal societal notions (El-Kholy 2002,12).
Indeed, resistance is potentially productive and can be part and parcel
of everyday life (Baaz et al. 2016). Its productivity lies in its ability ‘to
constructively transform societies and change history’ (Baaz et al. 2016, 138).
To James C. Scott (1985), the potentiality of everyday resistance lies in it
being ‘informal, hidden, and non-confrontational’ (140). Like Scott (1985),
the resistance I study falls outside organized, formal political activity; it
happens every day by ordinary people. In contrast to Scott (1985), however,
one of its main characteristics and where I argue most of its transformational
potential lies is its confrontational and conspicuous nature, or in other
words, its scene making.
3 ‘Everyday’ means ‘way of life,’ not something that happens ‘every’ day
(Johansson and Vinthagen 2020,28).
Journal of Resistance Studies Number 2 - Volume 6 - 2020
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As part of a feminist social nonmovement, women’s public acts of
deance contribute to creating or ‘making a scene’ (Creasap 2012). Kimberly
Creasap (2012) explains that making a scene occurs when people challenge
norms governing who ‘belongs’ in public spaces; ‘the presence of a scene at
some point entails a struggle over territory’ (184). I utilize the concept of
making a scene to signify two simultaneous meanings; the rst is Creasap’s
denition, and the second is its idiomatic meaning which is to cause a public
disturbance. As such, the everyday resistance I study here is dierent from
Vinthagen’s (2015) elaboration of it where he explains that unlike protest,
everyday resistance does not necessarily call for attention—my research is
concerned with everyday feminist resistance that either calls for attention, or
attracts attention without the intent to do so, due its audacious nature in the
context of the Egyptian public sphere
In this study, women struggle against men’s territorial hold over Cairo’s
public space. As resistance is always a response to power, this power can
be manifested in dierent forms including, but not limited to, laws, state
institutions and, what concerns this paper, patriarchal divisions of private
and public space, and traditional gender norms and normative femininity
(Baaz et al. 2016). Cairene women make a scene by appearing in public
space in a manner that does not conform to traditional gender presentations
or even by simply being in a male dominated setting. Furthermore, the
street, for example, is the scene where a woman chooses to leave her house
wearing what some perceive as immodest clothes. In every instance of scene
making, Cairene women are putting their foot down and asserting that
they too have a share of public space. is is a contemporary and concrete
example of how resistance results in the simultaneous restructuring of power
and reconstruction of spaces and material realities that allow the creation
and expansion of possibilities to resisters (Baaz et al. 2016; Vinthagen 2015).
In Egypt, engaging in public acts of everyday feminism and/or
participating in unorganized feminist social movements seem to be the only
option for women as the government has been cracking down on organized
feminism. Before and after the revolution women human rights defenders
experienced gender-based violence during protests at the hand of plain-
clothes police/government men to ‘silence and exclude [them] from public
spaces and the political events shaping Egypt’s future’ (Torungolu 2016). Five
months after the toppling of President Mubarak in 2011, an investigation
into the registration of local and foreign funding of women’s and human
rights nongovernmental organization (NGOs) initiated the closures of many
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international and local NGOs, such as the feminist organization Nazra for
Feminist Studies (Aljazeera 2017; Amnesty International 2016; Nazra for
Feminist Studies 2018; Nobel Women’s Initiative 2016).
Everyday public feminist practices can be powerful and inuential,
because unlike conventional social movements with well-known leaders,
they cannot be dispersed by governments that are unable to track individual
acts of resistance (Bayat 2013). Women in Muslim majority societies
under authoritarian regimes do not necessarily need an organized social
movement or mass mobilization to negotiate, resist, defy or overcome gender
discrimination (Bayat 2013). Unlike Scott (1985), the (women’s) resistance I
study, does not make ‘explicit claims’ and while it may result in undermining
patriarchal power relations, it does not intend to ‘undermine [them] through
its consequences’ (Baaz et. al 2016,140). In dening everyday resistance,
I follow Michel de Certeau (1984) and Baaz et al. (2016) in focusing on
a particular kind of act, not an intent or a consequence. is research is
concerned with everyday feminist resistance where women can employ
the ‘power of presence’: ‘the assertion of collective will in spite of all odds,
refusing to exit, circumventing constraints, and discovering new spaces of
freedom to make oneself heard, seen, felt and realized’ (Bayat 2013,88). By
asserting their presence in the public sphere, Cairene women become ‘public
players’ by subverting gender roles and norms (Bayat 2013,98).
Even though Egyptian feminist gures and organizations are currently
experiencing an unprecedented backlash, no previous government has ever
allowed NGOs to operate independently (Magdy 2017). During the rule of
President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1956–1970), parliament passed legislation
to put all NGOs under state control during a period often referred to as
‘state feminism’ (Magdy 2017). During Mubarak’s rule (1981–2011), the
number of new women’s rights NGOs increased substantially; however,
they were mainly development focused and closely related to state ocials
(Magdy 2017). Unfortunately, what was originally a feminist movement in
the Arab world, has mostly become a women’s rights movement that relies
on international agreements and funding instead of ‘popular mobilization’
(Zaatari 2014,55). ere is a dierence between ‘the calls for reform by the
women’s movements’ and a population that mobilizes under ‘the feminist
call for change’ (Zaatari 2014,58). A feminist popular mobilization, or a
feminist movement, unlike a women’s rights movement seeks to dismantle
all patriarchal institutions in place by abolishing the patriarchal/paternal
system that places men at the top of its hierarchy and by creating policies that
Journal of Resistance Studies Number 2 - Volume 6 - 2020
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promote equality in social and legal frameworks (Zaatari 2014). Regrettably,
the current political climate in Egypt will not allow for the complete
realization of such a movement. However, some Cairene women enact ‘off
the radar’ ways that gradually dismantle patriarchy through engaging in
a feminist social nonmovement by carrying out everyday acts of feminist
resistance in the public sphere. As such, this study illustrates the nexus of
social nonmovements and feminist calls for change: an unorganized feminist
movement that challenges patriarchy and allows women equal rights and
access to the public sphere.
Unearthing some women’s epiphanies, challenges and victories,
who are part of the feminist social nonmovement, are essential to a real
understanding of the lives of women in Cairo and the potential of Egypt’s
feminist future. By showcasing Cairene women’s agency and resistance, I
contest the essentialized image of oppressed and helpless Muslim, Arab,
and ‘ird World’ women (Bulbeck 1998; Kaplan 1994; Lugones 2010;
Mohanty 1988). Furthermore, this paper aims at changing the narrative
around the everyday lives of Arab and Muslim women and countering, and
challenging their consistent portrayal of mostly, if not only, bargaining with
patriarchy.
Data and Methods
I conducted research for this paper as a master’s student at the University
of Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A. I was planning to do in-person interviews in
Cairo, Egypt in the summer of 2017. After I arrived in Cairo in June, the
IRB proposal that I had started in February was not approved. is decision
was not negotiable; according to the IRB, it was not safe for me to conduct
these interviews in Egypt. e IRB was wrong. Before starting my MA in
2016 and during my summer visit in 2017, I had conversations with women
in private and public about topics relevant to this paper. We spoke freely,
without fear for our safety or judgement by nearby listeners. In fact, one
young man oered to take part in my study when he overheard me telling
a friend about the topic. Since I did not want to change my topic, I opted
to interview Cairene women who were temporarily living in or visiting the
U.S., as the IRB suggested. As an Egyptian national, I am part of a network of
Egyptians who reside abroad, and through this network, I invited Egyptian
women in the U.S. to take part in my research. I circulated my interview
invitation among my contacts, in English and Arabic, clearly stating the
research is about women who challenge the socially and religiously acceptable
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ways of being in the public space in Cairo. I recruited participants who
were in the U.S. for three years or less, a duration that allowed me to nd
enough participants and ensured they had not forgotten their experiences
in Cairo. I interviewed women who were in the U.S. from two weeks to
two years. Using snowball sampling, I identied twelve women between the
ages of 25–38 who are all educated and none are wealthy. Eleven of them
identied as members of the middle class; they were either on scholarships
supported by private institutions to complete a two-year master’s degree
or attending trainings paid by their jobs. Only one person identied as a
member of the upper middle class and was on a trip paid for by her parents.
By August 2019, all the participants were back in Cairo, which means all
the experiences discussed in this study occurred before their U.S. stay. Four
women (Mariam, Marta, Nancy, and Monica) are Christian, six (Wafaa,
Dina, Shereen, Heba, Noha, and Reem) are Muslim, and two (Salwa and
Safaa) were born into Muslim families and no longer identify as Muslim. I
use religiously and culturally appropriate pseudonyms for all participants. All
participants are cisgender, heterosexual women. Some participants answered
all my questions in English, some used a mix of English and Arabic, and
others relied more on Arabic.
I searched for women who exhibited any form of deance to cultural
and religious norms in Cairo’s public sphere. I had personally taken o the
hijab in 2010 and started to verbally ght with men harassing me on the
street. I had met Cairene women who had also taken o their hijab, some
who started to be bolder in ghting street harassment, and others who moved
out of their parents’ home and lived on their own. In addition to these three
main categories, two other categories emerged during my interviews, though
I did not include them in this study: women biking and smoking (in public).
Finally, living in Cairo until 2016, I witnessed how the revolution catalyzed
many young Egyptians to defy religious and cultural beliefs and practices.
I conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews via Skype as this
interview approach allows researchers to understand the lived experiences
of the participant (Hesse-Biber 2014). I based the interview guide on my
positionality as a native of Cairo and my knowledge of the undergoing
sociocultural changes (Altorki and El-Solh 1988). In these interviews, there
was space for a normal ow of conversation and spontaneity, which was
essential to unearthing details about participants’ experiences, feelings,
and changes (Aurini, Heath, and Howell 2016). I built rapport with each
participant, embracing a ‘participatory model’ as I have lived through similar
Journal of Resistance Studies Number 2 - Volume 6 - 2020
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experiences (Hesse-Biber 2014,199).
I asked the participants six categories of questions (with an extra one
for Muslims). First, I asked them about their experiences and views on
women in public space in Egypt and Cairo to ascertain what they deemed
as transgressive and appropriate and if they have behaved ‘inappropriately’
themselves. Second, I asked about their current religious beliefs and any
reevaluation if appropriate. ese two question sets did not result in their
stand-alone sections in the paper but were interwoven in other relevant parts.
ird, I asked (previously) Muslim participants about their experiences with
the hijab. Fourth, I inquired about their living situation in Cairo. Fifth, I
asked about their experiences being out late alone and with others in public.
is also did not result in its stand-alone section. Sixth, I inquired about
their experiences with sexual harassment in public spaces. Finally, I inquired
about their participation in the revolution and its direct or indirect eect on
their lives. I paid for a speaker of English and Egyptian Arabic to transcribe
the interviews which I also reviewed. I coded the transcripts following the
interview guide, and then analyzed the data according to topic.
Making a Public Statement: Removing the Hijab
Removing the hijab is the only act of public feminist deance that pertains
solely to Muslim women. Many Muslim women who wear the hijab follow
the common interpretation of a dress code related to Quranic verse. is
interpretation dictates that all girls who have started menstruating should
cover all but their faces, hands, and feet (in private or public) from men who
are eligible to be their husbands (even if a woman is married), as they have
now entered womanhood. e hijab’s purpose is to keep women modest,
to protect their sexuality, hide women from men’s gazes, and to avoid
harassment in public (Hauslohner 2009). Not all Muslim women, however,
wear the hijab, and not all who do wear it out of religious conviction.
Most women I interviewed who used to wear the hijab, even if they
did not strictly observe Islam, felt they must abide by what society deems
religiously and culturally appropriate (since the hijab is a visible marker of
their faith). Six of the eight Muslim participants I interviewed no longer
wore the hijab. Wafaa was still wearing it at the time of the interview, and
Reem had never worn it. I interpret the women’s decision to stop wearing
the hijab as acts of, and commitment to, feminist resistance in public space
that is part of Cairo’s feminist social nonmovement. In most cases, for
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those who no longer wear hijab, removing it was their rst step toward self-
discovery and defying patriarchy in the public sphere. Some participants
faced opposition from their families, because many Muslims consider it a sin
when a woman takes o her hijab. A hijab, in many cases, not only reects
a woman’s religious conviction, but also her family’s. erefore, parents fear
how their daughters’ removal of the hijab will reect on their daughters’
reputation (and, by extension, theirs) when she appears in public without it
(although the forms and intensity of familial disapproval vary).
ree participants, Dina, Shereen, and Heba, faced little opposition
from their families when they decided to remove the hijab. As teenagers,
Dina and Shereen decided to wear the hijab since many girls in their circles
wore it. Shereen donned the hijab at 17 and took it o at 28, and Dina put
it on at 14 and took it o at 21. Heba is the only one whose father forced
her to wear the hijab. She started wearing it at seven years old. She wore it
for 31 years, never imagining that she would take it o. After the revolution,
she felt her ‘body needed to breathe,’ as if the conservative dress code had
been constraining her.
Heba is a mother and a divorcee living in a family apartment building.
According to her, many Egyptian Muslims believe the hijab is an integral part
of a woman’s identity and presentation, so taking it o makes her susceptible
to interrogations by family and neighbors about her ‘controversial’ decision.
She describes this as a confrontation she is eager to get over with, because
only then can she ‘cool down’ knowing that it is behind her. She expects her
neighbors to ask about her ‘mental and psychological health’; and she expects
she will tell them that it is none of their business. In this environment,
removing her hijab is not simply a personal aair but a public one as well.
With such an act of public feminist resistance, Heba is challenging both the
society sanctioned dress code and the patriarchal surveillance society exerts
over women’s bodies and personal choices.
In contrast, the families of Salwa, Safaa, and Noha openly opposed the
women’s decisions to take o the hijab. Safaa and Noha’s parents forced them
to wear the hijab at a young age. Both began doubting religious teachings
and obligations as they grew older. ey reread hijab-related verses from the
Qur’an and were no longer convinced by the common interpretation. Noha,
for example, wore the hijab for seven years and took it o when she was away
from her family during her last year at university, because the fact that her
parents forced her to wear it had become ‘unbearable.’ By the time Noha
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was about to graduate, her social circle had expanded, and she had outgrown
some of her family’s values. rough this feminist act, she decided for herself
how to publicly present her body and identity. Her brothers and parents later
found out and disapproved of her decision. While Noha’s mother eventually
made peace with her decision, she initially told her that she must wait until
she married or traveled. ere are still people who judge her when they nd
out she stopped wearing the hijab.
Unlike Noha, Salwa struggled internally, and with her family, with her
decision to stop wearing the hijab. Even though she had been an atheist for
a year, she continued wearing the hijab because she was unable to face her
family with her desire to take it o. In 2013, after having worn the hijab for
18 years, Salwa went to a hair salon and walked out of the salon without her
hijab:
I felt I was naked in the street, which made me cry. For me, it was hard
to understand what it was to be unveiled. I felt that everybody in the
street was looking at me… I walked a few blocks. I was so nervous that I
felt I couldn’t continue walking. en I entered a clothes shop. I entered
the tting room. I wore my hijab again…and went back home. I just
couldn’t do it.
Salwa wanted to remove her hijab because she felt like a hypocrite as she was
no longer a Muslim but appeared to be one. However, since the hijab had
been a ‘part of [her] identity’ for so long, being without it in public proved
extremely dicult; it seems the hijab and her conservative dress code had
functioned as her ‘second skin,’ making her feel ‘naked’ without it. On the
following day, she decided to go out without it and to inform her mother of
her decision.
Her father did not oppose her decision, taking it as a political statement
against the Muslim Brotherhood’s disappointing politics (Primo 2015).
Salwa’s mother, though, was ‘hysteric[al].’ Believing that a woman’s hijab
preserves her honor and protects her from harassment, every day, for six
months, she would wait for Salwa to return from work to camp outside her
bedroom and dramatically scream, drop to the oor, and slap her own face.
For those six months, Salwa insisted on her decision and challenged the
‘patriarchal bastions’ at home and in public (Bayat 2013, 21). By the end,
she could no longer handle her mother’s ‘abuse’ and decided to wear the hijab
again, until 2013, when she married and could take o the hijab away from
her mother’s input. By doing so, she committed to her feminist resistance
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while persisting through extreme patriarchal pushback and challenging
patriarchal norms in the public sphere.
Like Salwa, Safaa had to leave her home to be able to take o her
hijab. When Safaa was in college, she told her family she was considering
taking it o. ey told her, ‘at’s the devil’s work,’ and advised her to pray
more and get back on the right spiritual path. Safaa’s husband was equally
unsupportive. He told her he could not ‘walk in the street next to a woman
with an uncovered head.’ Nevertheless, Safaa could not get the thought out
of her head:
I wasn’t happy or convinced...why would my God force me to cover
my body, so why was I given a body in the rst place? Also, I was raised
believing that I wasn’t very attractive so why am I covered?
Safaa explains part of her confusion with the hijab. Her older sister, mother
and others always point out that her skinny gure renders her unattractive,
saving her from harassment. Why, then, does she have to keep covering her
body since her uncovered body is not attractive? She no longer understood
the logic in covering a woman’s body. After three months of telling her
parents and husband, Safaa decided to act. e only way she could take
o the hijab was if she left her home; so she moved out while she was still
married and later got a divorce. After removing the hijab, Safaa says she can
‘see [her] face more clearly now. Before, [she]felt that [she] was invisible in
pictures.’ She could not defy patriarchal traditions by only taking o the
hijab but had to move out as well. Safaa‘s doubting the hijab led her to doubt
all her Islamic beliefs, culminating in her no longer identifying as a Muslim.
By removing their hijabs, these women visibly declared their
disapproval of a common religious and social practice, they socially rebelled
through their body by discarding a traditional physical modier of Muslim
women, all while being fully aware of the possible negative and harmful
consequences at home and in public (Pitts-Taylor 2003). Every time these
women leave their houses without their hijab, they assert their presence in
public by exhibiting ‘embodied’ everyday feminist resistance and challenging
religious and social norms governing public space (Bobel and Kwan 2019;
Weitz 2001). By sticking to their decisions they committed to feminist
change; and through their daily ‘power of presence,’ they sustain and expand
Cairo’s feminist social nonmovement (Bayat 2013,88).
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Cairene Women Stand up for emselves: Defying
Harassment
Most women I interviewed identify sexual harassment as a signicant
barrier to their use of most public spaces in Cairo, except for some upper-
class settings. In fact, 99.3 percent of Egyptian women have experienced
some form of sexual harassment in their lifetimes (Tadros 2016,). As the
women were growing up, their mothers told them never to respond to street
harassment. eir mothers warned if they did respond, their response would
constitute an invitation to the harasser and would reect badly on them.
Families and society ask girls and women to remain in the shadows, no matter
the circumstances. Consequently, when women stand up for themselves
(with no help from a male companion) and retaliate against harassment, it
is a form of feminist resistance and a denouncement of gendered traditions
that conne women to a submissive and often abused state when in public.
Common forms of harassment women experience range from staring
to verbal harassment to groping. Most participants agreed harassers do not
discriminate: they harass all kinds of women. What exposes women to this
harassment? Making a scene. is scene making can take the form of not
wearing the hijab, laughing out loud, wearing ashy clothes, or even being
tall. In addition, women assert that society blames men’s harassment on
their sexual repression (McBain 2015). However, the actual reason that men
harass women is because they do not see women as their equals. Mariam
captures the status quo perfectly:
In the street, no woman is safe, verbal harassment, physical assault. It’s
like we’re public property. Anyone has the right to attack any time, and
you don’t have the right to defend yourself… She’s expected to be the
weaker person, and she’s expected to deal with it. If she defends herself
in the street, then she’s loose, she doesn’t have a man they can talk to
or defend her. So, if I defend myself when I get harassed, I don’t just
disgrace myself but also my family.
Mariam explains that women in public are ‘up for grabs’; men do not
question their right to infringe on women’s privacy and do not expect the
women to ght back. Indeed, most Egyptian men ‘inhabit and move through
public space through restricting the mobility of women’ (Ahmed 2004, 70).
Even more, society and harassers look down on women who make scenes
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in public, such as those who yell/speak loudly and swear. Because women
do not usually nd support from passersby when they call out harassers,
it is uncommon for women to publicly stand up for themselves. Women’s
feelings of vulnerability on the street, and fear of harassment, disgrace or
scandal have long shaped how their bodies minimally inhabit, and how their
bodies minimally inhabit—and how they inconspicuously appear in—public
space (Ahmed2004). Nevertheless, most participants indicated that they and
many women they know no longer put up with men’s transgressions in the
street and stand up for themselves in any way they can, especially after a new
law criminalized sexual harassment.
In 2014, for the rst time in Egypt’s history, the government identied
and criminalized sexual harassment (e Economist 2015). Before the
revolution, the term ‘sexual harassment’ did not exist in Egyptian Arabic, or at
least people were not aware of it. e word mo’aksa, which loosely translates
as ‘bothering’ or ‘irting,’ was the only word people used for harassment in
general and verbal harassment in specic. During the revolution, people and
reporters started using the term taharosh gensy, sexual harassment, because,
for the rst time in recent memory, thousands of women and men gathered
together in close quarters. Unfortunately, this close physical proximity for
extended hours led to many cases of harassment. As a result, thousands of
women and many Egyptian feminist organizations rallied together, causing
the Egyptian government to criminalize the act (Massena 2015). As Marta
and Wafaa have shared with me, this law encouraged some women to defend
themselves, speak up about their experience, and demand justice (Haase
2013; UN Women 2013).
Women stand up for themselves against harassment in dierent ways.
Nancy, Shereen, Marta, and Noha verbally responded to dierent forms
of harassment without using profanity. When responding to harassment,
these women use phrases such as ‘respect yourself,’ ‘why don’t you mind
your business?’ or, ‘how dare you?’ Phrases that do not contain profanity are
the least oensive and confrontational form of ghting against harassment,
because Egyptian society looks down on women who use swear words.
Nevertheless, the mere fact that these women vocalize their disapproval of
harassers’ transgression and entitlement is a form of feminist resistance and
scene making. It feels ‘triumphant,’ as Nancy describes it.
In contrast to those four, Heba, Salwa, Wafaa, and Monica have
verbally responded to harassment using profanity, which often causes an even
bigger scene. Wafaa, who describes herself as skinny, started talking back to
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harassers when she became more self-condent. When she experiences verbal
harassment, she does not ‘let it go.’ For Heba and Salwa, participating in the
revolution gave them the condence to stand up for themselves. In the past,
Salwa always tried to be ‘invisible’ in the street in order to ‘move freely’ and
avoid harassment. When walking in the street, she wore loose clothes and
‘frown[ed] like a soldier’ so as not to attract attention. However, Salwa has
gone from wanting to be invisible to responding to harassment with a litany
of curse words. Similarly, Monica always tries to use insults she knows will
deeply oend the harasser.
Like Salwa, Heba had initially always kept her peace in the street.
Even after the revolution, her attitude and response to harassment did not
initially change, ‘but when harassment became really abusive, [she] found
it meaningless to remain silent.’ One time, a man told Heba that she has
‘nice breasts,’ in response, she told him that ‘[his] mother’s are better.’ Even
though this is not profanity, Egyptian society considers this very insulting.
Heba felt ‘victorious’ not only because she was not used to insulting harassers,
but because men almost always expect women to be scared to retaliate, to be
‘polite,’ and not to know foul language.
Unlike the other women, Mariam used physical violence in response
to physical sexual harassment, making an audacious scene. In the summer
of 2016, Mariam nished her gym work out at 6 p.m. and was walking
home when a car drove by quickly; Mariam stepped back in shock. A man
yelled at the driver, ‘Why would you want to hit that hottie?’ is man’s
comment angered Mariam. When she insulted him, he explained that this
was a compliment and asked how dare she insult him. When he grabbed her
arm, people started pulling him away. is time, Mariam did not resort to
screaming and swearing: ‘I do boxing so I beat him up! I take boxing classes
not just to defend myself but to hit people in the street if they harass me.’
Mariam narrates what happened next:
e police saw him grabbing me... I told them I wanted to le a report.
ey took him, and I went to the station alone. When I arrived, because
it was in Ramadan, I stayed from 6:15 till 8:00 waiting till they broke
their fast, and during this time, the ocers were trying to convince me
not to le that case, so as not to harm him. ough, they should simply
be executing the actual law. I now have my lawyer’s union card, so I
showed it to them and told them, ‘I’m a lawyer and I will le a case.’
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At this moment, the harasser turned into a coward; he kept begging me
not to le the case. en he started denying what happened...saying he
was a respectable guy and was not used to catcalling girls...He was just
protecting me from the car that was about to hit me.
By the time the night shift ocers arrived, the marks on Mariam’s arm had
disappeared. Since there was no proof of physical assault, she could only
le a case of verbal harassment. Ocers let the man go after four hours of
being locked up. Nevertheless, Mariam says she felt triumphant in the end.
Mariam’s way of ghting harassment is the least common. Not only did she
learn boxing, she also hit a man in public, consequently making a scene and
smashing gendered expectations of how women should behave in the public
sphere. Her form of combating harassment is the most confrontational and
retaliatory, clearly illustrating the lengths to which women will go in order to
protect the spaces they have carved for themselves in public.
Regardless of the form women’s retaliation takes, women’s continuous
contestation of harassment gradually alters the behavior discipline and
patriarchal relations of power ‘inscribed’ into ‘the spatiality of social life’
(Johansson and Vinthagen 2020,122; Soja 1989). ese contestations make
known to the public that women are able and willing to defend themselves
and that they refuse constraints on their being in public. As such, these
contestations are a way the women are arming their right to be in public
space, and a step towards making it safer for themselves and others. Fighting
harassment is indeed a social interaction that results in the remaking and
unmaking of Cairo’s symbolic and material public space (Johansson and
Vinthagen 2020,122). ese women stood up for themselves and made
scenes despite not being in the company of a male guardian; they refused to
abide by society’s politics of respectability and feminine gender roles by using
curse words or ghting back physically. is illustrates one form of daily
public feminist resistance in which some Cairene women engage.
Scandalous in the Public Eye:
Leaving Home, Living Alone
Women who move out and live alone make the biggest scene of all, making
them essential contributors to Cairo’s feminist social nonmovement.
Egyptian social traditions dictate that single men and women live with their
families until they get married, but in modern day Egypt this applies more
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36
to women than men. Preserving her virginity, which is synonymous to a
woman’s honor, is a daughter’s main and most important duty toward herself
and her family, because their honor relies on hers (Moghadam 2003). Society
assumes that a woman being under the supervision of her family is the best
way to preserve their honor. Marriage is the only religiously (whether in
Christianity or Islam) and socially accepted license to have sex and to have
a separate life from one’s parents. Some women move alone to Cairo for
study or work since it is the capital and has the country’s best education and
employment opportunities. Regardless of origin, many participants believe
society generally considers women who live alone to be ‘loose’ or ‘whores.’
All women I interviewed had wanted to live alone in Cairo for years,
but most were unable to do so. For example, Nancy, Shereen, Mariam, Marta
and Monica’s parents do not prevent them from traveling alone abroad and
within Egypt, but object to them living alone in Cairo. e rst time Nancy
told her mother she wanted to move out, her mother reminded her that this
is not acceptable in Egyptian culture, but did not mind that Nancy left the
country, where she would be away from people’s eyes and judgment. All that
mattered to her mother was saving face:
My darling, you are in Egypt. If you want to do that, immigrate. Leave
the country, go study somewhere and have your life. Nobody will tell
you what to do or not to do. But as long as you are in Egypt, you are not
gonna leave your parents’ house. You can’t do that. You can’t just simply
move out.
Nancy’s mother’s response and opinion on the matter is representative of
that of many Egyptian mothers. ese women’s parents do not mind their
daughter’s independence in the sense that they can have their own jobs,
travel alone, and pursue further education locally and abroad. However,
being physically independent and living alone as an unmarried woman
would be scandalous; the shame of an unmarried woman living alone in
Egypt is unbearable to many parents.
Unlike most participants, two women moved out despite their family’s
disapproval. In 2015, Safaa was married, but she moved out because her
husband was not supportive of her decision to remove the hijab. When her
mother found out, she considered it a ‘catastrophe.’ Safaa’s mother tried to
change her mind; when she lost hope, she told Safaa that if she wants to ‘live
like this,’ then she should ‘leave the country.’ In 2016, another participant,
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Wafaa moved to Cairo from Fayoum, 60 miles southwest of Cairo, against
her mother’s wishes, when she received a scholarship to study cinema. Two
years away from retiring and being the sole breadwinner in the family, she
only accepted her daughter’s leaving when Wafaa received a job oer that
could provide her with nancial security.
According to Safaa, women must use a secret phrase with some real
estate brokers if they are looking to live alone. When a woman asks for a
‘freedoms apartment,’ the broker knows she is looking to live alone where
the neighbors and doorman mind their business, usually for a premium.
Safaa says, ‘It’s like I would pay for the broker or the doorman to mind
their own business… it’s like renting a place with a dishwasher and another
without.’ Doormen and brokers exploit her desire to be independent because
they know she will not easily nd an apartment where she can live alone.
Consequently, she must bribe these patriarchal social guardians to turn a
blind eye.
Finding a broker who knows landlords who do not mind renting
to single women is only one part of this dicult process. Neighbors,
doormen and landlords do not necessarily leave the women alone after they
have moved in. For example, after a male friend of Wafaa’s carried a new
microwave to her apartment, the doorman saw him and insisted he carry it
instead. Apparently, no strange men were allowed in the building. In another
building where Wafaa lived, her landlord told her that the doorman will not
allow her in the building after 1:00 a.m. because ‘people would talk’; Wafaa
stayed in the apartment for two nights and moved again. Society clearly
judges and attempts to control unmarried women who live alone. Although
these women live in a physically private space, they do not live alone in the
building, on the street, or in the neighborhood, so they are always subject to
the public eye.
Safaa learned that nding and living in a freedoms apartment does
not guarantee a private and free life. Once, the doorman knocked on her
door to inform her the neighbors had called the police because they saw
men walking into her apartment. Nevertheless, Safaa would not give up her
independence for anything. Living in a space of her own, Safaa says, enables
her to reect on her thoughts and behavior, allowing her room to be a ‘doer
of things not an object to whom things are done.’
By living away from their families, without a (male) guardian, Wafaa
and Safaa carry out a monumental act of public feminist resistance as they
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challenge Egyptian rules of sexual respectability and social propriety. ese
women proclaim that they do not need anyone to be responsible for them.
Rather, they are responsible for themselves; they have control over their
decisions, time, body, and whereabouts. ey risk their reputation and
honor; they risk being ostracized by their neighbors and harassed (verbally
and sexually) by the police or landlords. For them, to live alone is to provoke
society; neighbors, shopkeepers and doormen constantly question their
virginity, wonder why their parents have no control over them, and why
they are still not married. ese women, fully aware of the situation, refuse
to give up their newfound space where they feel they can nally evolve and
experiment with life.
e Revolution: e Feminist Resistance Catalyst?
Participating in the 2011 revolution, especially in sit-ins and protests, was
the rst time many women felt that their presence in public was welcome
and appreciated. Many women started to believe that they could scream and
shout in public, and that they have a right to be in the public sphere. Not
all the women I interviewed, however, have gone through this experience. In
previous sections, I presented and analyzed the dierent ways Cairene women
deed patriarchy in the public sphere. In line with Johansson and Vinthagen
(2020) who argue that ‘everyday resistance goes on before, between or at the
side of the dramatic resistance events’ (28), in this section I explain that the
revolution was not the main reason behind this deance, although it was
the catalyst for some women’s public feminist resistance and participation in
Cairo’s preexisting feminist social nonmovement.
e public feminist resistance of Dina, Monica, and Wafaa proves that
Cairo’s social nonmovement existed before the revolution. ree dierent
events, each unconnected to the revolution, triggered their public feminist
deance. Dina took o her hijab in 2009, and even though she participated
in demonstrations, she does not think the revolution has changed her in any
way. ough she still identies as Muslim, Dina no longer believed the hijab
was a religious obligation. Monica started standing up to harassment because
it had become unbearable. Wafaa read a novel, The Beggar by the Egyptian
Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz (1965), in the summer of 2009 that made
her reevaluate her constricted and conventional life:
It’s a very philosophical novel about a nihilist called Omar Hamzawy
who is depressed and wants nothing from life…and has no energy to
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change it. Back then I identied with this state of isolation…en I
started to feel that there was something more to be done in life beyond
this; something more than just graduating, getting married, having
children, aging and dying. I couldn’t imagine being like my mother,
coming back from work at 3p.m., prepare lunch, watch TV and go to
bed…At the end of the novel he resorted to mysticism...Yet he still did
not nd comfort, but the point is that he kept trying all the time. We
are here to try. No one is consistently happy but trying makes life worth
living. is inuenced me greatly. I wanted to try life too.
Clearly, Wafaa wanted to experiment with life and tread ‘the road not taken.’
She did not want to lead the conventional life of many Egyptian women.
is novel pushed her to study cinema and move to Cairo in 2016.
Some women, while not completely rejecting the revolution as
catalyzing their feminist resistance, are uncertain how much to credit it.
Marta, Nancy, Noha, Reem, and Shereen think the revolution, alongside
other catalysts, may have indirectly instigated their bold behaviors. Nancy
participated in demonstrations, but she draws no links between the revolution
and her change in behavior from ignoring harassers to talking back at them.
Without explicitly using the phrase ‘the personal is political,’ after the
revolution, Nancy explains that she started feeling that sexual harassment is
no longer ‘a personal matter, but rather a communal thing’ and that women
must stand up for themselves. Similarly, Shereen did not participate in the
revolution, but she thinks it ‘might have something to do’ with her decision
to remove the hijab. She explains that the revolution resulted in a ‘vibe’ that
emboldened many women, including herself. Similarly, Noha identied the
revolution as a possible cause for the change she witnessed in her social circle
and believes that is how the revolution indirectly inuenced her. Many of her
friends took o the hijab after the revolution, however, she is unsure if they
were able to do so because ‘the revolution broke down some social barriers’
or because they ‘saw others do it so that gave them strength.’ When one of
Noha’s neighbors took o her hijab, it ‘empowered’ her to do the same. is
illustrates the ripple eect of one woman’s act of everyday feminist resistance,
resulting in the spread of Cairo’s feminist social nonmovement.
Similar to Noha, the revolution played a minor role in Reem’s
feminist deance. She briey participated in the revolution in 2011 and was
‘fascinated by people demanding their freedom.’ Reem’s change, however,
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was gradual and progressed over the years. She questioned gender roles as she
observed how parents in her family treated their sons more favorably than
their daughters. When she fell in love with a Christian man, she questioned
gendered interpretations of the Qur’an that allow Muslim men to marry
Christian and Jewish women but do not allow Muslim women to marry
Christian and Jewish men. Furthermore, in 2011, at Reem’s university, there
was a call for members for a newly established feminist union. is was
Reem’s rst encounter with feminist thought, especially women’s sexual
and bodily rights. All these factors resulted in Reem no longer abiding by
what society or her single mother consider acceptable. She started dressing
less conservatively, smoking, and staying out late. Finally, Marta is now
more comfortable with staying out late and calling out harassers after she
participated in political protests in 2013, widely considered a continuation
of the revolution, and volunteered in an anti-harassment campaign at the
time. e church she attends also had a role in changing her attitude through
harassment awareness sessions.
e remaining four participants clearly identify the revolution as the
main reason for their feminist epiphany and resistance. Safaa, Heba, Mariam,
and Salwa participated extensively in the revolution, and described their lives
before and after it as completely dierent. Before the revolution, they were
shy, followed the curfew that their parents set for them, never talked back to
harassers, and dressed conservatively. For them, the revolution was the site
where they rst felt present; it gave them a voice and condence that they
had never felt before. Salwa explains that in the beginning she never used
to yell out slogans with crowds. She had never been one to raise her voice
in public, but during the revolution, she was angry enough to ‘scream [her]
heart out.’ is was her rst time making a scene.
During the sit-ins and protests, these women interacted with Egyptians
from all walks of life. ey spent countless hours observing and talking with
people who existed beyond their small social bubbles. As a result, these
women, who belonged to traditional and protective households, socialized
with ‘the other,’ as Heba put it, and gradually got rid of the stereotypes
they had about people who are more liberal, less religious, and of dierent
religions. Due to their extended hours outside their homes and discussions
with protesters and activists, for the rst time in their lives, they thought
about feminist issues that aect their daily lives like women’s freedom of
mobility, taking o the hijab, sexual freedom, harassment, women’s rights,
and constricting gender roles. Heba explains, ‘If it wasn’t for the revolution, it
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would be impossible for me to understand [that women should have freedom
to do whatever they want with their bodies]. is is why I am so grateful for
this revolution with all my life.’ Heba owes her feminist consciousness to the
revolution. It propelled her into resisting patriarchal practices and ways of
thinking. She started respecting other women’s personal choices and decided
to practice daily public feminist acts of resistance to live the liberated life she
envisioned for herself.
e personal decisions participants made as a result of the revolution
made them feel more like themselves; they all expressed a notion of self-
discovery. Mariam says that after the revolution, she ‘became herself’; it
pushed her to break away from the carbon copy lifestyle that many Egyptian
women live and pursue; she no longer just wanted a husband and kids, but
wanted to explore dierent ways of living. In the same vein, Salwa says the
following about how the revolution changed her:
e revolution enabled to move without having a problem with people
seeing me…With my old personality, I would never ride a scooter, or
wear short clothes, or show my hair. I wanted to look like everyone else,
so I could freely walk. After the revolution I strongly wanted to look like
myself. I wanted to be me, to be present as I am and ‘fuck you people’;
I don’t give a shit about you.
e revolution spurred Salwa and the three other women on a journey of
soul searching and self-discovery. After a series of personal epiphanies during
and after the revolution, they decided they had to shed their old skin and live
their lives as they wish, even if it meant going against all that is acceptable,
traditional, and respectable, even if it meant making scenes. Even though
it was a political uprising that inspired them, these women did not choose
to go into politics afterwards, rather, they channeled their epiphany into
everyday acts of feminist resistance in the public sphere, expanding Cairo’s
social nonmovement.
Conclusion
e women whom I interviewed for this study represent a wider feminist
social transformation in Cairo and Egypt. Most of my interviewees know, have
seen or heard of women who removed their veil, have moved out to live away
from family, or stood up to harassment. Furthermore, there has been media
coverage of how some Egyptian women of various social classes have been
defying socially accepted ways of being in public. Some unmarried women
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moved out of their parents’ home because they were seeking independence,
education, or new careers (Debeuf and Abdelmeguid 2015; Gamal 2015),
others took o their hijab (Darwish 2012; Nkrumah 2016; Primo 2015),
and some are riding bicycles for fun and transportation to save time and
money (Agence France Presse 2015). ese women have faced both backlash
and support from their families, immediate social circles, and strangers in
the public sphere. ere is no evidence, however, of support or backlash on
a national level. Despite a lack of attention on a national scale, such media
attention proves the noticeable growth of a feminist social nonmovement in
Egypt. ere are no available statistics of how many women are part of this
social nonmovement for various reasons, including the following two. is
is the rst study that acknowledges the wide occurrence of this everyday
feminist resistance; the media coverage deals with the women as individual
cases or groups and not as part of a wider feminist social (non)movement.
Second, as this paper has shown, a nonmovement is uncoordinated and
does not have a leader; therefore, the women participating may not even
be aware of how widespread it actually is. is makes it all the much harder
‘to track down’ the participants of the nonmovement. In sum, through a
sample of 12 participants, this study makes a claim that there has been a
continuously growing feminist social nonmovement in Cairo that suggests a
larger nonmovement occurring in other Egyptian settings, especially cities,
among middle class, educated women. Due to the nature of nonmovements,
and the qualitative methods of the paper, the number of women participants
in this current feminist social transformation is unknown.
is research study joins the works of de Certeau and Scott to highlight
the resistance by people in a subordinate position consisting of small actions
compared to large-scale political resistance or organized social movements.
ese nonmovements are less visible in the literature on women’s feminist
resistance in Egypt and the MENA (Johansson and Vinthagen 2020).
Nevertheless, the aim of this research has been to contribute to the under
researched eld of everyday resistance by revealing that on a micro, everyday
scale this resistance is in fact big and conspicuous. Even more, this study has
revealed how everyday resistance ‘connects to collective actions or social
movement activism, how it might scale up and spread, how it impacts social
change’ (Johansson and Vinthagen 2020, 181).
Along with Johansson and Vinthagen (2020) who argue that everyday
resistance ‘constitutes an initial, o stage, or later stage activity in relation
to other more sustained, organized and conventional political forms of
NEHAL ELMELIGY
–MAKING A SCENE:
43
resistance,’ I argue that Cairo’s feminist social nonmovement started before
the 2011 revolution and still continues, and in fact, the revolution is not
the main catalyst for Egyptian women’s feminist resistance. Each participant
challenged patriarchal norms and deed traditional gender roles before and
after the revolution in public space. Women took o their hijab, fought
sexual harassment verbally and physically, and moved out of their parents’
(and husband’s) homes to live alone. By carrying out such everyday acts
of resistance, they deed patriarchal and gendered norms that often ban
women from entering public space or dictate constricting conditions for their
appearance in it. Each participant faced various obstacles at home as their
parents (or husband) opposed their decisions or endured verbal, physical,
and psychological violations in the street as they made scenes and enacted
feminist resistance publicly.
More importantly, I have revealed how and why these women overcame
these obstacles and persisted to publicly challenge Cairo’s patriarchal society
everyday. First, by defying patriarchy in public and, second, by refusing
to yield to familial and cultural pressures, these women have created and
maintained ‘new spaces of freedom’ for themselves to experience daily life
as they wish and declare their right to exist in public (Bayat 2013,88).
Furthermore, by creating new spaces of freedom independently, yet through
similar forms of resistance, these women’s actions constitute Cairo’s feminist
social nonmovement.
Considering the uncoordinated nature of this social nonmovement,
an organized feminist eort is not the way to keep it alive. ese women’s
everyday acts of resistance are eective because they are contagious. As
long as Cairene women within the feminist social nonmovement continue
to employ their ‘power of presence’ in public space, they will inspire more
women to question their daily lives and their surroundings, which might
result in their deance of patriarchy and public feminist resistance (Bayat
2013,88).
However, will these individual acts of feminist resistance ever amount
to large scale social change? While no one can answer this question with
complete certainty, we must acknowledge that resistance is ‘a process of
unnished struggle’ (Vinthagen 2015, 8). Nevertheless, I argue that the
women of the feminist social nonmovement are slowly going in the direction
that Zeina Zaatari (2014) believes may lead to an Arab feminist renaissance.
e Arab world as a whole needs a feminist change, not another wave of state
actors that call for women’s rights that seek adjustments within patriarchal/
Journal of Resistance Studies Number 2 - Volume 6 - 2020
44
paternal institutions (Zaatari 2014). In Cairo’s case, its feminist social
nonmovement is gradually dismantling the patriarchal institution pertaining
to women’s presence in public space.
I stand with Zaatari; real change does require the complete shattering
of available institutions and frameworks. But what would that look like
in the current political state of Egypt? Will feminists be able to lobby for
and create policies that promote equality in social and legal frameworks as
Zaatari calls for? is study reveals a potential societal and cultural ‘arm’
of Zaatari’s envisioned feminist popular mobilization. Cairo’s feminist
social nonmovement is a cultural shift that embodies feminist change and
resistance on the everyday, micro level that may be preceding a possible large-
scale organized feminist movement. While this does not provide a practical
answer to one of the pertinent questions in everyday resistance studies of
‘how everyday resistance can “scale up” into resistance in many instances
or into open, collective and organized resistance into a regional, national
or transnational scale,’ it oers a contemporary contextualized example of
‘resistance culture’ that can arguably lead to ‘mass mobilizations’ (Johansson
and Vinthagen 2020,190).
Regarding the recent past, present and the near future, this study
situates the feminist transformation in Cairo, and in Egypt, within a wider
societal transformation taking place in the MENA region. e revolutions
of 2011 inspired around 50 Saudi women to organize a decentralized
campaign to demand the lifting of the ban on women driving (Galana
2016). In 2011, two Libyan women created Friday’s Bike, a rst-of-its-kind
Facebook page in Libya for a weekly women’s biking event (Alnass and Pratt
2015). In Jordan, women are challenging wilaya (guardianship); they are
‘achieving independence at the levels of work, travel, and mobility’ (Jabiri
2016, 128). In Sudan, women musicians transgress social and gender rules
by performing their music in public (Fabos 2017). In Rabat, Morocco,
women are increasingly frequenting cafes which are spaces men traditionally
occupy (Moussaid 2009). More specically, this study oers an inside look
at the coalition of Bayat’s (2013) social nonmovements and Zaatari’s (2014)
feminist call for change; a feminist social nonmovement in which Cairene
women are challenging patriarchy and claiming their rights to the public
sphere.
NEHAL ELMELIGY
–MAKING A SCENE:
45
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