Whose Rights? Understanding Women’s Engagement in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising

• Author / Creator

  Allam, Nermin

• Popular and scholarly accounts emphasize the absence of gender issues in women's framing of their participation during the 2011 Egyptian uprising. In this dissertation, I interrogate the collective action frame adopted by women at the time of the uprising to elucidate how gender featured in the framing of their participation and the impact of this framing on women's activism and engagement. The data for this project draws upon 103 interviews with female protestors and activists, leaders of women′s rights organizations, and Tawakkol Kerman, the Nobel Laureate and Yemeni activist. Data is also gathered from public transcripts as well as secondary literature published in English and Arabic on the topic. Espousing a political process approach, I highlight how female protestors oriented their messages in relation to the existent opportunities and constraints during the uprising. That is, they distanced themselves from the discourse of women's rights in the framing of their participation as the former has been the pet project of the ruling regimes in Egypt and associated with Western reform agendas. This framing, I argued, temporally concealed differences and inequalities that had traditionally obscured women′s participation in politics. By offering a gender analysis of these early interactions, the dissertation contributes to explaining the nature and implications of their gender dynamics. It recovers women′s voices in the writing of history and opens up new ways of understanding the Egyptian uprising.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • State Feminism
  • Women
  • Egypt
  • National Struggles
  • Arab Spring
  • Social Movements
  • Political Opportunities
  • Politics of Dissappointment
  • Framing

• Graduation date

  Spring 2016

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Philosophy

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3F766N7Z

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.