A New Vision of Masculinity?: Activism Against Sexual and Gender Based Violence in Egypt, 2010-2015

The current global authoritarian wave with its anti-feminist and anti-sexual rights rhetoric has seen right wing movements gain strength including remerging in the countries that had experienced uprisings in 2010 – 2013 in the MENA region. Deniz Kandiyoti (2020: 148) no longer uses the term patriarchy but instead uses the phrase, “masculinist restoration”, to describe “...the novel forms of enforcement of male dominance and forms of resistance to it...” The increase of SGBV in public spaces has elicited condemnation and resistance in Egypt, for example. Since 2005, activism has increased in response to the documented high rates of everyday sexual violence in public spaces and intensified when female protesters became targets of what appeared to be organized mass sexual assaults during the demonstrations from 2011-2013. Kandiyoti argues that these new patterns of SGBV and collective responses are not part of the routine operations of patriarchy but rather of a new phrase where patriarchy is no longer stable and requires more force and intimidation, particularly from the state, to maintain it. And the resistance to masculinist restoration has taken a political form which is the focus of my research. My project explores how the various groups in Egypt that emerged to end public sexual violence during the period of 2010-2015 dealt with masculinities and engaged men based on in depth interviews with 30 staff and volunteers (half women/half men) conducted in 2015-2016 with independent initiatives, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), national and international organizations based in Cairo. More specifically, the findings will explain why men became active participants as staff members and volunteers in anti-sexual harassment campaigns and how some of these groups tried to reconceptualize masculinity in ways that are not traditionalist nor patriarchal.

Kandiyoti, Deniz. 2020. “The Pitfalls of Secularism in Turkey: An Interview with Deniz Kandiyoti.” Feminist Dissent 5: 135-154.