Women of the Midan: The Untold Stories of Egypt's Revolutionaries (Public Cultures of the Middle East and North Africa)

In 'Women of the Midan', Sherine Hafez demonstrates how women were a central part of revolutionary process of the Arab Spring. Women not only protested in the streets of Cairo, they demanded democracy, social justice, and renegotiation of a variety of sociocultural structures that repressed and disciplined them. Women's resistance to state control, Islamism, neoliberal market changes, the military establishment, and patriarchal systems forged new paths of dissent and transformation. Through firsthand accounts of women who participated in the revolution, Hafez illustrates how the gendered body signifies collective action and the revolutionary narrative. Using the concept of rememory, Hafez shows how the body is inseparably linked to the trauma of the revolutionary struggle. While delving into the complex weave of public space, government control, masculinity, and religious and cultural norms, Hafez sheds light on women's relationship to the state in the Arab world today and how the state, in turn, shapes individuals and marks gendered bodies An exploration of gender, the Arab Spring, and women's experiences of revolution, including firsthand accounts. In Women of the Midan, Sherine Hafez demonstrates how women were a central part of revolutionary process of the Arab Spring. Women not only protested in the streets of Cairo, they demanded democracy, social justice, and renegotiation of a variety of sociocultural structures. Women's resistance to state control, Islamism, neoliberal market changes, the military establishment, and patriarchal systems forged new paths of dissent and transformation. Through firsthand accounts of women who participated in the revolution, Hafez illustrates how the gendered body signifies collective action and the revolutionary narrative. Using the concept of rememory, Hafez shows how the body is inseparably linked to the trauma of the revolutionary struggle. While delving into the complex weave of public space, government control, masculinity, and religious and cultural norms, Hafez sheds light on women's relationship to the state in the Arab world today and how the state, in turn, shapes individuals and marks gendered bodies. Though The Testimonies Of Egyptian Women Who Participated In The Revolution, Women Of The Midan Foregrounds The Role Of The Gendered Body As An Agent Of Collective Action And Transformation--a Practice And Process That Challenges Traditional Notions Of How Women Are Represented In The Middle East. Recentering Gender In Revolution : Timeline 2011 To 2015 -- Telling The Stories Of Revolutionary Women -- Gender And Corporeality In Egypt : A History -- Gender, Class, And Revolt In Neoliberal Cairo -- The Lived Experience Of Women's Struggle -- Bodies That Protest -- The Specter Of Gender Violence -- Taking Resistance Virtually : Corporeality And Sexual Taboos. Sherine Hafez. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.