Perceptions and management of gender roles and dynamics inside OpAntiSH Intervention Teams in Cairo
A number of anti-sexual harassment and anti-sexual violence initiatives were formed by Egyptian citizens after 2011 to confront the rising tide of gender-based violence against women in the public sphere. Among those focused on direct intervention in cases of mob sexual assault in mass gatherings in...
محفوظ في:
| الحاوية / القاعدة: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ema, |
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| المؤلف الرئيسي: | |
| التنسيق: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| اللغة: | Anglais |
| منشور في: |
Égypte/Monde arabe
2015
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| الموضوعات: | |
| الوصول للمادة أونلاين: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| الملخص: | A number of anti-sexual harassment and anti-sexual violence initiatives were formed by Egyptian citizens after 2011 to confront the rising tide of gender-based violence against women in the public sphere. Among those focused on direct intervention in cases of mob sexual assault in mass gatherings in Tahrir Square (Cairo), Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault (OpAntiSH) was the only one that always integrated male and female volunteers in all teams, including Intervention. This study of the management and perceptions of gender dynamics by volunteers inside OpAntiSH’s Intervention teams in 2012-2014, is based on micro-sociological analysis of the data gathered through participant observation and semi-structured interviews during this period. This paper first addresses women volunteers’ motivations – based on their own narratives – for joining Intervention teams, a choice that could be viewed as counter intuitive or frowned upon in Egyptian society, in which the dominant model of gender roles remains quite close to the model of hegemonic masculinity. Many framed this choice within an identity-based reading of the phenomenon of mass sexual assaults as attacks on all women as political agents in the public sphere, and their response as a means of resistance and reclaiming agency. Women’s presence in Intervention teams was initially an issue for many volunteers, who developed certain techniques and coping strategies to manage it. These included specific ways of performing gender within the group that differed from their practices in other contexts, and various approaches to the negotiation of gender roles within teams. Intervention involved a broader learning process about gender for some volunteers, whose view of women’s presence in teams evolved, though it remained somewhat of an issue for other “silent dissenters” of sorts. Ultimately, the particularity of the OpAntiSH experience is connected to the creation of a social sphere of gender equality and solidarity, geared toward the joining of forces between men and woman as equals, to fight mass sexual violence in the public sphere, within a very non-egalitarian society. |
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