Embodying Geopolitics: Generations of Women’s Activism in Egypt, Jordan, and LebanonWhen women took to the streets during the mass protests of the Arab Spring, the subject of feminism in the Middle East and North Africa returned to the international spotlight. In the subsequent years, countless commentators treated the region’s gender inequality as a consequence of fundamentally cultural or religious problems. In so doing, they overlooked the specifically political nature of these women’s activism. Moving beyond such culturalist accounts, this book turns to the relations of power in regional and international politics to understand women’s struggles for their rights. Based on over a hundred extensive personal narratives from women of different generations in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, Nicola Pratt traces women’s activism from national independence through to the Arab uprisings, arguing that activist women are critical geopolitical actors. Weaving together these personal accounts with the ongoing legacies of colonialism, Embodying Geopolitics demonstrates how the production and regulation of gender is integrally bound up with the exercise and organization of geopolitical power, with consequences for women’s activism and its effects. |
Contents
Embodying Geopolitics in the Middle East | 1 |
Female Respectability and Embodied National Sovereignty | 33 |
The Breakdown | 59 |
the 1970s and 1980s | 85 |
Notes | 225 |
List of Interviewees | 233 |
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agenda Al-Ali al-Tal Amman Arab uprisings Arab world authoritarianism Beirut Cairo Cairo University campaign camps CEDAW challenge chapter civil constitution context cultural demonstrations dominant gender norms Egypt Egyptian example fedayeen female respectability feminism feminist founded Gamal Abdel-Nasser gender equality gender inequality gender norms gendered hierarchies geopolitical order global groups highlights human rights inner sphere international women's rights interviewed Islamic Islamist Israel issues Jordan Jordan and Lebanon Jordanian Communist Party Kefaya Lebanese Lebanon leftist Maronite Meanwhile MENA Middle East mobilized modernity movements Mubarak Muslim Brotherhood narratives Nasser nationalist neoliberal NGOs norms of female Palestine Palestinian refugees participation period personal status laws policies political parties popular post-Cold postindependence protests reforms region repression resistance role Sadat sectarian sit-in social society sovereignty status laws struggle student Syrian tion told underpinned University violence against women woman women activists women’s activism women's organizations women's rights women's rights activists Women's Union