Week 13: Turning the Gendered Politics of the Security State Inside Out

In the article Turning the Gendered Politics of the Security State Inside Out, Paul Amar shines light on the efforts by women subjected to assault by police officers to sue and protest against them for sexual harassment.  Throughout his piece he takes a gentle approach to investigate the complications of feminist activities in Egypt as well as their complex interlocking with many diverse Egyptian social institutions. There is a common framework that women are trying to seize their human rights against the “illiberal” Middle-Eastern state (and man) and Amar makes sure not to feed into such a foundation.

One quote in the opening of Amar’s article is said by Asmaa Mahfouz, who is a young woman leader who leads a protest in Tahrir Square. She steers away from the “woman-victim” role to decry human rights and plead police protection. Instead she describes herself as an “Egyptian on fire” who has a burning rage for a revolution to bring peace among woman. Asmaa Mahfouz and many other Egyptian individuals are tired of being harassed (especially sexually) by those in higher state positions, and they are fed up with their revolutionary passion being labeled as hysterical and crazy. The baltagi-effect was prevalent during many of the protests, and it is characterized by “plain-clothed thugs” and deputized police flooding the area of protests and wreaking havoc to create inner conflict within the protest. Not only did this terrorize protestors, but it also generated new negative images for domestic and international media. This fed into the already common belief that protestors were “crazed mobs of brutal men, vaguely ‘Islamist’ and fiercely irrational” (Amar 308).

Amar’s article attempts to undermine the classic framework by which Western scholars have viewed gender in the Middle East, similar to Abu-Lughod and Saba Mahmood’s articles. I think if the West is so committed to helping those in Muslim countries then we first need to take a deeper look into what real problems are taking place within the Muslim community instead making assumptions of the problems based on what we hear/see in media.