Week 13 - Turning the Gendered Politics of the Security State Inside Out?

             In Paul Amar’s reading, “Turning the Gendered Politics of the Security State Inside Out?” Amar talks about the protests in Egypt during the 1990’s to the 2000’s. Because of the uprising of many protests and movements during this time the security state decided to intervene by sending out their own men “to attempt to delegitimize, intimidate and blur both the image and message of these movements by infiltration and surrounding them with plain-clothes thugs, deputized by police and paramilitary security forces” (p.308, Amar). These men would mix in with the protesters and disrupt their protesting by shouting extremist slogans, damaging properties and harassing other protestors in order to look like ‘terrorists’. This tactic was used to create scenes to terrorize the media in order to sway viewers from participating in these events and also to portray Middle Eastern countries as ‘terrorizing’ in an international level. Because of this many negative stereotyping surrounded Middle Eastern countries.

            What they did not expect was for women to involve themselves in these protests. The image of women protesting on T.V. changes the message it’s portraying because these women were suppose to be pious meaning they should be reserved in situations like these. But now what does it mean to see “reserved” women protesting on T.V.? It sends out a message that women too are also believe in fighting for what’s right and encourages other people to join instead of deeming them as ‘terrorists’. However the women who protest were sexually harassed and arrested by the same men who where undercover. It was women who suffered more with the consequences because they were able to represent so much more than men during protests, they represented the image of change.