In the article, “Turning the Gendered Politics of the Security State Inside Out?”, Paul Amar looks at how practices of securitization and police force shift to reinforce themselves, even in the midst of visible gender role reversals. Representations of Egyptian protestors used to be hypermasculine and violent, which Amar calls the baltagi-effect. This was how state terror was justified to the international system. When women began to appear on the frontlines, this masculine portrayal of “terrorists” ceased to work, so the security state then moved to more sexualized aggressions. Women, who were once seen as pious and culturally moral, were rebranded as prostitutes and publicly sexually assaulted.
The different reactions by organizations on what was happening are very indicative of how understanding intersections of gender, class, etc. is crucial. When thinking about international relations, the security state may not always ensure that women are safe and secure, as clearly shown. If we don’t criticize these larger structures, we may not get to the larger root of the problem: “a series of civil society and governmental campaigns erupted that hypervisibilized and intensified the classphobic moralization of the issue, focusing on the restoration of respectability and piety” (Amar 314). Organizations like Al Nadeem are deemed too radical because they question the practices of the security state, which threatens hegemonic narratives that it works hard to cultivate.
