Can Sexual Violence Be Denounced Without Perpetrating Class Violence?

Discussions on Sexual Harassment in Egypt

Authors

  • Marion Tillous University Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis
  • Perrine Lachenal LAAP [Laboratoire d’anthropologie prospective], Université catholique de Louvain

Keywords:

Public harassment, continuum of sexual violence, class-sex intersectionality, security politics, Egypt

Abstract

Public sexual harassment in Egypt is a textbook case of how a public problem can be constituted and used against working class men, who are identified as the main perpetrators. In such cases, a gender issue is exploited for political and class purposes, to propagate a law and order rhetoric and reinforce control over the lower classes. Since sexual harassment is presented in isolation from other forms of sexual violence—ones which might incriminate men of other social classes—the manner in which it functions as a threat in a larger system of domination is also invisibilized. In order to overcome these pitfalls and comprehend sexual harassment intersectionally, we propose to employ the concept of the continuum of sexual violence (Kelly 1987) in our analysis.

 

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Published

2021-07-02

How to Cite

Tillous, M., & Lachenal, P. (2021). Can Sexual Violence Be Denounced Without Perpetrating Class Violence? Discussions on Sexual Harassment in Egypt. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 20(3), 231–240. Retrieved from https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/2021