Can Sexual Violence Be Denounced Without Perpetrating Class Violence?
Discussions on Sexual Harassment in Egypt
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v20i3.2021Keywords:
Public harassment, continuum of sexual violence, class-sex intersectionality, security politics, EgyptAbstract
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.
References
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Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2002. “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others.” American Anthropologist, 104, n°3: 783-790.
Abu-Lughod, Lila and Rabab El-Mahdi. 2011. “Beyond the ‘Woman Question’ in the Egyptian Revolution.” Feminist Studies 37, n°3: 683-691.
Abul-Komsan, Nehad, Rasha Mohammed Hassan and Aliyaa Shoukry. 2008. Clouds in Egypt’s Sky’. Sexual Harassment: from Verbal Harassment to Rape. A Sociological Study. Cairo: the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights.
Abul-Komsan, Nehad. 2009. Sexual Harassment in the Arab Region: Cultural Challenges and Legal Gaps. Cairo: the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights.
Ahmed Zaki, Hind. 2015. “El-Sissi’s Women? Shifting Gender Discourses and the Limits of State Feminism.” Égypte/Monde arabe 13, 39-63.
Amar, Paul. 2011. “Turning the Gendered Politics of the Security State Inside Out?” International Feminist Journal of Politics 13, n°3: 299-328.
Bacchi, Carol Lee. 1999. Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems. London: Sage Publications.
Bernal, Victoria and Inderpal Grewal (eds). 2014. Theorizing NGO’s, States, Feminisms and Neoliberalism. Durham: Duke University Press.
Boltanski, Luc and Eve Chiapello. 1999. Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme. Paris: Gallimard.
Cardi, Coline and Geneviève Pruvost (eds). 2012. Penser la violence des femmes. Paris: La Découverte.
Chevalier, Louis. 1958/1973. Labouring Classes and Dangerous Classes In Paris During the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. Translated from the French by Frank Jellinek, New York: Howard Fertig.
Claverie, Elisabeth and Luc Boltanski. 2007. Du monde social en tant que scène d’un procès. In Affaires, scandales and grandes causes : de Socrate à Pinochet, edited by Stéphane Van Damme & Nicolas Offenstadt, 395-452, Paris: Stock.
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1989. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989/1, 139-167.
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1991. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review, 43, n°6: 1241-1299.
Davis, Angela. 1981. Women, Race and Class. New York: Random House.
Delage, Pauline. 2017. Violences conjugales. Du combat féministe à la cause publique. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.
Dworkin, Andrea. 1981. Pornography: Men Possessing Women. London: The Women’s Press.
El-Dessouky, Aseel. 1997. Egyptian Press Coverage of Sexual Violence against Females. Cairo: American University of Cairo.
El-Rifae Yasmin. 2014. “Egypt’s Sexual Harassment Law: An Insufficient Measure to End Sexual Violence.” Middle-East Institute (https://www.mei.edu/publications/egypts-sexual-harassment-law-insufficient-measure-end-sexual-violence, accessed 22.02.2021.).
Godelier, Maurice. 1978. “La Part idéelle du réel. Essai sur l'idéologique.” L’Homme 18, n°3-4: 155-188.
Hanmer, Jalna. 1977. “Violence and contrôle social des femmes.” Questions Féministes 1, n°1: 68-88.
Jad, Islah. 2004. “The ‘NGOisation’ of the Arab Women’s Movement.” IDS Bulletin 35, n°4: 34-42.
Kassab Sweis, Rania. 2012. “Saving Egypt’s Village Girls: Humanity, Rights, and Gendered Vulnerability in a Global Youth Initiative.” Journal of Middle East Women’s studies 8, n°2: 26‑50.
Kelly, Liz. 1987. The Continuum of Sexual Violence. In Women, Violence and Social Control, edited by Jalna Hanmer & Mary Maynard, 46-60, London: British Sociological Association.
Kelly, Liz. 1988. Surviving Sexual Violence. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Kergoat, Danièle. 2009. Dynamiques and consubstantialité des rapports sociaux. In Sexe, race, classe, pour une épistémologie de la domination, edited by Elsa Dorlin, 111-125, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Klaus, Enrique. 2007. The Ayd ‘Sexual Rage Scandal’: Managing the Lack of Information Through Categorical Photo-Fit. In Chroniques égyptiennes 2006, edited by Klaus Enrique and Hassabo Chaymaa, 372-390, Cairo: CEDEJ.
Koning (de), Anouk. 2009. Global Dreams: Class, Gender, and Public Space in Cosmopolitan Cairo. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.
Kreil, Aymon. 2012. Du rapport au dire. Sexe, amour and discours d’expertise au Caire, Ph.D, Paris: École des hautes études en sciences sociales.
Lachenal, Perrine. 2014. “Beauty, the Beast and the Baseball Bat. Ethnography of Self-Defense Courses for Upper-Class Women in Revolutionary Cairo.” Comparative Sociology, 13, 58-77.
Lachenal, Perrine. 2015. Faire de la self-défense dans le Caire en révolution : techniques du genre and jeux de violence, Ph.D, Aix-en-Provence: University of Aix-Marseille.
Lang, Sabine. 1997. The NGO-ization of Feminism. In Transitions Environments Translations: Feminisms in International Politics, edited by Joan W. Scott, Cora Kaplan & Debra Keates, 101-120, New York: Routledge.
Lapalus, Marylène. 2015. “Feminicidio / femicidio: Les enjeux théoriques et politiques d'un discours définitoire de la violence contre les femmes.” Enfances, Familles, Generations 22, 85-113.
Lieber, Marylène. 2008. Genre, violences and espaces publics. La vulnérabilité des femmes en question. Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques.
MacKinnon, Catharine A. 1979. Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination. New Haven: Yale University Press.
MacKinnon, Catharine A. 1982. “Feminism, Marxism, Method and the State: An Agenda for Theory.” Signs 7, n°3: 515-544.
MacKinnon, Catherine. 2000. “Points against Postmodernism.” Chicago-Kent Law Review 75, 687-712.
Mathieu Nicole-Claude. 1985/2013. Quand céder n’est pas consentir. In L’anatomie politique. Catégorisations et idéologies du sexe, edited by Nicole-Claude Mathieu, 131-225, Donnemarie-Dontilly: Editions iXe.
Mikdashi, Maya. 2017. “Six Years In: The Uprisings Will Be Gendered.” Jaddaliyya (https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/34672, accessed 22.02.2021.).
Tillous, Marion. 2017. “Les voitures de métro réservées aux femmes comme instrument d’action publique : une réponse à quel problème ?”, Géocarrefour 91, n°1 (https://journals.openedition.org/geocarrefour/10033, accessed 22.02.2021.).
Van Raemdonck, An. 2019. “Paradoxes of Awareness Raising in Development: Gender and Sexual Morality in Anti-FGC Campaigning in Egypt.” Culture, Health & Sexuality 21, n°10Full last name 1st author, Full first name 1st author, Full first name 2nd author Full last name 2nd author, and Full First name 3rd author Full last name 3rd author. YEAR. Title of the article. Journal/Book Title Volume(Issue), pg-pg.
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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. https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v20i3.2021
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