Why Women are Losing Rights in Post- Revolutionary Egypt
2012; Bridgewater State University; Volume: 13; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1539-8706
Autores Tópico(s)Gender and Women's Rights
ResumoAbstract A backlash against women's rights emerged in post-revolutionary Egypt. This paper argues that one of the reasons is the fact that former President Mubarak, his wife and son were the key decision makers when it came to women's rights. These decisions were reflected in the media so that women's rights came to be associated with government policy personalized around the first lady. The paper demonstrates that the backlash did not emerge suddenly after Mubarak was ousted from power, but that dissent against Mubaraks' decisions pertaining to women was prevalent in the media long before the 25 of January revolution. The paper builds on a number of theories. One of them is whether the notion of personal authoritarianism was applicable to the former President's wife and son and not just to the President himself. It also takes a new dement into consideration: the media, and will analyze the drawbacks of women's rights as addressed by an authoritarian regime. Keywords: women's rights and authoritarianism; media treatment of women's rights; backlash against women's rights Introduction Even though Egyptian women actively participated in the 25th of January revolution, they did not gain more rights in post- revolutionary Egypt. On the contrary, a backlash against women's rights emerged in the form of attempts and/or concrete steps to repeal the laws pertaining to women that were introduced or amended by the Mubarak regime. This paper aims to explain why this backlash took place by arguing that one of the main reasons is the identity of the key decision makers concerning women' rights under the Mubarak regime, couple with media treatment of these decision, and the role played by those behind the scenes. The first section of the paper identifies the key decision makers, the second analyzes media treatment of their role in these decisions, and the third section demonstrates that societal dissent against women's rights was prevalent during Mubarak's reign, but only after he was ousted from power it culminated into an outright backlash against women's rights. The paper builds on a number of theories. One is Maye Kassem's (2004) argument that the former Egyptian regime was personal authoritarian, whereby all branches of government are loyal to the President. This paper tests whether the theory is also applicable to the former first lady and Gamal Mubarak, the former President's younger son, and not just the former President. In addition, it builds on the drawbacks of an authoritarian regime addressing women's rights identified by Emma Murphy (2003). Murphy examines the impact of an authoritarian government's approach to women's rights not only society's perception of women and their rights, but also on media treatment of women's rights. This paper states that the former Egyptian regime created a similar organization called the National Council for Women (NCW). Both Murphy and Melinda Adams (2007) identify some of the problems of having a women's organization created by an authoritarian regime, but they did not look into whether or not they identity of the person who heads the organization and the level of popularity of the authoritarian regime in power can have an impact on media treatment of women's rights. The paper will build on their findings by looking into this issue. Background Information This section will provide a brief overview and some background information about the Mubarak regime engaging in various legal changes and other measures pertaining to women's rights. In 2000, a new law that granted women unprecedented divorce rights was introduced. By virtue of this law called khula, a woman can obtain swift, unilateral and irrevocable divorce, provided that she return her dowry and relinquish all of her financial fights. Khula is an Arabic term that means remove or get rid of. Its usage in this context connotes that a woman can easily get rid of her husband, and this term was rather offensive to Egyptian men. …
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