A post-colonial approach demonstrates value in considering gender and revolution, as women’s privileges are identified with the bigger monetary and political configuration of power. Post-colonial scholars, like Abu-Lughod, emphasize how political moments are significantly portrayed by a distraction with sexual orientation roles. In the post-colonial world, ideas regarding 'authentic women' are imperative and women become incredible symbols for the countries. This is particularly applicable in revolution times when national identity is challenged and women become the markers of culture (Abu-Lughod, 1998, pp.4-8). In connection with this examination, the utilization of the post-colonial connection between the West and Egypt is more to do with how women in Egypt got integral to the cultural demarcation against the West. The revolution and its results show a national undertaking through which Egyptians are reevaluating themselves and challenging their national personality; post-colonial impacts play a central role as a woman participates in the battle to reclassify or assert their identity. In consideration, Fatima Sadiqi, in her book 'Women’s Movements in the Post- 'Arab Spring' North Africa', claims: “The relation between women and revolution was not spontaneous or momentary. If women’s presence in the mass protests during January and February 2011 took many people by surprise, it was because they had been prejudiced to women’s central role in defining the regime in the years prior to the revolution” (Sadiqi, 2016, p.65). This demonstrates women’s role in alternative stories and talks straightforwardly challenged through activities that may have appeared to be political even to the women themselves.
In the social and political sphere, the dynamics of power and gender frequently intersect to demarcate reasonable behaviors for women and men. States and military regimes authorize and abuse norms to declare and certify their own authority. In a patriarchal framework, the familiar relationship between men and women assesses their status in society. For instance, a woman is characterized as a mother or 'whore', while men are patriarchs and defenders, or criminals in general. Outside the boundaries of patriarchal affiliation, “any woman can be a whore, any man, a terrorist” (Moruzzi). This demonstrates that women in Arab countries are only classified to be a whore or a mother; her job is to sit in the house taking care of the children. She can be uninvolved in any other activities, or any political issues.
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Protestors who set out to demand equity and change and thereby threaten the regimes are distinguished and exhibited as being outside the limits of patriarchal norms and the state order. In this manner, risk being labeled criminals. “In the binary context of a whore vs. mother, women protestors are named prostitutes, and fittingly punished and distinguished as meriting assaults. One woman was being assaulted by a group of thugs in Tahrir Square even utilized this familiar association and figured out how to transform one of her aggressors into her defender by allowing him know 'I am a mother' and that he is a 'brave man' who can defend her” (Tharroub, 2016). In this framework, the state utilizes the familial situation of men and women to condemn individuals who restrict the regime. Looking at 'Unreported World 2012 Egypt Sex Mobs and Revolution', the video shows that in Egypt, mass rapes of women that occurred in Tahrir Square were orchestrated by thugs who were procured and paid by the regime to threaten female protestors. This demonstrates Arab women experienced violence in their lifetime. They faced harassment, terrorizing, and detainment for their endeavors, and their struggle is still continuing. In addition, these sorts of assaults can be traced back to the Mubarak regime since 2005, when male protestors were bothered and assaulted, while female protestors were harassed and attacked by a group of thugs. After Mubarak was expelled, the Egyptian state security system continued the attack on protestors, including assaulting women. These practices are maintained to have continued by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Sisi regime, as they have been reported for utilizing sexual brutality as a political instrument to propel their agenda and exert pressure, dread, and control. This shows that for a quite long-time women had been dynamic individuals in political resistance groups and increasingly casual systems and associations that were all instrumental in the ongoing political improvements. Furthermore, the issue represents not only the lack of limited representation of women in crucial transnational bodies, such as the constitutional review committee but, perhaps more significantly, we see women’s rights being actively violated and women’s and gender-based issues sidelined, occasionally even ridiculed, sometimes by women themselves.
When the Egyptian military attacked and beat the lady recognized as 'the girl lady in the blue bra', the state media made stories of corruption to ruin the fights. The woman in the blue bra was portrayed as 'wearing a bikini and not a bra' and accused of wearing the abaya with nothing underneath, and for wearing an abaya with snaps rather than buttons. The armed representative, Major General Adel Emara, described the protestors as thugs and medication addicts and asserted that female protestors were explicitly promiscuous, painting the protesters as immoral and in this way not meriting appreciation and protection (Tharroub, 2016). A military general (accepted to be present Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi) legitimized the act of 'virginity tests' under the spread that female protestors are 'prostitutes', and these tests are important to shield the military from allegations of assault, guaranteeing that the women who were confined “were not your little girls or mine”, however, “stayed outdoors in tents with male protestors” (Pratt Nicola, 2015). This illustrates that in political conflicts women’s bodies become sites of social control and power. State control and military viciousness converge with man-centric standards to dictate, control and demarcate women’s existence just as their privileges and opportunities. After all, women are half of the society indicating the size of discontent within the regime. These patriarchal definitions present dangers for women’s investment in protest and power them to pull back from political commitment after the protests.
References
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