CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Pech-Garrigou, Joanne Laura |
|---|---|
| Title | Cyber-Space as a Space of Resistance: Anti-Sexual Harassment Campaigns and Women's Use of Social Media in Post-revolutionary Egypt |
| Summary | The Egyptian Revolution, described by western media as a ‘Facebook Revolution’, has been widely discussed and wrote about. At first it was perceived as something positive, Egyptian people all together asking for justice and freedom. The use of social media during the 2011 Revolution has been exaggerated and described in a utopian way. But then, when mob assaults and sexual aggressions started against women, discourses radically changed. The ‘Facebook Revolution’ was suddenly regarded as shameful and Egyptian men came to be seen as sexual predators. My aim is to show what has been silenced by both scholars and mainstream media regarding what happened as a consequence of those events and implying a different use of social media by Egyptians. In the last semester of 2012, almost two years after the first protests, various initiatives were undertaken by young revolutionaries as a response to this mob assaults. Young activists started to launch new on-line campaigns denouncing violence against women in public spaces, with a focus on sexual harassment. By using social media in an original way, they helped women to break taboos and started to challenge gender roles and the place given to women in the society. By asking: How women and organizations use social media and cyber-activism in order to fight sexual harassment and also challenge gender norms and patriarchal discourses? I will argue that the use of social media in the new on-line campaigns gave new opportunities for women to challenge gender norms and criticize patriarchy and the state in Egypt, without openly disrupting gender roles, even if it also put serious limits on how women can interfere in the public sphere and occupy public spaces. |
| Supervisor | Helms, Elissa |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/pech-garrigou_joanne.pdf |
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