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Jointly redefining honor and shame: Personal and political bloggers discuss sexual harassment in the post-Mubarak Egyptian virtual sphere
Abstract by Susana Galan On Session 283  (Acts of Women)

On Sunday, October 13 at 1:30 pm

2013 Annual Meeting

Abstract
“It is not the hymen that determines honor,” blogs Egyptian activist Ahmed Awadalla, “[but] honesty, integrity and trust.” The revelation in March 2011 that female protesters had been submitted to 'virginity checks' by the army in the aftermath of the Egyptian uprisings sparked an outcry in the blogosphere, opening an online debate among personal and political bloggers about women's bodies and sexuality. Following this incident, and in response to the succeeding episodes of sexualized violence by the military police, the proliferation of sexual assaults in the vicinities of Tahrir Square by thugs and the escalation of sexual harassment on the streets during the two volatile years of the post-Mubarak era, male and female bloggers have been contesting the state's calculated effort to discourage the protests through the shaming of women by concertedly dismantling and reinterpreting the (patriarchal) foundations of the Egyptian society. The collaborative discussion between political –usually male– and personal –usually female– bloggers is not new in the Egyptian virtual sphere. In 2006, a group of activists denounced in their blogs the wave of sexual harassment that took place in downtown Cairo during the festivities at the end of Ramadan, contradicting with footage of the attacks the official denial of the facts and launching a public debate around this phenomenon in cyberspace and independent media. Traditionally considered a 'women's issue' and relegated to the anonymity of personal blogs, sexual harassment was repositioned at the center of the political arena, becoming a shared social concern for male and female netizens and ultimately leading to the organization of several initiatives of online and offline activism. Through social network analysis (SNA) and qualitative content analysis of selected blogs, I illustrate how –originally disconnected– clusters of personal and political blogs converged through the condemnation of the 2006 sexual harassment attacks, bridging networks of dialogue and action and establishing ties that became strengthened through reiterated reciprocal interaction. I contend that, in the wake of the 2011 Egyptian uprisings, these links played an important role for the dissemination of information and the mobilization of protesters outside of the traditional activist circles. Following the backlash of the revolutionary process, bloggers are now using these spaces to denounce the exertion of sexualized violence as an instrument of state terror, collectively imagining an Egypt free from the patriarchal authority of the army in which the success of the revolution becomes conditional on women's sovereignty over their bodies.
Discipline
Journalism
Geographic Area
Egypt
Sub Area
None