Sexual Harassment in Egypt: An Old Plague in a New Revolutionary Order

Abstract

The article aims at analyzing sexual harassment in Egypt in changing sociopolitical contexts at various times; I argue that no analysis of the Egyptian revolution is complete without an understanding of these broad sociopolitical conditions that have contributed to the culture of anti-women and sexual violence since the 19th century. I am not suggesting that sexual harassment always took the same form and was practiced with the same level of violence, or even rooted in the same reason(s) throughout that long period of history. Based on archival research, personal observations and intensive interviews with activists I show how sexual harassment increased in violence caused by the state’s heavy-handed security and neoliberal policies.