Women and the Egyptian Revolution

Nermin Allam is the Social Science and Humanities Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Politics at Princeton University, New Jersey. She holds a D.Phil. in Comparative Politics and International Relations from the University of Alberta, Canada.

'Going against the grain, Nermin Allam's study of the 2011 revolution/uprising resists the dominant theoretical urge to construct it as an unfolding narrative of failure. Instead, she engages her readers in an original discussion of gender as part of contentious politics shaped by national and international media contexts and constructions as well as collective action frames that add theoretical and conceptual insights to the field of Middle East political science. With a large number of interviews of female activists, NGO leaders, state officials and and public figures, this study provides a new threshold for the discussion of gender and the opportunity structures of social movements and conventional politics. One of its most important findings is that the uprising expanded political opportunities for women to participate as citizens, but not to voice and serve their gender specific demands. This challenges one of the key assumption that activist women have about how political engagement serves their gender interests. Another equally important finding concerns the political implications of disappointment, self reflexivity and hope as complex political emotions that outline new venues for post uprising politics and activism.' Mervat F. Hatem, Howard University, Washington, DC

• Introduction: a dramaturgy of women, Egypt, and the 2011 Egyptian uprising; 1. Women and Egypt's national struggles; 2. Activism and exception: media and the framing of women's engagement in the 2011 Egyptian uprising; 3. Trenching dissent: women's collective action frame in the uprising; 4. An epicentre of solidarity: women's recollections of the 18-day uprising; 5. 'Ento Beto' Sūzān ('You are Suzanne's Clique'): gender and political opportunities; 6. What holds next? The politics of hope and disappointment.