Women in post-revolutionary Egypt: Can Behaviour Be Controlled? (Political and Social Change)
by Sherif Awad
The Arab Spring and the two Egyptian revolutions are still
the focal points of many specialists and scholars around the whole world given
the changes these uprisings have made on the social and political levels across
the Middle East region. Among the up and coming authors who realized studies on
that topic was Mette Toft Nielsen, who succeeded to author a new book entitled Women
in post-revolutionary Egypt: Can Behaviour Be Controlled? (Political and Social
Change) while finalizing her master’s degree. Born in Sri Lanka and adopted
at a young age by a Danish family, Mette studied Culture, Communication and
Globalization at Aalborg University. she developed an interest in the Egypt once
the Arab Spring started in 2011, which drove her to decide to come intown for her
research that lasted over six months. Peter Hervik, who is the supervisor on
Mette’s master degree, is credited as a co-author of the book. He is
anthropologist, Professor in Migration studies at the Department of Culture and
Global Studies, at Aalborg University, Denmark.
“My first university thesis focused on the reasons behind immigration
of Egyptians” explained Mette who interviewed several Egyptian young men and
women for it. Among the discoveries of this first research, Mette noticed that there
are many young Egyptian women who tend to have more choices than those provided
by old fashioned social customs especially if these young women are living in
villages across the countryside. Consequently, Mette was curious to start
another study focusing on these Egyptian women living far from the big cities
since many studies that were made by western organizations in the aftermath of
both the 2011 and 2013 revolutions that only focused on Egyptian women living
in major Egyptian cities like Cairo and Alexandria. “Hence the idea of my first
book was born”, explains Mette who wanted to put the stories and aspirations of
these young Egyptian women in a recorded and written forms. “Most of the
interviews were done in Arabic with the help of an Egyptian translator”
It took Mette six months of travels across Egypt because she
wanted to make her interviews as broad as possible. “From logistic point, Egypt
was the prominent destination because there are direct flights from Copenhagen
to Cairo where I also got from Danish-Egyptian Dialogue Institute”, she says. Once
arriving in Cairo during 2012, Mette started to meet Egyptian women from
different age groups and education living in Cairo and Alexandria, Nuweiba and
Sinai in the east then Assiut and Minya in the south of Egypt. “I collaborated
with several local NGO in Cairo and Alexandria to bring young women from these
two cities along with me during my travel across Egypt as assistants in
interviews and translations”, says Mette who noticed that many of them did not
travel across east or west of Egypt before. “Of course, depending on education,
family and surroundings, the characters of Egyptian woman differ from one
location to the other”, notices Matte. “However, one should see that the two
revolutions have impacted many Egyptian young women on how they can see their
future and make their own life decisions through continuous open discussion
with their parents. The two revolutions made Egyptian women believe that they
can realized their dreams. This is reflected in the first part of the book
where each one of them tells her story in her own words”.
The book is divided into three parts. The first examines the
perspective of Egyptian women with respect to the revolution, the political
environment in their country, and the many changes it has witnessed in recent
years. The second part is about the daily life of women, the issues they face,
what are the things they’re proud of and what are the things they value. The
third and final part is about the women’s hopes and ambitions for the future. It
shows how Egyptian women with different backgrounds have not only aspirations
of a better tomorrow but also personal visions on the ways of achieving it
through development and collectiveness. While it is published in English and
can be purchased online in soft format or hard copy, the book is still looking
for a publishing house that could issue its Arabic translation which would
generate many discussions.