Gender, Repression and Mobilization: Muslim Sisters and the Anti-Coup Movement

• In Event: Legitimacy, Repression and Mobilization

Abstract

While the effects of repression on the quantities of protest are often indeterminate, its impact on other qualities of contentious politics remain understudied. This paper examines the effects of repression on the gendered dynamics of Islamist mobilization in Egypt following the 2013 coup that ousted president Muhammad Mursi. Drawing on interviews and event data, the paper charts how Muslim Sisters came to play a prominent role in street-level activism, as the male-led anti-coup movement struggled to sustain a protest presence in the face of state violence. Repression, we show, temporarily reconstituted gender relations in an otherwise highly patriarchal social movement, with Muslim Sisters organizing autonomously and in coordination with their male counterparts. As a result of their protest participation, Sisters reported experiencing calibrated sexual violence by Egyptian security forces, as well as other social penalties. This suggests that while repression can create short-term opportunities for greater female participation in social movements, this can come at a considerable personal cost.

Authors

• Sarah ElMasry, The American University in Cairo

• Neil Ketchley, King's College London