‘The Women of Egypt are a Red Line’: Anger and Women’s Collective Action (Pre-Recorded)

• In Event: States, Feminism and Advocacy

Abstract

In this paper, I provide preliminary answers to two main questions: How did women’s public display of anger challenge the army’s gendered moral accountability structure during the 2011 Egyptian uprising? And what was the role of anger in mobilizing and sustaining women’s activism following the uprising? Ancient and modern philosophers have traditionally viewed anger as a contentious force that is normatively wrong. Debates surrounding women’s anger in politics have often reproduced this view of anger as antithesis to critical thinking and used the ‘angry feminist’ label in derogatory connotation to discredit activists and their demands. Feminist theorists, however, reframe anger as a legitimate response against injustice and a tool to expose oppressive structures. I build upon and expand debates surrounding the significance of anger in politics broadly and in women’s movements more specifically and put froward a nuanced reading of this complex emotional response. I trace Egyptian female protestors’ expression and display of anger during the women’s march in response to the army’s beating and dragging of female protestors. The analysis highlights the productive element of anger and its function in mobilizing immediate collective action and encouraging future change. The data for this study draw upon semi-structured interviews with female protestors and leaders of women’s rights groups in Egypt. My overarching argument is that protestors’ expression of anger over the army’s transgression succussed in securing recognition for the victim, created moral outrage against the army, and brough attention to women’s bodily rights. Unlike philosopher Martha Nussbaum’s view of anger as unproductive, I argue, in line with Amia Srinivasan (2018), that anger can be apt in politics. Anger does not merely serve to carry out revenge but also to secure recognition (Srinivasan 2018). This recognition is important to achieve what Nussbaum (2016) terms “Transition-Anger.” Nussbaum conceptualizes Transition-Anger, as a forward-looking emotion that abandons the obsession over status and retribution and rather focuses from the start on the broader welfare. Transition-Anger, I however hold, is not a starting point, it is an end goal, and in the case of the women’s march in Egypt, it was the cumulative result of the anger displayed and expressed by activists against the army’s violence. I view anger as exiting on a stratum with Transition-Anger as the ultimate and most productive form of it. I argue that women later channeled their expression of anger over the army’s violence into different initiatives and campaigns thus embodying a form of Transition-Anger. The analysis underscores how anger cannot be reduced to a fleeting response or a melancholic mood. Anger affects our existing moral emotions and future affective commitments. It contributes to producing mobilizations, provides goals for movements, and make certain forms of reform and change possible.

Author

• Nermin Allam, Rutgers University