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Gendered Politics of Alienation and Power Restoration:
Arab Revolutions and Women’s Sentiments of Loss and Despair
Afaf Jabiri
Abstract
From the start of the Arab revolutions in late 2010 a connection between the law, state,
political economy, gender norms and orientalist ideology has formed the foundation of
women’s systematic exclusion from politics. This article offers a gendered political
reading of the concept of alienation by unmasking the processes that created the
ideological and material conditions of externalising women’s revolutionary acts,
estranging their political involvement and exposing them to various forms of violence.
The article suggests that gender normative ideology’s characterisation of women’s
images, roles and acts during and after revolutions corresponds to the most profound
form of alienation. The article proposes that the externalisation, subjugating of women
and objectification of their revolutionary acts are modes of alienation are necessary
conditions for the reconfiguration of power dynamics to restore authoritarian states’
power. The sphere of politics, the article insinuates, not only relates to political activism
and conflict between revolutions and counter-revolutions, it is also a battlefield for the
(re)production of gender normative knowledge.
Key words: Gender normativity; regime restoration; revolution; alienation; women;
activism
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Introduction
Despite changes over the last few decades in the Arab region concerning women’s
rights and political participation, to varying degrees from one country to another, the
states’ governing principle values men over women. This principle can be clearly seen
in women’s legal status. For example, guardianship provisions give male relatives
authority over women: male relatives have the right to determine women’s choice of
study, marriage, mobility, and so on (Jabiri, 2016 & 2013). Furthermore, citizenship
laws often treat women as secondary citizens, as such laws not only prevent women
from passing their nationality to their husbands and children, but also construct women
as subordinate subjects (Joseph, 2000). This is in addition to a whole set of decency
laws, modesty laws and customary practices that attribute honour and public morality
to women’s acts and behaviours, policing women in both the public and private spheres
(Jabiri, 2016; Hélie, 2012; Hoodfar and Ghoreishian, 2012).
There are extensive examinations of the processes of perpetuating women’s
subordinate position in relation to culture, religion, nationalist movements, and the
state’s alliance with tribes and other conservative groups (See: Al-Rasheed. 2013;
Charrad, 2000 & 2001; Joseph, 2000; Kandiyoti, 1991, 1992, 2001; Hatem, 1995). Less
consideration has been paid to how the state and its apparatuses mediate the realisation
of women, as a category, through the production of gender normative ideology – where
women are depicted as minor subjects and, ironically, also symbolise public modesty
and honour!(Hélie, 2012; Hoodfar and Ghoreishian, 2012) – as well as the extent to
which these processes have aimed and contributed to estranging women from politics.
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Whilst women’s historical role in politics and revolution in the region cannot be denied,
their limited gains – whether in terms of low representation or restricted rights – raises
questions around the efficacy of gendered political processes in pushing women away
from politics. I engage with this question through examining the concept of women’s
alienation and estrangement from their political roles in the Arab revolutions. I look at
how political processes and forces are gendered, and how alienation is used in the
reshaping and reproduction of the social norms that govern women’s lives and activities
during and beyond revolution.
Feminist scholarship has examined the post-revolution processes and shifts that
exposed women to various forms of violence and the marginalisation of their agendas
(El-Mahdi, 2012; Al-Ali, 2012 & 2014; Kandyioti 2011, 2012 & 2013; Johansson-
Nogués, 2013; Amar, 2012), I, however, take a relatively neglected point of departure,
especially vis-à-vis the estrangement of women from politics for the purpose of
restoring power by examining processes of alienating women through the
objectification of women’s acts and contribution to revolution-making, and strategies
of state and its counter revolution’s allies to galvanise the public and reproduce gender
normativity. I particularly take the case of Egypt to examine processes of excluding
women political activists through three modes of alienation. This includes the
externalisation, subjugation, and objectification of women’s revolutionary acts-that
moulded women’s power and needs as distinctly different from those of men, justified
and legitimised, different forms of violence against women.
The three modes of alienation developed, refined and adapted from Karl Marx theory
of alienation, for the purpose of scrutinising the ways in which gender norms and
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relations were key to constituting women’s basic relationship with the revolution, along
with the unique conditions under which the alienation of women from politics intend
to restore old power hierarchies and structures. Examining Egyptian women activists'
estrangement from politics through the concept of alienation contributes into the
politicisation of the construction and reproduction of gender norms and locating
violence against women activists within political practices of restoring power. So
rather than examining cultural and social processes that construct gender normativity,
I, by relating to Marx theory of alienation, bring new accounts of how the sphere of
politics not only relates to conflict between revolutions and counter-revolutions, it is
also a battlefield for the (re)production of gendered knowledge. By this, I aim to show
that gender norms and relations are not only shaped by politics but also somehow
constitute a crucial part of the region’s politics and order.
This article is based on and heavily influenced by my own activism in the Arab region,
particularly over the last four years, when I worked closely with women’s activists in
Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Jordan. Over that time, I participated in several conferences
and workshops in the region, which included, three workshops and trainings for
Egyptian women’s rights activists; and two regional trainings held in Tunisia and Egypt
in cooperation with the Centre for Arab Women Training and Research (CAWTR). In
addition, I participated in several regional meetings on women in post-revolution
societies. In March 2015, I led the Arab Women’s Network’s (Roa’a) delegation –
composed of activists from Jordan, Bahrain, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Palestine, and
Syria – to the United Nations’ 59
th
Session of the Commission on the Status of Women
(CSW).
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Alienation,*Politics*and*the*Reproduction*of*Gender*Norms****
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In Marx’s conceptualisation, alienation is the process of workers’ objectification within
the production process, where the ‘object which labour produces stands in opposition
to the worker as an alien thing’ (Marx, 1967: 58-59). In the capitalist system, alienation
is about disconnecting workers from power politics: the system treats the worker as a
thing, turning him/her into a commodity, a valueless self, to the extent that ‘the more
objects the worker produces the less he can possess and the more he falls under
domination’ (Ibid.: 78).
For Marx, alienation is insidious and dangerous because it makes ‘all of this appear
normal and even natural’ (Kain, 1993: 124). Alienation of the worker from his/her
product and production activity, which in turn alienates him/her from his/her human
nature, may not appear to him/her as a form oppression or domination. In this sense,
the oppressor is unlikely to be identified, as no one observes that alienation is the
product of a particular form of power relations and human interactions. Hence, Marx
uses the concept of alienation to disrupt the normalised relationships within labour
production process (Ibid.).
Socialist and Marxist feminists have adapted and developed the normalised relation
between the oppressed and the oppressor in Marx’s theory of alienation (Klotz, 2006;
Foreman, 1977; MacKinnon, 1989 & 1982; Jaggar, 1982; Kain, 1993). Socialist
feminists, such as Anna Foreman (1977), have tried to unmask the question of women’s
oppression by positing femininity, in and of itself, as a form alienation. Hence, the
realisation of women’s selfhood is a mode of alienation that results in women’s
agreement with their modes of objectification (Ibid). Marxist feminists, on the other