How does civil conflict influence gender equality? A case study of the Egyptian Revolution 2011–2013

ABSTRACT

Analyzing the changes to gender equality in the wake of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, this manuscript evaluates whether civil conflict creates new openings for women’s empowerment. Recently, the literature has considered civil conflict a potentially powerful, transformative force in women’s social and political inclusion. Given Egypt’s comparatively low performance in gender equality achievements and policies, the 2011 Revolution creates a critical opportunity to evaluate the transformative power of conflict. The analysis shows that the Egyptian revolution was transformative of legislation on behalf of women’s physical security; women saw gains emerge in this area of legislation from processes connected to the revolution. Pre and post-test, qualitative and quantitative evidence suggest that the key mechanism through which such transformation occurred was the strengthening of the local women’s movement. This is demonstrated through a critical analysis of the various mechanisms of change highlighted in the growing literature on conflict and gender equality. However, the analysis also reveals that the lack of women’s formal representation and the seizure of power by Islamic forces contributed to setbacks that inhibited further-reaching change during the transition.

KEYWORDS:

• Conflict
• gender equality
• women’s movements
• Egypt

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Prof. Amy C. Alexander (Ph.D.) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg and a Research Fellow with the Quality of Government Institute. She received her doctorate in 2011 at the University of California, Irvine where she was a Jack and Suzanne Peltason Fellow of the Center for the Study of Democracy. Her research focuses on the sources of women’s political empowerment and its effects on political representation, social values, democratization and governance across the globe. She has published on these and related topics in several peer-reviewed journals including Comparative Politics, the European Sociological Review, Politics and Gender and the International Review of Sociology.

Rebecca Apell completed her Bachelor's degree in Political Science and Law at Georg August University Göttingen in 2014. She is currently preparing to take her State examination in law. Since 2013 she has been working as a student assistant at the Institute of International and European Law at the University of Göttingen.

Notes

1. The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which entered into force in 1981, has now been ratified by 188 countries (United Nations 2014). The UN Millenium Development Goals, developed from the Millenium Declaration from 2000, state as third goal to ‘promote gender equality and empower women’ (United Nations 2008).

2. Territorial disputes such as secession wars are constituted by opposing views about the status of territory. In governmental conflicts, the clash of opposing positions unfurls along the lines of different political systems or governments (Gleditsch et al. 2002, p. 619).

3. Region and religion as cultural proxies, as have been used in previous studies to measure culture and ideology, are not useful to measure gender ideology in this case study, since only one country is studied over a very short period of time. Its region cannot change at all and its predominant religion is highly unlikely to change within a period of two years.

4. The IHDI value rose only slightly between 2010 and 2012 from 0.449 to 0.503 (UNDP 2010, 2013). In 2010, 24.1% of the labor force were made up of women. In 2012, this share had only risen by 0.1%. In 2010, 48.1% of women had a secondary education; in 2012, this share had only increased marginally to 48.5%.

5. When asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement ‘when jobs are scarce, men should have more right to a job than women’, 89 % of the respondents of the 2008 survey agreed. When asked again in 2012, 83.4 % of the interviewed individuals agreed (WVS 2008, 2012). Another question of the WVS asks whether ‘men make better political leaders than women do’. In 2008, 92.3 % of the interviewed individuals agreed or strongly agreed. In 2012, this rate remained high at 86.4 %; however, a far bigger share of people now only agreed, instead of agreeing strongly.

6. During the2011 uprising which overthrew Hosni Mubarak, 841 civilians were killed by security forces (El Deeb 2012). In the protests after President Morsi had been ousted in July 2013, at least 900 pro-Morsi demonstrators were killed in harsh army crack-downs. (Hauslohner and al-Hourani 2013). The conflict, counted from 2011 until 2013, therefore has a death toll of at least 1000 battle-related deaths, but fewer than 1000 in one year.