Egyptian Secular Feminism After the Egyptian Revolution of 2011: An Analysis of Transformation of the Patriarchal Bargain Between Egyptian Secular Female Feminists and Political Leaderships

Abstract: The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 opened up the public space for Egyptian women from very different backgrounds. However, although women played a decisive role in revolutionary events, this did not result in the abolishment of the patriarchal bargain between Egyptian secular-oriented female feminists and the state in post-Mubarak Egypt. Even though certain conditions caused the suspension of the patriarchal bargain regulating relationships between Egyptian secular-oriented female feminists and the state during the Muslim Brotherhood regime, these conditions did not indicate the entire cancellation of the bargain. The patriarchal bargain between Egyptian secular feminists and the political leadership has been reestablished during the presidential rule of El-Sisi. This study aims at explaining how and why Egyptian secular-oriented feminist women’s coping mechanisms and the strategies in dealing with successive political leaderships, the Muslim Brotherhood regime in power from 2012-2013 and the El-Sisi regime during the presidential term between June 2014 June and June 2015 differed from each other. Based on my interviews which were conducted with the activists, domestic and international legal instruments, secondary sources including UN human rights reports and NGO reports, as well as scholarly articles and media reports, I found out that the majority of secular women activists’ strict ideological differentiation with the Muslim Brotherhood regime emanating from gender-discriminatory policies of the Brotherhood led them to suspend the patriarchal bargain with the state. Furthermore, I also demonstrated that activist women’s disdain of the Brotherhood along with their support for new progressive laws on the protection of women's rights in the Egyptian’s Constitution of 2014 have made them support El-Sisi’s military rule with some reservations even though the recent regulations of El-Sisi’s leadership have allowed the state to restrict NGOs’ activities and freedom of association.