In the weeks following the Egyptian revolution of 2011, a group of divorced fathersrose to demand a “revolution in family law.” Portraying extant family law provisions assymbolic of the old regime and as deviating from the principles of shariʿa, their call was givenprominent media attention and, in the ensuing transitional period (2011 to 2013), women’srights and family law emerged as contentious areas in Egypt.By comparing public debates on family law reform in the decade preceding the 2011revolution to the two years following it, we argue that Egypt’s “revolution in family law”actually started a decade earlier, in 2000, when Egyptian women’s new right to divorceunilaterally rocked the country.1 This set in motion other legal reforms that challengedfundamental aspects of male authority in the family and slowly led to the emergence ofinnovative conceptions of motherhood and fatherhood.
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