Women’s Unveiling in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising: Political Opportunities and Modesty Politics

Abstract

Using the case of women’s unveiling during the 2011 Egyptian uprising, I investigate how momentous political events have transformative impacts beyond the overtly “political” sphere of policies and institutions. I trace the choice to unveil among some women protesters to their involvement in collective action and show the different mechanisms that led to their decision. Specifically, I identify three pathways to unveiling: shifts in political opportunities, innovations in the repertoires of contention and the framing of unveiling, and exposure to new mobilizing structures and networks. The data for this project build upon original field research and interview data with women who removed their hijab during the 2011 Egyptian uprising. The article adds to the literature on gender and contentious politics by demonstrating the gendered effects of political opportunity structures on women’s choices around veiling.

The afterlife goes on: The biographical consequences of women's engagement in the 2011 Egyptian uprising

“…In the period following the uprising, an increasing number of female protestors began taking off their hijab (see Allam, in press). While there is no official count of the number of women who removed their veil, the phenomenon has been increasingly covered, debated, and discussed in media and popular accounts (Farid, 2015; Haughty about the Hijab, 2015; Zaineldine, 2020).…”