Words of Women from the Egyptian Revolution


Although not directly related to the theme of this weblog I felt it was important to dedicate a note to the Words of Women from the Egyptian Revolution project which sheds light on, and documents the participation of women in the Egyptian revolution. Although the Egyptian middle class is over-represented in the women interviewed, the sheer diversity of outlooks, lifestyles and pathways to taking part in the protests and the movement that surrounds them reveals the complexity of the social dynamics in Egypt today. And, more importantly, the voices of the women interviewed are voices of determination, courage, steadfastness and resilience, yet, at the same time, they are voices of ordinary people, simple, devoid of bravado and pretense. This is a worthy project that explores the encounter of the mundane and the trivial with the heroic, that injects the experiences of ordinary women in a male-dominated collective memory. And although  the enunciators are women, their testimonies capture the plebeian, vernacular character of the protests that shook Egypt and whose ripples reached other Arab societies and even neighbouring Israel regardless the gender of the participants.

Each short video is effectively a "profile" of each woman: her life/work before the revolution, her participation in the revolution and where she and her work stand today. The project as a whole, as well as its individual components provides a valuable insight to the experiences of women from diverse backgrounds and constitutes a rare resource for those interested in the recent and ongoing protests in the Arab world and, of course, the participation of women in them.


 All videos are in Arabic with English and Spanish subtitles (if one clicks the subtitle button). 



  follow the project watch the videos 

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