Digital Commons Network^™

Crafting Lives: Experiences Of Ethiopian Refugees In Cairo, Nayrose S. Abd El-Megid

Theses and Dissertations

There has been an ongoing influx of refugees for years driven by political instability, famine, and prolonged conflicts in the region, leading many individuals to seek sanctuary in other countries. Egypt has become a host country for many years, whether for settlement or transit, for various populations from different nationalities hoping to find refuge. However, amidst this influx, Ethiopian refugees often find themselves overlooked or usually associated on the sidelines with other African nationalities; their stories and struggles are marginalized in broader narratives of displacement. The experience of Ethiopians is heterogeneous and multidimensional in terms of their intersectional identities of …

International Human Rights Through Queer Theory: A Discursive Analysis Of The Russian, Lithuanian, And Kyrgyz Lgbtq+ Lived Experience Within The Global Paradigm, Mariem Youssef

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis attempts to shed light on the subordination of international human rights law to that of the paradigm of international relations through asserting the existence of US Empire i.e., that emulates historical empires, British and French, which aims to emancipate subjugated minorities, formerly women and presently LGBTQ+ individuals from their national oppressive regimes. This is achieved through a discussion of pervious literature that discusses queer theory with a special focus on Russia, Lithuania, and Kyrgyzstan as the main case studies. While the overt intentionality of the “empire” is to protect LGBTQ+ individuals through perpetuating the prototype of the “International …

Embodying Abortion: Approaches To Sexual And Reproductive Experiences Of The Cairene Youth., Ruth Morales Cosano

Theses and Dissertations

Whilst abortion in Egypt has been sorely neglected in academic literature, and highly criminalized by state institutions, women in Egypt have by no means ceased to perform it and, what is more, upon reasons that exceed any institutional or legal reasoning. The thesis stems from the need to give voice and continuity to the experiences of women who abort in Cairo. Given the almost complete lack of material showcasing this reality, this research project investigates the meaning-making process of abortion among Cairo's middle and upper classes. Understanding this construction requires studying abortion in its embeddedness in the material, social, and …

One Space Can Put Her In A Different Place - How Do We Inhabit Spaces Differently?, Farida Youssef

Theses and Dissertations

In Egypt, a male-dominated society, women are forced to constantly negotiate with patriarchal systems. Dichotomies and paradoxes between principles governing different gendered roles, religion and cultural codes and westernization and commercialization have been continuously shaping Egyptian women’s status over the past decades. This is exhibited in public spaces, where women’s current preferences, perceptions and behavior emphasize the dominance of one gender over the other. This research aims for a better understanding of space inhabitance through a gendered lens. It questions the roles the society and the urban spaces play in the daily lives of women through examining women’s perception of …

Women Economic And Social Empowerment In Urban Middle Class Egyptian Households Post 2016 Austerity Measures, Maha El-Kady

Theses and Dissertations

Women empowerment has for long been part of all development agendas as part of the developing economies' social and economic reform plans. However, statistics do not usually reflect much improvement in the status of women’s empowerment, especially under austerity. And while most research focuses on the agony and vulnerability of poorer women, a big gap emerges with regard to middle classes women, who try hard to maintain the status of their households and not fall into poverty.

This research attempts to cover part of this gap by investigating the social and economic empowerment of urban middle classes Egyptian women post-2016 …

Womanist Poetics: Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, And Audre Lorde, Aya Telmissany

Theses and Dissertations

Today, the sentimentality associated with poetry is often condescendingly dubbed in a patriarchal society as “feminine poetry.” The first women poets who dared to attempt the pen were often met with attacks on their femaleness and harsh critiques of their writing which was likened to sorcery and witchcraft. Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, and Audre Lorde are three American women poets who countered these attacks and turned them inside out in favor of their own womanist poetics. They wrote about experiencing the world as women and most importantly about experiencing poetry as women. What happens to poetry when a woman appropriates …

Navigating The Cairene Table: Food And Family Between What Is Ideal And What Is Real, Iman Afify

Theses and Dissertations

Our daily encounters with food, especially during our childhood, play a crucial role in shaping and informing our identity and our habitus. In this research, by using multimodal and auto ethnography, I argue that due to the guiding path that our senses carve for us, we make sense and contextualise our surroundings through our senses, and not only the five senses of vision, smell, taste, hearing, and touch, but also through our inner senses of time and temporality, and how time and memory play an important role in the registration of our surroundings through our bodies and senses. I am …

Framing Of Female Leading Roles In Drama Series On Video Streaming Platforms, Manatalah Soliman

Theses and Dissertations

This comparative study examines the female-centered drama series aired on VOD services from three different genres. While several studies have established the stereotypical representation of women in the drama series, most research has focused on individual countries. The significance of this study relies upon the fact that the series is from VOD services, notably Netflix and Shahid VIP. The study bridges a gap in the literature by adopting a comparative perspective to analyze gender portrayals from six drama series, three from each country, from three genres. The contemporary drama genre included Valeria from Spain and Leh Laa?! Why Not?! from …

Living With And Through Artificially Intelligent Virtual Personal Assistants: Subservience, Simultaneity And Surveillance In Late-Capitalist Cairo, Habiba Ahmed Elsayed

Theses and Dissertations

The global technological field has witnessed a computing shift - from focusing on human-device use to focusing on human-device ambient and social interaction. This shift is notably accompanied by a societal one that increases desire and dependency on everyday smart technologies powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning. One of such growing AI-enabled technologies is the virtual personal assistant (VPA). In this project, I draw on my filed-work with my four interlocuters in Cairo with their respective VPAs, Siri and Alexa. In analyzing my experiences and observations, I focus on three main themes: subservience, simultaneity and surveillance. Examining the role …

The Impact Of Global Crises On Women: The Case Of Covid-19 In Egypt, Nour A. Dokhan

Theses and Dissertations

Any global crisis is expected to affect every human being, but for women it is always twice as hard. In the case of Covid-19, women are more affected across every domain, from social protection to health, simply because if their gender. This research explores the impact of Covid-19 on women, both economically and socially, with the focus on the case of Egypt. It explores the systematic gender inequalities in the economic, social, and health spheres using cases from previous crises, and how this gender inequality and vulnerability has resulted in much worse consequences of Covid-19 than that of men. The …

The Challenges Of Transport And Egyptian Women’S Participation In The Job Market, Radwa Abo Shady

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to explore the effect of transportation on development in general and as a barrier to women’s contribution to the labor market in particular. A survey using a mixed method was filled online by working women in Egypt about their trip and perception about the transport problems. A framework was created to describe the relationship between different factors affecting women’s options. The findings suggested that transport parameters have an impact on the freedom of transport and eventually the final decision to join the labor market. The findings match the literature that transport should be gender-sensitive to empower women …

Egyptian Women’S Agriculture Contribution; Assessment Of The Gender Gap For Sustainable Development, Noha El Khorazaty

Theses and Dissertations

Women’s contribution to the agriculture sector in developing countries is undeniable, yet they do not have equal access to the resources and opportunities they need to be more productive. Sustainable development entails inclusive and effective management of natural resources, this entails gender equity in agriculture. Bridging the gender gap in agriculture far exceeds the benefits of the individual. According to the latest estimates bridging the yield gap in agricultural productivity could possibly decrease the numbers of undernourished people in the world by around 100 – 140 million people. Sustainable agriculture development and gender equity necessitate policy interventions targeting the gender …

Gendered Entrepreneurship Contextualization In Egypt: An Empirical Study On Policies For Women Entrepreneurship Empowerment, Sarah El-Fiky

Theses and Dissertations

The proportion of women entrepreneurs has increased dramatically over the past decade, not just in the developed world but also in developing countries. This led to a significant increase in the governments’ attention towards designing and implementing female-focused policies to allocate adequate resources for empowering women entrepreneurs in Egypt. This paper examines one main question: How does the Egyptian government empower women entrepreneurs through key policy interventions? This is only possible through testing the proposed research hypotheses and investigating Egypt’s publicized policies and governmental interventions. Based on a gender-lens perspective, this research tries to close the gaps in previous research …

Identity Construction Among L2 Writers In An Egyptian University, Duaa Zein Abousaeed

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore how students in an undergraduate language program represent their identities in L2 writing. The study investigates the effects of gender on ways of constructing identities in L2 writing and examines the relationship between overall L2 writing quality, identity features using both qualitative and quantitative research. A convenience sample of two English teaching Egyptian professors and 115 randomly-selected Egyptian male and female students in a public university participate in this study. Interviews with two professors who have different years of teaching experience are administered. The researcher also assigned students a writing task to …

Mustaqillat: Navigating Women's Mobilities In Post-2011 Egypt, Ghadeer Ahmed Eldamaty

Theses and Dissertations

Following the Egyptian revolution of January, the 25th, 2011, the term women's independence, istiqlal ijtma'ay, has been widely used by young Egyptian women. A mustaqilla (independent woman) identifies herself as a woman who is socio-economically independent from her family, lives on her own, and works to support herself. This thesis is concerned with the emergence of independent women, mustaqillat, as a social phenomenon, and questions how the phenomenon of istiqlal is constructed. What are its socio-economic dimensions, and associated meanings? Based on an ethnographic fieldwork with a group of Egyptian women who identify themselves as mustaqillat, this thesis focuses on …

Assessment Of Needs And Barriers To Sex And Gender Education Among Social Workers In Egypt, Germeen Riad

Theses and Dissertations

Despite governmental and legislative efforts (Hassanin, 2008), societal tolerance of sexual and gender-based violence is widespread in Egypt, even among health professionals (Rasheed, 2011). Moreover, there is a lack of understanding and misconceptions regarding human sexuality. Such misconceptions often lead to harmful practices such as female genital mutilation/cutting, childhood marriage, and child sexual abuse (WHO, 2010). Child protection social workers must be equipped to deal with children who have been victims of such practices and must be able to provide the sex education that is necessary for its prevention. A survey of 86 child protection social workers and eleven in-depth …

Experiences Of Egyptian Female Journalists With Workplace Gender Discrimination, Mai Ismail

Theses and Dissertations

There is an upward trend in the employment of women in the media worldwide and in the Middle East. Despite their growing presence, women working in the industry continue to experience discrimination, gendered practices and sexist attitudes at the workplaces. This study examines the experiences of Egyptian women journalists. It employs a qualitative approach, building on in-depth interviews conducted with twenty early- to mid-career Egyptian female journalists. These work in state-run, private and independent news organizations whether in print, broadcast or online media. The analysis shows that the experience of female journalists is linked to various factors pertaining to the …

The "Second Sex" Vs. The Forgotten Sex: Exploring The Missing Masculinity Component And The Involvement Of Men In Gender And Development In Egypt, Heba Wanis

Theses and Dissertations

This research explores the masculinity component of gender and development (GAD) interventions in Egypt. Women's empowerment has been the center of interventions in most developing countries, including Egypt. Men's engagement has been peripheral and limited to certain issues. The objective of this research was to gain insights about missing aspects regarding the involvement of men in developmental interventions, including suggestions for enhancing male engagement in communities. The research employed qualitative research methodology for data collection through focus groups with men in four villages in Assiut, and in-depth interviews with stakeholders of GAD. Analysis and coding of data was carried out …

Men Of Shoubra: Hairdressing, Shades Of Masculinities, And Ghosts Of Sectarianism, Tarek Moustafa Mohmed

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis looks at the intersections of masculinities, religiosity, and Coptic-Muslim cohabitation/ tensions through exploring the everyday lives of Shoubra’s male hairdressers who work exclusively with women. It builds on the fieldwork that I had conducted as an assistant hairdresser for one of Shoubra’s Coptic hairdressers. The thesis argues that the interplay of masculinities and religious identities is strongly embedded in the everydayness of Shoubra as a social space in ways that make them inseparable. This project started as an attempt to look at the masculinities of male hairdressers whose clients are women; however, by time it turned to be …

From Text To Screenplay (Gendering The Nation In Mariam Naoum's Literary Adaptations), May Serhan

Theses and Dissertations

Mariam Naoum's literary adaptations to television in the aftermath of the 2011 Egyptian uprising have carried wide cultural, political and literary implications, especially where the "woman question" is concerned. With Islamism and militarism both threatening to exclude a wide sector of women from the historical narrative of the uprising and the subsequent nation-building process, and with a male-dominated literary establishment that systematically relegates women to secondary roles, Naoum's writing re-affirmed gendered agency both on the level of social engagement and authorship. Chapter one of the thesis provides the theoretical framework and historical backdrop necessary for understanding how female writing can …

The Impact Of A Cartoon Character’S Gender On Egyptian Girls’ Knowledge Of And Intentions Toward Pneumonia Prevention, Farah Hafez El-Shiaty

Theses and Dissertations

Pneumonia kills 11% of children under the age of five in Egypt yearly. Studies suggest that health educational cartoons are effective ways to educate children about healthy practices to prevent diseases. The literature suggests that children tend to learn better from and imitate same-gender models more than opposite-gender models. Healthy Egyptians, a non-governmental organization, developed a health educational cartoon to educate young children on the preventative practices of pneumonia through a boy called Montasser as the main character. It was hypothesized that having a female character as the main character in this cartoon would increase the girls’ knowledge of and …

Power Politics And Sexual Harassment In Downtown Cairo, Cally Walker

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how the meaning and experience of space contributes to our understanding of sexual harassment in downtown Cairo. I argue that we cannot understand relationships on the street without acknowledging the various affective discourses concerning space. Experiences of the everyday social, political and economic affect men and women differently, and constitute visible contextual and temporal sites of tension. I argue that the development-esque term of sexual harassment envelopes a wide range of practices that depend entirely on the moment and context of utterance. According to a 2013 United Nations report on Egypt, 48.9% of women believe that harassment …

The Sisters Of The Muslim Brotherhood: Islamic Activism For Better Or For Worse, Amira Elserafy

Theses and Dissertations

This study is meant to tell the story of the Muslim Brotherhood Sisters (Al-Akhawat Al-Muslimat) in urban Cairo, Egypt. It mainly attempts to answer two questions: (1) what motivates the Sisters’ Islamic activism within the Brotherhood and within the Egyptian society at large despite its huge risks? (2) how do they (re)construct, contest and relate to the gender ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood? Relying on ethnographic fieldwork, this study explores the ways through which the Sisters of the Muslim Brotherhood conceptualize their engagement in Islamist politics amid the crackdown of 2013. Through examining the Muslim Brotherhood’s contexts, contention repertoires and …

Gender Dimensions In Training And Development At The Information And Communication Technology Sector In Egypt, Rozana Adnan Khayyat

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines women's career potentials at the information and communication technology (ICT) sector in Egypt. Taking a case study approach, the study particularly focuses on female employees' involvement in training and developing activities for skill and capacity building. The findings of this study show that most of the female employees in the case study hold administrative positions. Training activities actually increase the gap between male and female workers, as male workers were allowed more technical and expensive training opportunities than female employees. The interviews also reveal the payment inequality between male and female employees in the case study organization. …

Grassroots Empowerment: The Case Of An Egyptian Ngo, Youmna Ali Khalil

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Problematic Of Generating Anthropological Knowledge: A Case Study Of A Health And Gender Development Project In Rural Egypt, Tonje Holm

Archived Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how boarder guards limits the amount of knowledge an anthropologist really can obtain doing research. The research is based upon a concrete case study in Egypt where local and national government bodies "border guard" how knowledge is gained within a development project. This research shows how although anthropological knowledge and research provide a body of theory within which policy is created the policy should come with a "health warning". Field research undoubtedly give more information than so called "armchair" research, but it is far from giving the policy makers the full picture of the society, or project …

Poverty, Gender, And Religion: A Reflection On The Status Of Coptic Women In Poor Areas, Ereeny Talaat Zaki

Archived Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to explore the reasons behind the oppression of poor Coptic women. It examines the factors that position Coptic women in inferior status. It analyzes these factors at the intersections of lack of resources, poverty consequences, and gender inequalities that shape life experiences of this segment of the Egyptian society. Central to my argument is the influence of religion on the lives of those women. In the light of fieldwork conducted in the poor area of El Salaam city, the main finding is that religion affiliation, especially if this religion is adopted by a minority …

Gender, Citizenship And Personal Status Laws: Egypt & Morocco Compared, Yvette Fayez Isaac

Archived Theses and Dissertations

This research puts forward the argument that the state can utilize, negotiate and transform laws according to the different forces it faces and that this has its implications on citizenship rights for women. The study accomplishes this by comparing Egypt and Morocco, two Arab [and North African] countries that have undergone recent changes in their personal status laws (also called family laws). Methodologically speaking, this is achieved through examining the impact of the rising pressure of women's groups and local NGOs to challenge the rising Islamic activism (internal factors), and the impact of globalization, and international conventions and organizations (external …

Gender, Forced Migration And Paid Domestic Work: Case Studies On Refugee Women Domestic Workers In Cairo, Amira Abderahman Ahmed

Archived Theses and Dissertations

The main aim of this thesis is to be able to fill a research gap with regard to women and their survival strategies with emphasis on refugee women, mostly from the Hom of Africa, who have fled to Cairo during the 1990s. The presence of refugee women in the domestic labor sector in Egypt is a relatively recent phenomenon. Cairo, as a large urban setting in the developing world, provides an interesting site where all of these distinct actors play the same role and share at least two structural factors: being migrant women and domestics. The basic argument of this …

Desire Across Boundaries: Marriage And Sexuality In A Transnational And Global Context, Mustafa Abdalla

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.