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Economic and Political Liberation in Egypt and the Demise of State Feminism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Mervat F. Hatem
Mervat F. Hatem
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Howard University, Washington, D. C.
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Abstract

In the late 1950s and the 1960s, an Egyptian welfare state was developed to provide the economic basis of a new social contract between the Nasser regime and its key class allies. Its main beneficiaries were the men and women of both the middle class and the labor aristocracy, who were to staff and run its expanding state sector. For Egyptian women, who were scorned by the pre-1952 states, the new welfare state offered explicit commitment to public equality for women. It contributed to the development of state feminism as a legal, economic, and ideological strategy to introduce changes to Egyptian society and its gender relations. In its own turn, state feminism contributed to the political legitimacy of Gamal Abdel Nasser's regime and its progressive credentials.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , May 1992 , pp. 231 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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