The Gender Logics of Resistance to the ‘War on Terror’: constructing sex–gender difference through the erasure of patriarchy in the Middle East

Nicola Pratt

Third World Quarterly, 2012, vol. 33, issue 10, 1821-1836

Abstract: This article asks, ‘How are femininities constructed in resisting the “war on terror” and with what implications for women's agency and the conceptualisation of gender?’ It examines the under-studied gender logics of non-violent resistance to the ‘war on terror’ by focusing on a series of conferences held in Cairo, between 2002 and 2008, uniting opposition to imperialism, Zionism, neoliberalism and dictatorship. Whereas much feminist scholarship conceptualises sex–gender difference within patriarchy as the major source of women's subordination, women speakers at the Cairo conferences erased patriarchy as a source of subordination and valorised sex–gender difference as a source of agency in resisting the ‘war on terror’. Femininities were constructed against the dominant narratives and practices of the war on terror through the representation of national/religious or class differences. These ‘resistance femininities’ represent strategically essentialised identities that function to bridge differences and mobilise women against the ‘war on terror’.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01436597.2012.728318 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:33:y:2012:i:10:p:1821-1836

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ctwq20

DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2012.728318

Access Statistics for this article

Third World Quarterly is currently edited by Shahid Qadir

More articles in Third World Quarterly from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().