Story of an Egyptian Man – The Cairo Review of Global Affairs
▻https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/story-of-an-egyptian-man/?platform=hootsuite
Especially in the West, Arab men are often stereotyped as violent fanatics or oppressors of women. The truth is that Arab men, too, experience daunting political, economic, and social challenges related to their gender roles.
By Farha Ghannam
Violent. Aggressive. Brutal. Misogynist. Anti-Western. Anti-modern. Fundamentalist. Terrorist. Oppressor. Abuser.
Such are the stereotypes of Middle Eastern/Arab/Muslim men (obviously distinct categories yet often conflated) perpetuated by the Western media. The stereotypes not only stigmatize and marginalize but they also re-inscribe the division between “us and them” and recreate associations that contrast “our” enlightened ways with “their” backwardness. At the same time, such depictions deny Arab/Muslim men the status of human beings who deserve compassion, protection, and recognition.
Lost both in the popular discourse as well as in most existing literature on gender are the daily struggles and realities of Muslim men and the affective connections and ethics of care that tie them to their families, including female relatives. My ethnographic research over the past ten years in a low-income neighborhood in northern Cairo has been geared toward challenging simplistic and reductionist assumptions by focusing on the daily life of men and how they work (in collaboration with others, particularly female relatives) to materialize social values that define them as gendered subjects. My research seeks to highlight the importance of class, which, over the past two decades has been largely sidelined in analyses of gender in the Middle East.
Looking at the intersection between gender and class allows us to see the category “men” as a diversified group of agents who are positioned differently in the socioeconomic and political landscape. It helps us appreciate how one’s material, cultural, and social capital are deeply linked to the ability to materialize gender norms that define a proper man.
Here I would like to share the story of Samer,* an auto shop worker now approaching his late forties, whose “masculine trajectory” I have had the opportunity to follow over the past two decades. A masculine trajectory is the process of becoming a man. It aims to capture the contextual and shifting nature of masculinity and how men are expected to materialize different norms over their lifespan. Gender and class intersect in powerful ways in shaping this trajectory and how a man’s standing is evaluated, affirmed, and redefined by various social agents, including female relatives. Rather than a linear sequence of predetermined and fixed roles, the notion of masculine trajectory aims to account for the ups and downs, the successes and failures, and the expected and emerging discourses and challenges that shape a man’s standing in society.❞
