Journal article
Class Capacity and Cross-Gender Solidarity: Women's Organizing in an Egyptian Textile Company
Politics & society, v 49(2), pp 203-233
01 Jun 2021
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Neoliberal restructuring and the feminization of export-led industries are often associated with the disempowerment of women in the workplace. Surprisingly, this disempowerment was not the case with a public textile company in Mahalla, an industrial city north of Cairo. Between 2006 and 2008, workers organized wildcat strikes involving around 24,000 workers. In contrast to the strike waves of the 1980s, women were integral to organizing the strikes and assumed leadership roles in them. This article argues that even as Egypt adopted structural adjustments in the 1990s that led to the decline of the historically leading sectors of textiles and yarn, exports of clothing increased. By the 2000s, the clothing sector was completely feminized and women in Mahalla were positioned in the most productive departments. This change empowered women by elevating their role and induced skeptical male colleagues to support women's activism in the company and to build cross-gender solidarity.
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Details
- Title
- Class Capacity and Cross-Gender Solidarity: Women's Organizing in an Egyptian Textile Company
- Creators
- Nada Matta - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Politics & society, v 49(2), pp 203-233
- Publisher
- Sage
- Number of pages
- 31
- Grant note
- IDRF (International Dissertation Research fellowship), a program of the Social Science Research Council
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Global Studies and Modern Languages
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000548572200001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85087822987
- Other Identifier
- 991019168109704721
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- Web of Science research areas
- Political Science
- Social Issues
- Sociology