Ejecting Women from Formal Politics in the 'Old-New' Egypt (2011-12)

This chapter is a tale of women reaching the height of political activism and the pit of their political representation all in one year (January 2011-January 2012). It is a year that began with women and men rising in revolt against the thirty year dictatorship of President Mubarak and ended with the parliamentary elections a year later that brought an Islamist-majority bloc to the Egyptian parliament.

The two key questions informing this chapter are: has the change of regime leadership influenced the kind of women who engage in electoral politics through competing for seats in parliamentary legislatures? Second, did the change in political leadership of the country lead to a change in women’s pathways into (and out of) formal politics?