20. Egyptian Women’s Cyberactivism: The Ongoing Battle Against Sexual Harassment and Violence

Gender-based violence and sexual harassment have plagued Egypt for decades (Sadek, The Law Library of Congress, 2016). Yet, Egyptian women’s active participation in the Arab uprisings of 2011 has encouraged many women, who once accepted such humiliating and painful experiences with shame and self-blame, to increasingly find their voice and stand up to their perpetrators (Eltantawy, Women and media in the middle east: from Veiling to Blogging. Taylor & Francis, 2017; Ibrahim, J Soc Media Soc 8(2):167–186, 2019). Today, a growing number of female activists continue to combat violence and sexual harassment via social media activism as well as other forms of activism. This chapter applies a discourse analysis of the Instagram account of the Egyptian feminist activist group, Assault Police to identify dominant themes with all posts that relate to the two case studies of Ahmed Bassam Zaki and the Fairmont Hotel rape case. The chapter relies on theories of collective action and empowerment to analyze the impact and effectiveness of @assaultpolice’s cyberactivism.