Modern Egyptian Women, Fashion and Faith Discourses and Representations

This book discusses Egyptian Muslim women’s dress as the social, political and ideological signifier of the changing attitudes towards Western modernity. It employs women’s clothing styles as a feminist act that provides rich insights into the power and limits of legal regulations and hegemonic discourses in constructing gendered and cultural borders in the modern Egyptian public sphere. Furthermore, through highlighting marginalized but significant models and historical moments of cultural exchange between Muslim and Western cultures through female dress, the book tells a third story beyond the binary model of an assumed modest oppressed traditional Muslim woman vis-à-vis consumer emancipated modern Western woman in mainstream Western discourse and literary representation.

Amany Abdelrazek-Alsiefy is a writer and independent researcher based in Berlin, Germany. She received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the Institute of English Language and Literature at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, in 2022. Currently, she is preparing her postdoctoral research on Gender, Colourism and Modernity in Egyptian and Sudanese Women’s writing. She published articles and research papers in English and Arabic. Her English articles have appeared in SN Social Sciences, Janus Inbound: Journal of Critical Studies, and International Journal of English and Literature, and she has recently presented at the Fashion Body and Culture: International Conference in London and Decoloniality, Gender Equity and Diversity: International Conference at the University of Johannesburg.