ABSTRACT
This article examines the complex relationship between the concepts of female sexuality, security state, and militarised cultures and spaces as reflected in the cases of three women who are subjected to sexual violence and/or rape during the 2011 revolutions in Egypt and Libya. The three women are Egyptian Samira Ibrahim, who goes through humiliating virginity tests by army forces while in detention, South African Lara Logan, a CBS correspondent who is gang-raped in Tahrir Square in 2011, and Libyan Eman al-Obeidi, who is gang-raped by security forces during the 2011 Libyan revolution. Ibrahim, al-Obeidi, and Logan exceptionally and courageously speak about their sexual abuse at varying degrees of risk. While Ibrahim sues the Egyptian army for ‘virginity tests’, al-Obeidi escapes Libya to stay as a refugee in Canada. Logan’s case brings up controversial opinions of women as endangering their safety by working in dangerous professions like (war) journalism. This article argues that sexual violence against Ibrahim, al-Obeidi, and Logan is part of a dominant security state concept in Egypt and Libya that militarises and politicises public spaces, legalising state violence and individual vulnerability. Yet, women’s participation in protest spaces deconstructs these hegemonic practices of security oppression in Egypt and Libya.
