By Maha Ezzat Elkholy and Lorenzo Kamel*
IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
CAIRO (IDN) – A huge amount of analysis on Egypt have been published by Western news outlets in the last few weeks. Most of them were focused on violent clashes: the country is facing a sort of war of “each against all” – government against opposition, lay against Islamists, Muslim Brotherhood against “literalist” salafis – in which only the army seems to remain a pillar of stability. What the TV and the main media networks do not show, however, is how this polarization is affecting the everyday life of Egyptian men and women.
While women as one of the most marginalized sectors of Egyptian society are suffering most from the precarious situation, – “women’s conditions were indeed better before the revolution”, Samah Anwar, a 24 years old young girl from Tahta (Sohag Governorate) told us – the story of the politicized situation in the country and its contamination of everyday life might best be told with another example, a seemingly trivial one, the example of the beard.