Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Wandering About as She Pleases: Prostitutes, Adolescent Girls, and Female Slaves in Cairo’s Public Space, 1850–1882

Wandering About as She Pleases: Prostitutes, Adolescent Girls, and Female Slaves in Cairo’s... Abstract This paper examines how women who “wandered about” public spaces were perceived in police and court records of Khedival Egypt, in the period from 1850–1882. In the context of growing cities, rural immigration and manumission of slaves, the Egyptian authorities sought to monitor the urban streets and clear them of “undesirables.” Such control measures, this paper argues, were dictated by gender. By examining cases involving runaway and manumitted slaves, adolescent girls and prostitutes, as well as official laws and regulations, this article shows how the mobility and visibility of women in public spaces was regulated and controlled. While male unregulated presence in the streets was deemed to be a security concern in very limited circumstances, the unsupervised presence of women outside of the fold of family or community connoted sexual misconduct. Where young girls went, whom prostitutes interacted with, what women chose to wear, and what black women were doing outdoors—all of these were becoming state concerns. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Hawwa Brill

Wandering About as She Pleases: Prostitutes, Adolescent Girls, and Female Slaves in Cairo’s Public Space, 1850–1882

Kozma, Liat
Hawwa , Volume 10 (1-2): 18 – Jan 1, 2012
Download PDF
19 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/brill/wandering-about-as-she-pleases-prostitutes-adolescent-girls-and-female-P6sveKxUGe

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
1569-2078
eISSN
1569-2086
DOI
10.1163/156920812X627722
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines how women who “wandered about” public spaces were perceived in police and court records of Khedival Egypt, in the period from 1850–1882. In the context of growing cities, rural immigration and manumission of slaves, the Egyptian authorities sought to monitor the urban streets and clear them of “undesirables.” Such control measures, this paper argues, were dictated by gender. By examining cases involving runaway and manumitted slaves, adolescent girls and prostitutes, as well as official laws and regulations, this article shows how the mobility and visibility of women in public spaces was regulated and controlled. While male unregulated presence in the streets was deemed to be a security concern in very limited circumstances, the unsupervised presence of women outside of the fold of family or community connoted sexual misconduct. Where young girls went, whom prostitutes interacted with, what women chose to wear, and what black women were doing outdoors—all of these were becoming state concerns.

Journal

Hawwa – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 2012

Keywords: Women; gender; Egypt; prostitution; slavery; virginity; rape

There are no references for this article.