Making Herstory: Revolutionary Egyptian women speak

For the first time in decades, the mainstream media is acknowledging the agency of actors in the Arab world and the monolithic and mythical discourse about the static Arab world has been dispelled.

The trouble is the mainstream media has glorified an archetype: an activist who is educated and youthful, and whose social media savvy allows them to simultaneously organize demos, promote radical messages and make witty commentary about the western hypocrisy du jour without breaking a sweat.

Academics and activists have repeated ad nauseam that we are not in a twitter revolution and that the protesters and organizers of the uprisings are as diverse as their society. While some airtime is granted to those that do not fit a specific socio-economic background, the coverage of the uprisings in the Arab world stops short at women. The same media that readily echoes Hillary Clinton’s criticism of Arab marginalization of women’s rights is equally ready to ignore these womens’ accounts.

Getting away from this systematic discrimination requires searching for stories about Arab women — told by Arab women.

An incredible project I discovered months ago has recently resumed their effort to preserve and tell herstory. It goes beyond capturing the narrative of political activists and gives spectacular insight into how “ordinary” women make revolutionary choices for themselves and their families. Take a moment to watch the videos that they have produced to date and share them with your friends.