Social Change and the Industrial Experience: Women as Production Workers in Urban Egypt

Ibrahim, Barbera Lethem (1980) Social Change and the Industrial Experience: Women as Production Workers in Urban Egypt. UNSPECIFIED.

Text IbrahimBL-SocialChange-diss.pdf - Published Version Restricted to RUG campus Download (11MB)

Abstract

Introduction: This is a study of women in urban Egypt whose status as industrial workers places them in a unique set of social relations that is outside the experience of previous generations of .Cairene women. It is not the fact of work which determines their unique position, for urban women in Egypt have for centuries been actively engaged in producing goods and services, often but not always in return for cash income. What distinguishes the new form of work for women in the working class today is that it has been taken out of the context of the family unit and located within medium or large scale organizations tending towards the characteristics of impersonal bureaucracies. For the growing number of employed women, this has meant that they are in a position of moving between membership in two distinct social organizations, both of which make sizeable demands on their time and energy. In the decisions and actions of daily life with which they meet these challenges, women are in a sense charting new waters without the aid of a normative map; there is little in the cultural stock of knowledge inherited from their mothers and grandmothers that can give concrete prescriptions for mediating between the family and employment. It is for this reason an ideal setting for the exploration of individual and group aspects of social change. [...]

Item Type:	Thesis (UNSPECIFIED)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Egypt, women, Social
Status:	Published
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Egypt, women, Social
Date Deposited:	20 Oct 2025 08:58
Last Modified:	20 Oct 2025 09:47
URI:	https://ebooks.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/420

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