Egyptian women students pragmatically push back against the modesty doctrine they are taught

Evidence

At fi the young women objected to the daeiyat’s reading of the Quranic verses on the basis of the prac.. tical diffi they would encounter if they avoided eye contact with male teachers: some said they would appear strange and awkward if they behaved in this manner; others said that it was diffi to fi qualifi women to provide private lessons; and still others argued that they would not understand what was being taught if they did not look their teachers in the eye. Maryam, a tall young woman between sixteen an eighteen years of age, raised another ob.. jection: “But if I know the [male] teacher well and he is well respected, and I know myself that I am responsible and pious [mas! — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 705

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: This resistance-as-negotiation over modesty rules parallels the cross-cultural moral panics in my immodesty article — here the ‘panic’ is contested from below rather than only imposed from above.