Being a Coptic Man: Masculinity, Class, and Social Change among Egyptian Copts

Abstract

Inspired by Marcia Inhorn’s work on Arab masculinities, this article looks at changes in masculine ideals and practices among Egyptian middle-class Copts. Based on fieldwork among Copts in the city of Alexandria, Egypt, this article argues that young Coptic men embrace ideals of manhood that highlights conjugal connectivity and involved fatherhood at the expense of other social commitments; that in doing so, they define themselves in opposition to Muslim men of lower socioeconomic status, widely construed as their “masculine others”; and finally that these men ascribe to forms of masculinity that do not seem to reinforce patriarchal power relations, nor lend themselves to hierarchical placement in relation to otherwise dominant forms of masculinity within a predominantly Muslim society. As such, they constitute forms of masculinity that are parallel, but not subordinate to a “hegemonic masculinity,” challenging some of the central premises on which the concept of hegemonic masculinity is commonly based. The case of middle-class Coptic men point to the concept of “emergent masculinities” as a promising starting point for analyzing masculinity in diverse Arab societies.