Huda Sharawi is widely recognized as the mother of Egyptian feminism. She founded the Egyptian Feminist Union in 1923, she was a founding member of the nationalist Wafd Party, and eventually would establish the Arab Feminist Union in 1945. She advocated for independence from Great Britain, women’s suffrage, and philanthropy movements centered on making education and health care accessible to underprivileged communities. But for all of this groundbreaking activism, what is she remembered for? One moment, in 1945, in which she chose to publicly remove her face veil in demonstration. In fact, the most famous biography published on her life is titled “Casting off the Veil.”

L’Egyptienne was a feminist magazine published by the Egyptian Feminist Union during this time. It was a symbol of the first wave Egyptian Feminist movement, and allowed the words of its leaders to empower and mobilize women throughout the nation. However, although its influence cannot be overstated, its means must be taken with a grain of salt. L’Egyptienne was published only in French, thus limiting its circulation and accessibility to women of the highest elite. Following with the norm of the times, politics was seen as a rich man’s (or woman’s) game. Much to the shortcomings of the movement, its message was only heard by upper class women, and thus its message catered to upper class women alone. Of course, there are many potential reasonings behind this. Wealthier women had more access to education, and more access to free time, thus were more likely to protest. Similarly, L’Egyptienne had an international scope, and by writing for Egyptian elite they too reached the audience of influential women’s rights movements unfolding around the world at the time. However, for a sociopolitical movement such as this one to limit its involvement to an incredibly elite class means that they were largely fighting for the rights of elite women — not focused on the rights of underprivileged working class women. 

The Egyptian Feminist Party was founded by Fatma Neamat Rashed in the post-World War II period of Egypt, a time in which large sweeping feminist movements were losing popularity, as simultaneously the feminist efforts that did exist were becoming much more political, much more diverse in their reach, and much more ideological. This was a period of “radicalization,” and an attempt to address several of the flaws of the Egyptian Feminist Union outlined above. They lobbied for equal education, equal employment, equal pay, and equal political representation.

Six years later, Doria Shafik started the Bint Al-Nil feminist association in 1948. She was hoping to keep alive the radical message of the Egyptian Feminist Party, while advocating for programs that would directly empower the women they served. She saw in Palestinian women an example of women serving alongside men in times of conflict, and was inspired to demand literacy programs, comprehensive low-income health care, child care, and more to allow women to be more actively heard in the fight for rights. Her magazine was deliberately published in Arabic, signifying a pivot in audience and intention. In 1951 she organized 1500 women to storm the parliamentary building in demonstration, and they advocated for years to have women be involved in the law-making process, particularly on laws that would affect them, and be able to run for office. She was a force to be reckoned with, and several times organized hunger strikes directly against King Farouk, and the lack of female involvement in the writing of the new constitution after his deposition. Her efforts won women the right to vote in 1956, but she still saw the Nasser regime as largely oppressive. She would continue protesting, striking, and writing on these topics for another twenty years — far after falling from popularity for opposing Nasser, far after being committed to house arrest by the Nasser regime — until her death.

Women and Sex, a book by Nawal El Saadawai, was released in 1972 and met with much sociopolitical backlash, thus re-stirring the pot of Egyptian feminism. It conjured criticisms of the higher theological and governmental treatments of women in Islam and in the state of Egypt. It was subversive, and thus — the state did not approve. This is the publication that would call for El Saadawai’s removal from the Ministry of Health. She took very firm stances on many norms of the time, such as state-sanctioned genital mutilation, which she had undergone as a child. She also bemoaned the pressure to translate her writings from their original Arabic into French and English, famously writing, “the colonial capitalist powers are mainly English- or French-speaking…. I am still ignored by big literary powers in the world, because I write in Arabic, and also because I am critical of the colonial, capitalist, racist, patriarchal mindset of the super-powers.” Many of her writings remain highly influential in feminist ideology today, in Egypt, the Arab world, and the globe moreover. She is now eighty-five years old, and actively speaks out against systems of imperialism and oppression in world politics today. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would now like to briefly bring attention to a common theme, and potential point of contention, throughout the history of Egyptian feminist movements. Huda Sharawi is largely remembered for dramatically and publicly casting off her veil before a horrified crowd at a train station in Cairo. Nawal El Saadawi is famously and frequently quoted referring to the hijab as a “tool of patriarchal oppression.”  Even today, the covering is a focal point of Egyptian feminism. Certainly, there is a large focus on street harassment and sexual violence in today’s movements, but the issue of the veil remains prevalent and central. A controversial law forbidding girls from wearing a hijab in school was recently reinstated in 2015, and met with huge amounts of backlash for being anti-islamic and authoritarian. And one of the more influential Egyptian feminist books of the 21st century, written by Egyptian-American activist Mona Eltahawy, is titled “Headscarves and Hymens.”

 

The veil remains at the center of Egyptian feminist politics and rhetoric, despite the fact that there has still never been a female president or prime minister of Egypt, and women make up only one third of the Egyptian parliament.