Early Reflections of an Historian on Feminism in Egypt

Transcript

Lucia Sorbera
Early Reflections of an Historian on Feminism
in Egypt in Time of Revolution
Dear Lucia,
You should have stayed a few more days! After yesterday’s rally I feel hopeful
again! On another note […] I would like to let you know that this was a TRUE1
demonstration, made by ordinary women. It was not organized by any movement
or feminist group. Cairo, 21 December 2011.2
This message was posted on my Facebook wall the day after a
big demonstration in Cairo3 against gender violence committed by the
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf).4 This is just one of many
* I would like to take the opportunity to express my deep gratitude to Margot Badran, whose
work has been a constant source of inspiration since I started my research on Egyptian feminism.
Her generous comments have been instrumental in the final draft of this article, which represents
my first step beyond my Doctoral research, and into the study of contemporary Egyptian feminism.
I am grateful also to the friends and colleagues in Cairo who made this research possible. Claudia
Ruta (Un Women), Carmine Cartolano and Gennaro Gervasio for sharing their contacts and
expertise; all the women’s and human rights activists who generously offered their time in days
of hard work. A special thanks to my assistant researcher, Estella Carpi, for transcribing the
interviews, and to my colleagues and friends Luca Anceschi, Maurizio Marinelli, Serena Tolino,
Eileen Walsh, and Sonia Wilson, for their thought provoking comments.
1. Emphasis in the original, Nda.
2. Personal communication from an international activist for women’s rights based in Egypt.
In this article, all the personal communications and the interviews are anonymous. When it is not
otherwise indicated, translations are mine.
3. For the transliteration of Arabic names I follow the Library of Congress system. Diacritics,
except for the hamza and ‘ayn, are omitted as a convenience to non-specialists. The two main
exceptions to the system are: (1) common English forms such as Cairo; and (2) some personal
names and other transliterated words that appear as cited in particular works in western languages.
4. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) is the group of 21 senior officers in the
Egyptian Army who took control of the country after former president Hosni Mubarak resigned
on February 10, 2011. It relinquished power on June 30, 2012, upon the start of Mohamed Morsi’s
term as President. The military junta was headed by the Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi
who served as the Minister of Defence under Mubarak, and included the service heads and other
senior commanders of the Egyptian Armed Forces. Although the army is quite popular in Egypt,
Genesis, XII / 1, 2013
14
Il tema: Femminismi nel Mediterraneo
missives that I received since the revolution in Egypt erupted on January
25, 2011. My experience is not unique. It is shared by a transnational
network which involves a number of activists and scholars, who over
the years have established a deep and concerned relationship with
Egyptian activists.
All shared and ordinary experiences become unique once they are
situated within their own history. In this case, this history is that of
the past century of feminism and revolution in Egypt. While the above
posting could sound “militant” or “revolutionary touristic”, it illustrates
three points that I explore in this article: the first one, methodological,
is the subjectivity of historians, who always establish an emotional
relationship with their enquiry.5 The second is the importance of
transnational horizontal networks in Egyptian feminist history. The
practice of corresponding between women and of conversing about
“politics and friendship”6 has been a feminist constitutive routine since
its political and economic power has been the object of critical scrutiny. In November 2011, one of
the main slogans in the demonstrations was “Down to the Scaf”, and the spontaneous Campaign
to End the Military Trials of Civilians was emerging: trialshttp://en.nomiltrials.com/ (last access:
April 6, 2013). Evidences of criticism against the involvement of the army in the transition are also
in the pop culture: Marshal Tantawi and other officers of the Scaf have been the object of critical
representations in pop-cultural productions, included graffiti.
5. The subjectivity of the historian, especially when s(he) occupies the double position of
historian and witness, has been widely investigated by Italian feminist historiography, especially
with reference to the 1968 and the political movements of the ‘70s. See Luisa Passerini, Autoritratto
di gruppo, Firenze, Giunti, 1988 (Engl. transl. Autobiography of a Generation, Hanover,
N.H.University Press of New England, 1996); Ead., Storia e soggettività. Le fonti orali, la memoria,
Firenze, Giunti, 1988; Ead., Memoria e utopia. Il primato dell’intersoggettività, Roma, Bollati e
Boringhieri, 2003 (Engl. trans. Memory and Utopia: the Primacy of Intersubjectivity, London,
Equinox, 2007). The Italian Society of Women Historians has also significantly contributed to the
debate, especially through its Journal «Genesis». See in particular Anni Settanta, a cura di Anna
Bravo e Giovanna Fiume, «Genesis», III/1 (2004).
6. This is the title of a famous book: Politics and Friendship: Letters from the International
Woman Suffrage Alliance, 1902-1942, edited by Mineke Bosch and Annemarie Kloosterman.
Columbus, The Ohio State University Press, 1990. Huda Sha‘rawi, the founder and president of
the Egyptian Feminist Union (1923-1956, Efu), is mentioned in these correspondences. On Huda
Sha‘rawi and the Efu see Huda Sha‘rawi, Harem Years. The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist,
(1879-1924), translated, edited and introduced by Margot Badran, London, Virago, 1986; Huda
Sha‘rawi, Mudhakkirat Ra’idat al-Arabiyah al’Hadithah Huda Sha‘rawi, introduced by Amina alSa‘id, Cairo, Dar al-Hilal, 1981; Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, Nation. Gender and the Making
of Modern Egypt, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1995; Keith King John, Sania Sharawi
Lanfranchi, Casting off the Veil: the Life of Huda Shaarawi. Egypt’s first Feminist, London, I.B.
Tauris, 2012. In Italian, Lucia Sorbera, Dal harim allo spazio pubblico. Letteratura e storia nelle
Mudhakkirat di Huda Sha‘rawi, in Spazio privato, spazio pubblico e società civile in Medio
Oriente e in Africa del Nord, a cura di Daniela Melfa, Alessia Melcangi e Federico Cresti, Milano,
Giuffré, 2008, pp. 351-376; Ead., Gli esordi del femminismo egiziano. Costruzione e superamento
di uno spazio nazionale femminile, in «Genesis», VI/1 (2007), pp. 115-136.
Sorbera, Early Reflections of an Historian on Feminism in Egypt
15
the first decades of the XX century, when a word to explicitly refer
to the fight against patriarchy and for gender equality had yet to be
created.7 The third is the importance of feminist history in present day
Egyptian public debate. Understanding these points allows us to better
understand the young women active in Egypt today, who identify with
rejecting gendered violence and injustice, and to analyse their stories in
the context of Egyptian history.
In the time of revolution, feminist writing plays the crucial role of
challenging traditional representations of women as passive victims,
and of shedding light on their role as agents of political change. The
day I received the message quoted above, the attention of the world
was focused on what became famous as “the blue-bra incident”. In
order to break up the Cabinet Office sit-in which had already lasted
for several weeks in Cairo, Egyptian soldiers assaulted the protesters.
Among them were a number of young women. The abaya (cloak) of
one of the young women taking part in the sit-in was ripped off, and
the picture of her anonymous semi-naked body became one of the icons
of the Egyptian revolution. The story was extensively covered by the
international media which, eager to condemn this brutal act, displayed
their whole paraphernalia of orientalist derogatory stereotypes against
the alleged intrinsic misogyny of Arab men.8 A thought-provoking
critical account came from an Egyptian writer, the world acclaimed
7. The word “féminisme” (in French) was coined in the 1880s, and the first woman who
used it with reference to herself was the journalist Hubertine Auclert. In the same years, it was
translated into other European languages, included Italian. On the history of the word “feminism”
in Europe see Karen Offen, Defining Feminism: a Comparative Historical Approach, in «Signs»,
14/1 (1988), pp. 119-157. With reference to the Egyptian context see Badran, Feminists, Islam,
Nation, pp. 19-22.
8. Significantly enough also the controversial essay by the Egyptian-American journalist
Mona Eltahawy, Why do they hate us? in «Foreign Policy», (May/June 2012), is opened by a
photograph of the “blue bra incident”. The essay instigated many criticisms, dividing Arab
commentators between supporters and detractors. This essay brings to the attention of the
international audience an important issue, suggesting that the revolution in the Middle East
will not be completed until a substantial change in gender relationships will be achieved. The
main foundation of its hypothesis is the accuracy and the extent of empirical data about gender
violence and family law brought to the attention of the reader. However, the article presents a
major epistemological problem, especially if we read it through the lenses of postcolonial feminist
criticism. The author grounds her argument on a binary and essentialist opposition between an
alleged homogenised “us” (i.e. Arab women), and a likewise uniform “they” (i.e. Arab men).
In doing so, she reproduces colonial Orientalists rhetoric, which has been the object of sharp
criticism by Arab feminist scholars (see in particular Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam.
Historical Roots of a Modern Debate, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1992).
The iconography chosen by the editors of the issue for the article (a naked woman in niqab)
has contributed to what resulted in a self-Orientalists operation. For an account of the debate
16
novelist Ahdaf Soueif. Commenting on the sad event, Ahdaf Soueif,
who is also the author of an ardent memoir on the 2011 Revolution,9
suggests a correlation between the exercise of gender violence under
the rule of the Scaf, and during Mubarak’s regime:
Six years ago, when popular protests started to hit the streets of Egypt as Hosni
Mubarak’s gang worked at rigging the 2005 parliamentary elections, the regime
hit back – not just with the traditional Central Security conscripts – but with an
innovation: militias of strong, trained, thugs. They beat up men, but they grabbed
women, tore their clothes off and beat them, groping them at the same time. The idea
was to insinuate that females who took part in street protests wanted to be groped.
But, a symbiotic relationship springs up between behaviours. Mubarak and Omar
Suleiman turn Egypt into the Us’s favourite location for the torture of “terror
suspects” and torture becomes endemic in police stations. The regime’s thugs
molest women as a form of political bullying – and harassment of women in the
streets rises to epidemic levels.
Until 25 January. The Revolution happened and with it came the Age of Chivalry.
One of the most noted aspects of behaviour in the streets and squares of the 18
days of the Egyptian Revolution was the total absence of harassment. Women
were suddenly free; free to walk alone, to talk to strangers, to cover or uncover, to
smoke, to laugh, to cry, to sleep. And the job of every single male present was to
facilitate, to protect, to help. The Ethics of the Square, we called it.
Now our revolution is in an endgame struggle with the old regime and the military.
The young woman is part of this.10
Ahdaf Soueif explains that the use of sexual violence against
political protesters is not a new phenomenon in Egypt. She claims that
this represents continuity with the darkest face of the republican regime.
This is indeed the case; her assertion stands up to historical verification.
Feminist historians have shown that violence against women in the
context of political struggle is rooted in the colonial experience. In her
ground-breaking study of Egyptian feminism, Margot Badran writes
that during the 1919 anti-British uprisings11 “women of the people”
were beaten and killed when they took part in demonstrations, and she
see Debating the War on Women, in «Foreign Policy on Line», April 24, 2012, in http://www.
foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/24/debating_the_war_on_women (last access: April 6, 2013).
9. Ahdaf Soueif, Cairo. My City Our Revolution, London, Bloomsbury, 2012.
10. Ahdaf Soueif, Image of unknown woman beaten by Egypt’s military echoes around world,
in «The Guardian», December 18, 2011, in http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/
dec/18/egypt-military-beating-female-protester-tahrir-square (last access: April 6, 2013).
11. In March 1919, in the wake of the British-ordered exile of revolutionary leader Saad
Zaghlul and other members of the Wafd party, people across Egypt revolted against the British
occupation. The 1919 Revolution was a mass movement, to which men and women of different
social, cultural, and religious background took part. Britain was forced to declare the independence
of Egypt, on February 22, 1922, and in 1923 Egypt had its Constitution. However, British troops
remained on Egyptian sole until the 1952 Revolution. See James Janowski, Egypt. A Short History,
17
suggests that if today we are aware of their martyrdom, it is because
the intellectual and upper class early feminists payed homage to their
working class sisters’ sacrifice.12
I was fortunate enough to visit Cairo once again, one year after the so
called “blue bra incident”. In November 2012 on Cairo’s walls, where an
ephemeral archive of the revolution is taking shape in the form of artistic
graffiti,13 the image of the “blue bra” stands for women’s opposition
against gender violence and against new forms of authoritarianism. The
art historian and artist Bahia Shehab stencilled the Arabic word “La”
(No) above her image of the blue bra on the walls of Cairo. In the Ted
Lecture the artist gave a few months later, she explained:
«La» is for «no» to stripping the people. And the blue bra is to remind us that it is
a shame for our nation that we allow a veiled woman to be stripped and beaten in
the street. And the footprint says: «long life and peace with revolution» because
we will never retaliate with violence.14
Egypt today is crowded with young women who identify themselves
with the “No” represented in Bahia Shehab’s artistic works, and this
article focuses on their stories in the context of Egyptian history.
Contributing to current discussion on the significance of feminism in
the history of Egypt, it suggests that contemporary women’s activism is
both revolutionary and part of a longue durée historical process.
1. Methodological note: for a feminist epistemology
of the 2011 Egyptian revolution
The author of the message quoted at the beginning of this article
emphasises the spontaneity of the demonstration she witnessed.
Oxford, Oneworld Publications, 2000; Panayiotis J. Vatikiotis, The History of Modern Egypt: from
Muhammad Ali to Mubarak, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1991.
12. «Sha’rawi and other women collected the names of the dead and wounded and visited
their families». Badran, Feminists, Islam, Nation, p. 77.
13. Graffiti emerged since the beginning of 2011 as the art of the revolution. A number of
collections in English, in Arabic, and also in Italian, have been dedicated to this phenomenon:
Sherif Abdel-Megid, Ard ard (Surface-to-surface), Cairo, Egyptian Association for Books, 2011;
Idem, al-ḥurriyya la budda Gaat. Ultras Graffiti (Freedom will come for sure. The Ultra’s Graffiti),
Cairo, Nahdetmisr, 2012; al-Judran Tahtaf. Graffiti al-Thawra al-Misriya/Wall talk. Graffiti of the
Egyptian Revolution, edited by Sherif Boraїe, Cairo, Zaituna, 2012; Heba Helmy, Gowaya Chahid
(Martyr Inside Me), Cairo, Dar Al-Ain, 2013; Mia Grondhal, Revolution Graffiti - Street Art of the
New Egypt, Cairo, American University in Cairo Press, 2013; Elisa Pierandrei, Urban Cairo. La
primavera araba dei graffiti, Milano, Informant, 2012.
14. Bahia Shehab, A Thousand Time No, Ted Lecture, June 2012, in https://www.youtube.
com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=R_U9GUlSOC4 (last access: April 6, 2013).
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Stressing the agency of informal movements, and of ordinary women,
she implicitly suggests a new space of investigation to women and gender
scholars. My study takes inspiration from this ephemeral evidence, and
it investigates the spaces of the emerging informal feminist activism,
reading from the events that occurred between 2011 and 2013 against
the background of Egyptian feminist history.
In compliance with the postcolonial feminist methodology that I
adopt in my research, I keep a strong focus on the subjects of the story
that I am writing. Therefore, I name people and facts using the words
that they use themselves. This implies that I will use “revolution”
and “revolutionary” when the subjects of the history I am writing use
this word, and I will approach “feminism” and “feminist” in the same
way. Hence, I will refer to “revolution” and “feminism” even when
their understanding does not reflect the western – mainstream liberal
– historical experience.
In 2011 as in 1919 women intellectuals and artists contributed
to the revolution. Of course, the space of freedom enjoyed by
female intellectuals at the dawn of the XXI century is far wider
in comparison to that at the disposal of women a century ago.
However, there is some continuity in the experience of women
writing women’s history. Putting women into the record is not just
writing an “additional history”, it implies a challenge to mainstream
historiography, and it shapes new epistemological paradigms.15 From
the perspective of women and gender history the feminist revolution
did not start in 2011, but can be dated to the publication in 1909
of a pamphlet entitled Nisa’iyat (feminist writings) by the poet and
essayist Bahithat al-Badiya (1886-1918).16 It has continued until
15. Natalie Zemon Davis, “Women’s History” in Transition: The European Case, in
«Feminist Studies», 3/4 (1976), pp. 83-103; Joan W. Scott, Gender: a Useful Category of
Historical Analysis, in «The American Historical Review», 91/5 (1986), pp. 1053-1075.
For an exhaustive critical review of feminist historiography’s foundations see also Joan W.
Scott, Genere, politica, storia, a cura di Ida Fazio, postfazione Paola di Cori, Roma, Viella,
2013.
16. This is the pen name of Malak Hifni Nasif, one of the first modern Egyptian women
writers. Al-Nisa’iyat has been republished in 1998 in Cairo by the Ngo of women historians
Al-Mar’a wa al-Dhakira/Women and Memory Forum. The first biography of Bahithat alBadiya was written by Mayy Ziyadah in 1920. I have analysed this work in a book chapter:
Lucia Sorbera, Verso la letteratura femminista: il dialogo a distanza tra Mayy Ziyāda e Malak
Ḥifnī Nāṣif/Bāḥiṭa al-Bādiya, in Modernità Arabe. Nazione, narrazione e nuovi soggetti nel
romanzo egiziano, a cura di Lorenzo Casini, Maria Elena Paniconi e Lucia Sorbera, Messina,
Mesogea, 2012, pp. 319-353. On the same book see also Marilyn Booth, Biography and
Feminist Rethoric in early Twentieth-Century Egypt: May Ziyada’s Studies of three Women’s
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today, when a number of spontaneous cultural initiatives are focused
on narrating her-story of the 2011 Revolution, as explicitly stated
by Nazly Hussein, executive producer of Words of Women from the
Egyptian Revolution:
We are a group who decided to shed light on the participation of women in
the Egyptian revolution and document their experiences […]. It is meant to
empower women everywhere and be available as a tool for researchers and all
those interested in the matter […]. I personally refuse to speak about “the role
of women” in the revolution as if it is some extraordinary phenomenon […].
History, however, tends to highlight the participation of men and attributes most
accomplishments to them.17
My analysis is developed through the interviews that I collected
during field-work in Cairo, in November and December 2011,
while the first two rounds of the parliamentary elections were being
conducted. I visited women’s associations and Ngos, I observed
people in Tahrir square, and engaged in long conversations about
politics, revolution, and feminism with a number of activists and
professionals, women and men of different ages, various social and
cultural backgrounds, several political affiliations or orientations,
and various views on gender and politics. It is important to underline
the generational, class, and political differences among Egyptian
activists, in addition to the shared sense of re-acquired citizenship and
participation, through the process that they describe as a continuing
revolution (thawra mustamirra). The interviews offer a counterpoint
to a series of interventions by women intellectuals, which I collected
between 2011 and 2013, on feminism and revolution, women’s rights
and human rights. The analysis of this intellectual feminist agency,
through a selected corpus of documents, is the first aim of my study,
which investigates the relevance of feminism in the context of the
2011 Egyptian Revolution.
Lives, in «Journal of Women’s History», 3/1 (1991), pp. 38-64, and Rosella Dorigo, Il privato
diventa pubblico attraverso la letteratura biografica araba femminile moderna: l’esempio di
Marie Ziyada (1886-1941), in Spazio privato, pp. 317-338.
17. Nadine el-Sayed, Words of Women from the Egyptian Revolution. A New Project to
Shed Light on Women’s Role during January 25, in «Egypt Today», April 2, 2012, in http://
www.egypttoday.com/index.php?url=news/display/article/artId:617/Words-of-Women-fromthe-Egyptian-Revolution/secId:1/catId:1 (last access: April 6, 2013). Another important
audio-visual project is I Marched Along, in http://egypt.imarchedalong.com (last access: April
6, 2013).
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2. The spaces of feminism in modern and contemporary
Egyptian History
The history of women’s political participation in Egypt is as long as
the history of the modern nation. The great-grandmothers of the young
women who took part in the 2011 revolution may have been part of the
crowd who participated in the anti-British uprisings in March 1919. In
the late XIX century, Egypt was a semi-autonomous province of the
Ottoman Empire. Since then Egypt has suffered the consequences of
being part of the world-market economy in a subordinated position.18
British economic interests were safeguarded through military occupation
in 1882 and the establishment of the Protectorate in 1914. Furthermore,
the fact that the Society of Nations entrusted the Protectorate to Great
Britain guaranteed international legitimacy to an actual colonial system,
grounded on economic exploitation and on cultural subjugation. This
institutional history has also important cultural implications, whose
deep roots have been only partially explored. We know that, while the
governing elites of the international powers were taken up with the
partition of what they named the “Middle East”, the Egyptian urban
middle class was engaged in studying, translating, selecting, and reformulating the milestones of European liberal thought, therefore
shaping what contemporary historiography defines as an original
Egyptian modernity.19 Building the institutions of a modern State and
developing a nationalist movement that included men and women,
Christians and Muslims all under the flag of independent Egypt, were
part of the wider project of Egyptian modernity.20
As contemporary feminist historiography has firmly demonstrated,
the icon of the “modern woman” played a key function in the discursive
18. The dependence theory has been elaborated by the Egyptian economist Samir Amin,
Imperialism and Unequal Development, New York, Monthly Review Press, 1977 (It. transl. Lo
sviluppo marginale. Saggio sulle formazioni sociali del capitalismo periferico, Torino, Einaudi,
1977). Samir Amin is among the most famous Egyptian scholars in Italy, and 21 of his books have
been translated into Italian. On Egyptian political and economic history in the colonial and the liberal
age see also Eric Davis, Challenging Colonialism. Bank Miṣr and Egyptian industrialisation, 19201941, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1983; Gabriel Baer, A History of Landownership in
Modern Egypt, 1800-1950, London-New York, Oxford University Press, 1962.
19. This topic is the core of a collective research project, which I had the privilege to share
with two colleagues and friends, and which resulted in the aforementioned co-authored book:
Modernità Arabe. Nazione, narrazione e nuovi soggetti nel romanzo egiziano. I take the liberty to
refer to it for an extensive literature review and further elaboration of the topic.
20. Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1983; Israel Gershoni, James Janovski, Egypt, Islam and the Arabs. The Search for Egyptian
Nationhood, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1986.
21
construction of modernity.21 On the other hand, women were not passive
objects of modernization policies, as liberal male visions would suggest.
On the contrary, they played a key role as agents of modernization.
Feminist historians of modern Egypt emphasize the difference between
male and women’s discourse about emancipation. They suggest that a
tangible criticism of both the local and the colonial patriarchal cultures
is only in modern women’s writing. Differently, liberal men interiorized
the colonial orientalist rhetoric about gender and modernity, labelling
the alleged “women’s ignorance” as the main cause of “Egypt
backwardness”. With this respect, Leila Ahmed concludes that «Qasim
Amin was not the father of modernity […] but the son of Lord Cromer
[the British Consul General in Egypt, Nda] and of colonialism».22
Women’s political engagement came first through intellectual
activities, such as the literary salons, spaces where it was possible to
negotiate the borders between the private and the public sphere. These
literary salons were hosted by prominent aristocratic and upper class
women, such as Princess Nazli Fazil,23 but also by brilliant middle class
intellectuals, such as the writer Mayy Ziyadah (1886-1941), Lebanese
immigrant to Egypt and part of the larger emigrations of her time.24
While women’s discussion was grounded in literary discourse, it also
engaged in crucial political issues, such as equal opportunities for
public education, and the reform of the Personal Status Law.25 Women
21. Beth Baron, Egypt as a Woman. Nationalism, Gender and Politics, Berkeley, University
of California Press, 2005.
22. Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam, pp.162-163. See also Beth Baron, The Women’s
Awakening in Egypt. Culture, Society and the Press, New Haven & London, Yale University Press,
1994, pp. 4-5; Nadje Sadig Al-Ali, Secularism, Gender and the State in the Modern Middle East.
The Egyptian Women’s Movement, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 57; Badran,
Feminists, Islam, Nation, pp. 16-17.
23. Princess Nazli Fazil (1853-1913) was the niece of Khedive Isma‘il. She was Honorary
President of the Alliance des Femmes Orientales et Occidentales. Source: Letter from Princess
Nazli to May Wright Sewall, 14 September 1900. Collection May Wright Sewall Papers, Digital
copyright 2005, Indianapolis Marion County Public Library, in http://digitallibrary.indypl.org/
cdm/compoundobject/collection/mws/id/850/rec/1 (last access: May 6, 2013). See also Roger
Allen, Writings of Members of “the Nāzlī Circle”, in «Journal of the American Research Center
in Egypt», 8 (1969), pp. 79-84; Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798-1939,
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983, p. 210.
24. Boutheina Khaldi, Epistolarity in a Nahdah Climate: The Role of Mayy Ziyādah’s Letter
Writing, in «Journal of Arabic Literature», 40 (2009), pp. 1-36. Ead., Egypt Awakening in the Early
Twentieth Century Mayy Ziyādah’s Intellectual Circles, London, Palgrave McMillan, 2012.
25. The reform of the Personal Status Law is a crux of XX Century and today’s women’s
activism. It is significant that the comprehensive program of modern reforms promoted by
Muhammad ‘Ali (Governor of Egypt between 1805 and 1848) did not impact the Personal
Status Law. For an historical overview on the topic see Mervat Hatem, The Enduring Alliance
22
who were not part of these salons, where men and women met, but
who were part of other women’s gatherings, especially Eugénie Le
Brun’s women’s salon, also contributed to the cultural development of
that time.26 This intellectual activity has been described as “invisible
feminism”. Invisible because an organization dedicated to women’s
rights had yet to come into being, although educated women were
already developing their awareness of the constrictions imposed on
them by the patriarchal culture.27 The space of “invisible feminism”
was indeed a literary space.
At the beginning of the XX century the broader nationalist ferment
paved the way to women’s participation in the 1919 revolution and the
nationalist movement.28 The first generation of Egyptian feminists took
part in the 1919 revolution and founded the Egyptian Feminist Union
(Efu) in 1923. The Efu conceived its action in the context of a secular
State and a liberal ideology, without denying members’ religious
background, Christian and Muslim. The well-known hadith «draw half
of your religion from Aisha»29 appeared in Arabic on the masthead of
the journal «al-Misriyah», when it was founded in 1937 as the Arabic
language journal of the Efu.30 To promote gender equality in the public
sphere, the first generation of secular Egyptian feminists build on Islamic
modernist discourse, first endorsed by Shaykh Muhammad ‘Abduh.
The nationalist liberal elite, which led the 1919 uprisings, supported
women’s social claims, but not their political feminist demands. Once
of Nationalism and Patriarchy in Muslim Personal Status Laws: The Case of Modern Egypt, in
«Feminist Issues», 6 (1986), pp. 19-43.
26. Eugénie Le Brun was a French woman who married a prominent Egyptian man (Husayn
Rushdi Pasha), moved to Cairo with him, and converted to Islam. Her book Harems et Musulmanes
d’Égypte was published under the pen name of Riya Salima, in Paris by Félix Juven in 1902. In
1995 it has been reprinted by Austin University Press. Eugénie Le Brun was one of the most
influential friends of Huda Sha‘rawi, the founder of the Egyptian Feminist Union. See Sha‘rawi,
Mudhakkirat, pp. 94-101; Harem Years. pp. 76-82.
27. Margot Badran, Miriam Cooke, Opening the Gates. One Century of Arab Feminist
Writing, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2004, pp. xv-xliv (ed. orig. Bloomington 1990).
28. Céza Nabaraoui (sic), Les Femmes dans le Mouvement Nationale, in «L’Egyptienne»,
May 1931.
29. Aisha was the youngest wife of the Prophet Muhammad, and one of the transmitters
of hadiths (sayings and actions of the Prophet). The first modern biography of Aisha has been
written by Nabia Abbott, Aishah the Beloved of Mohammed, Chicago, University of Chicago
Press, 1942.
30. Until then the official journal of the Efu was «L’Egyptienne» (1925-1940), which was
published in French with the aim to reach also the international audience. A comprehensive study
of «L’Egyptienne» has been conducted by Irene Fenoglio Abd el Aal, Défense et Illustration de
l’Égyptienne. Aux débuts d’une expression féminine, Cairo, Cedej, 1988.
23
the semi-independence was achieved in 1922, the electoral law excluded
women from the suffrage.31
In order to pursue their feminist goals, Huda Sha‘rawi and other
women activists decided to form the Ittihad al-Nisa’i al-Misri (19231956), which they translated as Unione féministe egyptienne (Egyptian
Feminist Union), a political independent organization with a broad
national and international agenda, including equality in all domains of
the public sphere (education, work, politics), the reform of the Personal
Status Law, the end of Britannic control of Egyptian international
politics (especially with reference to the Sudan and the Suez Canal).32
Since 1936 the Efu has responded to the request of solidarity by
Palestinian women against Zionist colonial occupation, and assumed a
leading role among women’s organizations in the Arab world.33
The achievements of liberal-radical feminism34 in the ’20s, such as
a reform of the Personal Status Law and the opening of the University’s
doors to women,35 were endangered in the early ’30s. The 1929 global
economic crisis had consequences for Egypt, which was already part
of the global economy, especially as an exporter of cotton and tobacco.
Isma‘il Sidqi’s Government (1930-33) approached the economic
restrictions through conservative politics which had a negative impact on
women. However more than the Sidqi Government’s policy, which lasted
only three years, the main challenges to feminism in the ’30s came from
the emergence of populist Islamist movements, in particular the Muslim
Brotherhood (1928), and their endorsement of a patriarchal vision of
women’s role and of gender relationships. In the general mood of cultural
conservatism of the ’30s, there were women activists who preferred the
31. Cèza Nabaraoui (sic), Au Lendemain des élections, in «L’Egyptienne», Mars 1926; Ead..
Deux poids et deux Mésures, in «L’Egyptienne», Avril 1925.
32. Les Revendications des Dames Egyptiennes. This is a document which was presented to
the Parliament in June 1924, and which was published also in the first issue of «L’Egyptienne»,
February 1925, pp.8-11.
33. In October 1938 Huda Sha‘rawi organized the Eastern Women’s Conference for the
Defence of Palestine, and in 1944 the Feminist Arab Congress, where the Ittihad al-nisa’i alArabi al-‘amm (The Arab Feminist Union) was constituted. Badran, Feminists, Islam, Nation,
pp. 227-232.
34. Margot Badran, Independent Women. More than a Century of Feminism in Egypt, in
Ead., Feminism in Islam. Secular and Religious Convergences, Oxford, Oneworld Publications,
2009, p. 123.
35. The first cohort of women officially enrolled at Fu’ad I University (today Cairo
University) in 1929. The University’s Rector Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid, the mentor of a whole
generation of liberal intellectuals (including Taha Husayn and Mayy Ziyadah), was a strong
advocate of women’s education.
24
Islamist option to the liberal radical feminism of the Efu, as is illustrated
by the experience of Zainab al-Ghazali. Al-Ghazali, daughter of a
well-to-do merchant educated at al-Azhar, had entertained the idea of
becoming an Islamic leader since childhood.36 She lectured at the mosque
of Ibn Tulun, published a journal, and engaged in welfare activities.
She joined the Efu in 1935, but resigned one year later, and formed the
Muslim Women Society. This organisation only had a handful of women
who were traditionally religious, and who wanted to keep traditional
or conventional cultural practice. Al-Ghazali was a charismatic figure,
who proved to be brave and independent, both in her private and public
life, but she was not a feminist. Her society, which in 1946 allied with
the state-suppressed Muslim Brotherhood, became the Society of the
Muslim Sisters, advocated an Islamic State, adhering to an idea which,
per se, is incompatible with (secular) feminism. She was convinced that
this was the only way to pursue social justice. Indeed, her idea of gender
relationships was based on the principle of gender complementarity
within a patriarchal framework, not equality.
In the early ’40s, the failure of the Efu to enlarge its feminist base,
and to effectively open its ranks beyond its upper-class environment, to
include new highly-educated women with a middle-class background,
produced the multiplication of women’s political organizations with a
populist advocacy. Among them the Hizb al-nisa’i al-watani (National
Feminist Party, 1944), funded by the journalist Fatma Ni’mat Rachid,
and the Ittihad bint al-Nil (Daughters of the Nile Union, 1948), funded by
Duriya Shafiq. Differently from the Efu, these organizations, which were
founded by two of Huda Sha‘arawi’s pupils, were capable of mobilizing
middle-class women.37 In the mid ’40s, the Marxist painter and activist
Inji Aflatun appeared on the political scene, militating first at the Rabitat
fatayat al-jāmi’a wa al ma’āhid (The League of University and Institute’s
Women, 1945), and later in the Harakat ansar al-salam (Movement of the
Friends of Peace, 1950), a peace and anti-imperialist women’s movement
leaded by Aflatun and by Saiza Nabarawi, co-founder of the Efu.38
Evident ideological differences notwithstanding, it would be at best
inappropriate, to think of Egyptian religious and secular approaches to
gender in terms of a sharp divide between two fields. Prominent figures
36. Zainab al-Ghazali, Return of the Pharaon, Memoir in Nasir’s Prison, Leicester UK, The
Islamic Foundation, 1994.
37. Badran, Independent Women, pp. 125-127.
38. On Inji Aflatun see Giuseppe Contu, Le donne comuniste e il movimento democratico
femminile in Egitto fino al 1965, in «Oriente Moderno», 5/6 (1975), pp. 237-247.
25
that started their political activism as leftist secular women turned to
Islamism.39 In 1938 Zaynab al-Ghazali participated, alongside other
Egyptian delegates, in the Eastern Women’s Conference for the Defence
of Palestine, organized by Huda Sha‘rawi. The conference was widely
praised not only by secular, but also by the religious authorities.40 The
permeability between secular feminist and Islamist women’s activism
continues all through the XX century. The journalist and theatre critic
Safinaz Kazem for example, was a Marxist who, after a journey to
the United States and the political events of the late ’60s, turned to
Islamism.41 In her books and interviews in the ’80s and ’90s, she labels
the Efu as westernized and anti-Islamic, and she asserts that unveiling
is an aberration.42 At the dawn of the XXI century, Prof. Heba Rauf
Ezzat does not think of herself as a feminist, but she advocates women’s
participation in the political sphere. This has led scholars to consider her
part of a wide form of “gender activism”, a word which, in the Egyptian
context, refers to women’s political agency, transcending boundaries
between feminism and Islamism.43
Significantly, one of the challenges to feminism has been made by a
regime which presented itself as “revolutionary”. Under the leadership
of President Gamal Abd al-Nasser Egyptian women obtained universal
39. Shahnaz Khan, Muslim Women: Negotiations in the Third Space, in «Signs», 23/2
(1998), pp. 463-494; Sophie Latte Abdallah, Les féminismes islamiques au tournant du xxie siècle,
in «Revue des mondes musulmanes et de la Méditerranée», 128 (2010), pp. 13-31.
40. Margot Badran underlined that on this occasion, feminist and Islamist women launched
a joint appeal to women’s political participation in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Badran,
Feminists, Islam, Nation, p. 229.
41. An exhaustive study of the life and the literary production of the prolific journalist and
literary critic Safinaz Kazem has not yet undertaken. An informative biographical essay has been
written by Amira Howeydi, Safynaz Kazem. Born into the Wild, in «Al-Ahram Weekly online»,
461, 23-29 December 1999. (http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/1999/461/profile.htm, last access: April
6, 2013). Part of Safinaz Kazem’s memoirs and the letters she wrote from New York (1964-1966)
are published in her book Romantikiyat (Romantic Writings), Cairo, Dar al-Hilal, 1970. Her life
is featured also in the documentary Four Women of Egypt by Tahani Rached (ed. orig. Quatre
Femmes d’Egypte, Canada and Egypt, 1997), where her experience intersects those of Amina
Rachid, Shahenda Maklad and Wedad Mitry. The documentary narrates the story of friendship
between these four political activists: Muslim, Christian, or non-religious, they all experienced
political imprisonment and repression in 1981, under Sadat’s regime. Nawara Nejm, the only
daughter of Safinaz Kazem and the famous poet Ahmed Fuad al-Nejm, appears towards the end of
the documentary, suggesting a sense of continuity among generations. Nawara was born in 1973
and today she is a blogger, a journalist, and a political activist.
42. Margot Badran, Gender Activism: Feminists and Islamists in Egypt, in Feminism in
Islam. Secular and Religious Convergences, edited by Ead., Oxford, Oneworld Publications, 2009,
p. 149.
43. Badran, Gender Activism, p. 141.
26
suffrage (1956), and a whole generation took advantage of the social
and educational policies promoted by the regime, which also promoted
a new icon of “revolutionary womanhood”.44 Simultaneously the spaces
for independent political action were silenced: the Efu shut down, and
vocal independent feminists such as Duriya Shafik, reduced to silence.45
The polarization between the secular and the religious field has
been stressed by the rising Islamist movement from the ’70s and ’80s,
which aimed to monopolize gender discourses, and labelled feminism
as anti-Islamic. This results today in a problematic approach to the
idea of feminism itself. The ’80s were years when a new generation
of women, the daughters of second wave feminism, appeared on the
scene. Young and highly educated, with international networks and
high levels of specialization in the field of social sciences, these women
would have been ready (and willing) to contribute to the growth of the
country. This generation of feminists has been crushed between two
powers. On one side, the regime stopped every independent initiative
and appropriated “gender issues” under its name. On the other side, the
Islamist opposition has been effective in mobilizing the lower classes,
to which the discourse of women international technocrats appears alien
in terms of class and culture. In this context, the Jam‘iyyat Tadamun
al-Mar’a al-’Arabiyya (Arab Women’s Solidarity Association, Awsa),
founded in 1985 by the internationally acclaimed writer Nawal elSaadawi, is the most outspoken against women’s sexual oppression.46
As was the case for the Efu in the ’20s, when liberal radical feminists
fought against indigenous and colonial patriarchal oppression, Awsa
in the ’80s contested both indigenous (secular and religious) and
imperialist oppression. In the ’90s, the academic sphere has also
proven to be successful in maintaining alive independent feminism.
In this respect, the activities of the Al Mar’a wa al-Dhakira/Women
and Memory Forum, an Ngo of women historians based in Cairo since
1995, appear particularly successful.47
44. Laura Bier, Revolutionary Womanhood. Feminisms, Modernity and the State in Nasser’s
Egypt, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2011.
45. Cynthia Nelson, Doria Shafik. Egyptian Feminist, Cairo, The American University in
Cairo Press, 1996.
46. Nahid Toubia, Challenges Facing the Arab Woman at the End of the 20th Century. 1987,
in Badran, Cooke, Opening the Gates, pp. 366-371.
47. Women and Memory Forum is an Ngo of women academics, researchers, and activists
who advocate and promote the integration of gender as a category of analysis in the study and
interpretation of Arab history and the social sciences in general. Founded in 1995, its library, staff
and activities (conferences and publications) represent a point of reference for women and gender
27
The intersection between intellectual and political activism,
involving women and men, both in separate and in shared spaces, is
deeply rooted in modern Egyptian history, and it represents an important
line of continuity in the passage between the XX and the XXI century.
The diverse forms of independent feminism which Egyptian women
have experienced all along the XX century, form the background of the
2011 Revolution, and of women’s contribution to it.
3. Burdens of history in contemporary women’s activism
Since autumn 2010, the prominent writer and feminist activist
Nawal el-Saadawi has received young people into her home, creating
a space of discussion, mainly devoted to her writings. The group is
relatively small, about 25 people, living in different neighbourhoods
of Cairo. Although they come from diverse social backgrounds, they
are all university-educated and in their twenties. Among them there
are aspiring writers. These students show enthusiasm for Nawal elSaadawi’s books, the analysis of which is one of the main foci of the
meetings. This is a space where literature mediates wider discourses
on citizenship, equality and social justice, as in the earlier Egyptian
modern tradition, but differences between this activity and early XX
century salons are significant. The discussion today happens in a social
context that has been deeply changed by a century of feminist activism,
and where women enjoy political rights; they have equal access to
education, and can influence the public debate on gender.
On March 1, 2011 the group, which decided to not register at the
Ministry of Social Affairs, named itself Ittihad al-Mar’a and translated
it as Egyptian Women’s Union (Ewu).48 The Statement of the Ewu
emphasizes the revolutionary agency of Egyptian women in 2011, despite
their exclusion from political activities in the immediate aftermath of
the revolution.49 Neglecting to recognize women’s contribution to the
historians whose research is focused in the Arab world. http://www.wmf.org.eg/ (last access: May
6, 2013).
48. The statement is published in Arabic and in English. The English version is more
detailed: http://www.nawalsaadawi.net (last access: September 28, 2012). Not to be confused
with the Ittihad al-Nisa’i al-Misri, translated with Egyptian Feminist Union, which was launched
in June 2011 and whose president is Huda Badran. The name is an explicit reference to Huda
Sha‘rawi’s organization (1923-1956).
49. See Statement of the Egyptian Women’s Union (Ewu) Cairo March 1, 2011. Ibidem.
28
political change has historical precedence, and not only in Egypt.50
This already occurred in the early ’20s, when the electoral law of
the new independent State limited suffrage to men. At that time, the
Egyptian Feminist Union protested against this injustice. Today, the
exclusion de facto of half of the population from representative bodies,
notwithstanding equality on paper, is still a concern for a number of
women’s organizations in Egypt. These organisations have published
documents lamenting the attitude of ignoring women’s representation in
the Cabinet, of neglecting women’s issues in general, and marginalizing
them at the level of decision making:
The Egyptian Coalition of Feminist Organizations considers the absence of
women ministers in the new Cabinet reshuffle unacceptable and unfitting of a
revolutionary government that should represent the interests of all the people
holding sit-ins in the central squares around the country during the second wave
of the revolution. It is, moreover, an absence that breaches the principles of
citizenship, equality, and social justice, which form the governing foundations of
Egypt in the light of our glorious revolution.
It is in this context that the Egyptian Coalition of Feminist Organizations asserts
that the absence of women from leadership and decision-making positions is
no longer acceptable, especially at the present historical moment. Women are
partners in this country, and they have an absolute right to participate in making,
implementing and monitoring the policies that concern their lives.51
The statement of the Ewu also underlines the need for unity
within the women’s movement, a unity which has been contained
and co-opted by the State, mainly through the National Council of
Women, and its President Suzanne Mubarak, using the principle of
“divide and rule”. In the last decades of the regime, the ruling elites
tried to appropriate gender politics, while women and men activists
experienced a growing feeling of alienation from formal institutions
and from their agenda. In this context, feminism was perceived by
the majority of the population as an elitist movement, and accused
of being incapable of producing grassroots activities. Although this
50. In a recent article, the feminist philosopher Geneviève Fraisse see an analogy between
the 2011 Arab Revolutions and the history of western democracies «not keen on synchronizing
gender equality with the revolutionary dynamic»: Geneviève Fraisse, La Fabrique du féminisme,
Paris, Le Passager Clandestin, 2011, p. 9.
51. “Ignoring Women is Unacceptable Particularly at this Critical Stage of our National
History”. Statement by the Feminist Coalition on September 14, 2011 and signed by The Egyptian
Association for Community Participation Enhancement, The Women and Memory Forum, Nazra
for Feminist Studies, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and by Appropriate Communication
Techniques for Development. In http://www.nwrcegypt.org/en/ (last access: May 6, 2013).
29
was not always the case, and the reality is much more nuanced, this
perception is widespread among young activists, and it partially
explains their reticence to use the word “feminism”.
Indeed, the Ewu advocates an agenda which is focused on the
principles of the revolution: freedom, equality, justice and dignity. In
their vision these goals can be achieved only within the framework
of a democratic and secular state. This has always been the stand of
feminism in Egypt. This strong focus on secularism is stressed also
in the interviews I conducted with young members of the group, who
conceive of secularism as opposed to any kind of religious-oriented
political commitment, including Islamic feminism. The following quote
shows the confusion about Islamic feminism, which is often confused
with “Islamist feminism” (a word which, if equality is part of any kind
of feminism, is an oxymoron). Indeed, this reveals a position, and a
poor knowledge of both secular and Islamic feminism.
Actually, I don’t think Islam can be included under feminism, as Islam has never
given rights to women, it is very illogical [...]. Men are undoubtedly the superior
ones, even in the Bible and Judaism [....]. Last time I met el-Saadawi we had a
discussion about Islamic feminism. She thought there is not even something that
can be called as such. She thinks one has to have a human rights background to get
liberated. And not even Christian feminism ... I guess as the Egyptian Women’s
Union we can have an Islamic approach among the masses in some areas as that
would help us, but not as a mainstream approach.52
Nawal el-Saadawi’s secular feminism can be understood if we
situate it within her intellectual biography. Born in the delta city of
Tanta, she describes her family as both traditional and strongly
supportive of her studies. In a period when the State encouraged
mass higher education, she graduated in medicine and specialized in
psychiatry.53 Combining professional and writing skills, grassroots and
intellectual advocacy, she gave voice to women’s hidden psychological
pain, which she attributed to sexual oppression,54 and through her
novels she courageously challenged cultural taboos (namely the triad
of sex, religion, and politics).55 Nawal el-Saadawi was a Director
52. Author’s interview to two members of the Ewu, Cairo, November 30, 2011.
53. Nawal el-Saadawi, A Daughter of Isis. The autobiography of Nawal el-Saadawi,
London, Zed Books, 1999 (It. transl.Una Figlia di Iside, Roma, Nutrimenti, 2002).
54. Nawal el-Saadawi, The Hidden Face of Eve, London, Zed Books, 1980 (ed. orig. Cairo
1977).
55. See in particular Nawal el-Saadawi, Woman at point Zero, London, Zed Books, 1983
(ed. orig. Cairo 1975. It. transl. Firdaus. Storia di una donna egiziana, Firenze, Giunti, 1986);
Ead., God Dies by the Nile, London, Zed Books, 1985 (ed. orig. Beirut 1984. It. transl. Dio muore
30
General of the Health Education Department at the Ministry of Health,
a position she held from 1966 to 1972, when her career was interrupted
in the aftermath of her book Al-Mar’a wa al-jins (Woman and Sex,
1972), a book which inaugurated the “second wave” of feminism in
Egypt. Nawal el-Saadawi’s writings addressed all form of patriarchal
oppressions. She has been vocal against Sadat’s authoritarianism, and
therefore imprisoned alongside other activists in 1981,56 against the
spread of liberal imperialism, and against Islamic fundamentalism.
In her view, these three factors were all related and contributed
to women’s subjugation. There is no doubt that her writings have
inspired generations of Arab feminists. She has also been successful
in developing a wide international network, becoming one of the main
actors of “second wave international sisterhood,” and contributing to
world awareness of Arab women’s political agency.
To understand “secular feminism” we need a contextualized
definition of the word “secular” itself, which is also a volatile term, the
meaning of which shifts in different historical moments.57 As discussed in
the previous pages, in the early ’20s, when the first feminist organization
was created in Egypt, “secular feminism” did not imply a rejection of
religion, but more a separation between the two spheres. It is only in
the late ’70s that “secular” develops the connotation of “anti-religious.”
Indeed, “secular feminism” was not the only option available to Egyptian
youth in the past, and it is not the only option today.
Other Egyptian feminist intellectuals, such as Professor Omaima
Abou Bakr, along with her comrades in the Women and Memory Forum,
and the American-Egyptian historian Margot Badran, are exploring,
from different disciplinary perspectives, the idea of engaging in a
feminist hermeneutic of religious texts, with the goal of overcoming
the burdens imposed on women not by Islamic religion, but by the
interpretation of Islam produced by patriarchal cultures.58
sulle rive del Nilo, Torino, Eurostudio, 1989); and Ead., The Fall of the Imam, London, Minerva,
1989. Among the numerous studies about Nawal el-Saadawi’s literary production see Fedwa
Malti Douglas, Men, Women and God(s). Nawal el-Saadawi and Arab Feminist Poetics, Berkley,
University of California Press, 1995.
56. This experience is narrated in Memoirs from a Women’s Prison, Berkeley, University of
California Press, 1994 (ed. orig. Cairo 1983).
57. For a sophisticated and comprehensive analysis of the topic in the history of Muslim
majority societies see Giorgio Vercellin, Istituzioni del mondo musulmano, Milano, Einaudi, 1996.
58. Omaima Abou-Bakr, Teaching the Words of the Prophet: Women Instructors of the
Hadith (Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries), in «Hawwa: Journal of the Middle East and the
Islamic World», I/3 (2003), pp. 306-328; Badran, Feminism in Islam. Women and Memory
31
This intellectual vision has been translated into grassroots activities
by the prolific Ngo Nazra for Feminist Studies, operating both in Cairo
and elsewhere in Egypt on a wide range of gender issues since 2007.59
In a passionate discussion about feminism in Egypt today, a prominent
member of the Ngo explains:
Islamic feminism thinks that religious things have just been misread because of
the misrepresentation of males, and the hegemony of male faqi’ or scholars are the
only ones to approach and produce Islamic knowledge, and that’s why I think that
Islamic feminism can be crucial in the current situation, as it will offer another alternative discourse, different from Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim
feminists in fact still see Islam as something that paves the way to egalitarianism
and equality for women.60
Egyptian Islamic feminists go even further, displaying a
sophisticated vision about gender, Islam and politics. To the question of
whether Islamic feminism reflects a strategic approach to gender issues,
the answer is sharp:
Yes, because people are a lot into religion right now, so if you offer them a very
progressive interpretation that respects women and equality and celebrates egalitarianism, I think people would accept it.61
The dilemma of religion versus secularism is problematic,
especially when the discussion comes to gender. Women’s organizations
and political movements, such as those mentioned in the previous
pages, have resolved it in different ways throughout the XX century,
generally privileging pragmatic and strategic approaches. To be aware
of the plurality of discourses in the past can perhaps allow a better
understanding of the complexity of the present.
Today, members of the Ngo Nazra for Feminist Studies do not
hesitate to produce a public discourse on feminism. They openly
address a wide variety of issues, ranging from political representation,
stereotypes of masculinity, and violence. A feminist approach is
taken also by Al-Mar’a al-Jadida (New Woman Foundation, Nwf), an
organization which has existed since 2006, with committees in six Arab
countries other than Egypt (Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain, Syria,
Tunisia), and whose work is focused on amending laws and labour
Forum has recently organized an international conference on Islamic feminism: New Horizons of
Knowledge and Reform (Cairo, November 17-18, 2012).
59. http://nazra.org/en (last access: April 6, 2012).
60. Author’s interview, Al-Nazra, Centre for Feminist Studies, Cairo, December 4, 2011.
61. Ibidem.
32
policies. The Nwf addresses governmental politics, and it cooperates
also with feminist organizations in the Asia and Pacific region, such
as International Women’s Rights Action Watch (Iwraw). Nwf is also
part of the Coalition for Equality and Preservation, which works on
mechanisms to apply the Cedaw convention, and on the Universal
Periodic Review, which addressed women’s rights as human rights.
During a long conversation with two prominent members of Nwf,
two elements of criticism emerged with regards to contemporary
feminism. The first concern regards the development of the Personal
Status Law. At the time of our conversation there were rumours that a
sound, although ameliorable, law, the result of decades of lobbying by
women’s organizations, might be amended, on the pretext that it was a
legacy of the Mubarak regime. The comment of Nwf members on this
matter is unequivocal: «It is an attempt to use the anger that everyone is
feeling against the former regime and to abuse it to achieve something
else, and bring women’s rights back to serve their interests».62
Nwf, like other women’s organizations who were active in the
’90s, defines itself in opposition to the National Council for Women,
the governmental institution presided by Susanne Mubarak. As the
following quote illustrates, the narrative of the problematic relationship
between the vibrant women’s civil society and the institution which,
on paper, was devoted to promote it, but which in fact recruited
professionals only through the regime’s co-optation, recurs in all the
interviews, and the frustration for the wasted years is evident among
women who were active in the ’80s and the ’90s:
The National Council for Women was always in competition with the civil
society organizations and in general it represents the government for Ngos, and
the Ncw has always seen Ngos as working with politics, and always as a source of
embarrassment in the international arena, when it comes to governmental practices
concerning human rights and women’s rights. So, the National Council has always
preserved Ngos and somehow they tried to nationalize their activities.63
4. Feminism: just a name?
In this context, where feminism has a historical tradition and it is
part of the contemporary public debate, it seems striking that one of
62. Author’s interview, Nwc, Cairo, December 5, 2011.
63. Ibidem. After a long negotiation the National Council for Women has been restored. Its
new President is Mervat Tallawi, former diplomat and former Minister of Insurance and Social
Affairs from 1997 to 1999, in http://www.ncwegypt.com/index.php/en/ (last access: April 6, 2013).
33
the most outspoken advocates of Arab feminism, Nawal el-Saadawi,
does not use “feminism” in the name of her association, even though
the basic principles advocated by herself and her young pupils focus on
gender equality. One of them, when replying to a direct question about
the name, said:
For example, if you say to a guy in the street that you are from the Egyptian
Women’s Union, he wouldn’t listen to you either; if you identify yourself in a
good way in the association you are working for, you would not be accepted. Not
as Egyptian and not even as a feminist. So there is also discrimination against
men, by using the term “feminist”, this is the common perception. And all the
laws we have now are connected to Suzanne Mubarak, like el-khula, and the issue
of children after divorce etc.64
From this interview, the reasons for the reluctance to publicly
affirm feminism seem to be pragmatic. This did not happen in the ’20s,
when the first generation of feminists emerged, nor in the ’70s, but it
was already a common attitude in the ‘90s.65
The situation today is extremely fluid, and there are still a number
of activists and organizations who are proud to claim their unequivocal
feminism. The point that we should not overlook is that today the word
“feminism” provokes at best mixed feelings and that, in this respect,
there is a big difference between what is happening currently and what
was happening at the dawn of the XX century. At that time, there was
no corresponding word in Arabic for “feminism”, but the Arabic nisa’i
and the French féminisme were used without hesitation, when it came
to advocating gender equality.
Today, at least within certain circles, it seems more strategic to avoid
explicit use of the word. While Nawal el-Saadawi, an intellectual who
has challenged both indigenous religious conservatism and international
capitalist imperialism, never hesitates to refer to herself, among other
things, as a feminist, the young women and men who gather around
her prefer not to challenge the general sentiment against the word, and
renounce a name which carries more stigma than it affords agency.
The word “feminism” sounds alien to these young activists, worse, it is
sometimes associated with the Mubarak family’s regime. Overall, the idea
that feminism – in itself an emancipating ideology – has been hijacked by
the regime, and in particular by the former first lady, Suzanne Mubarak,
is shared, at different levels, by many segments of women’s associations.
64. Author’s interview to a member of the Egyptian Women’s Union, November 30, 2011.
65. Badran, Gender Activism, p. 145.
34
In the first years of the 2000s, Egyptian feminist scholars appeared
critical towards the state of feminism in their own country. Samia Mehrez
denounced the difficulty of discussing gender issues, as they were framed in
the international intellectual arena, in Arabic. In particular, she underlined
the double burden on contemporary Egyptian feminism: the patronizing
politics of the State (at that time embodied by Hosni Mubarak), and
Islamist discourse.66 Another criticism came from the political economist
Rabab el-Mahdi, who questioned the notion of the feminist movement
itself, arguing that political fragmentation and class stratification has
not allowed the development of a truly feminist movement in Egypt.67
These comments were written a few years before the 2011 revolution,
in a climate of repression, despair, and underground opposition. Today,
the discourse has shifted towards new themes. The main question is no
longer whether there is a feminist movement in Egypt, but what new
forum might be found for a renovated feminist activism. This question
will constitute the focus of the last part of this article.
5. Gendering the Egyptian Revolution
The history of Egyptian feminism shows that feminism challenges
the patriarchal order, i.e. challenges power relations based on a system
of symbols that values masculinity and primogeniture. Working from
this assumption, I will now consider the ways in which the Egyptian
revolution is also a feminist revolution. This does not mean that its
protagonists have made gender equality a priority. On the contrary:
the young women of Tahrir Square, for the most part, do not refer to
any of the Egyptian and international feminist theory in their policy
formulations, and do not seem to share their mothers’ view.
I prefer to believe in the human rights issue than in the feminist issue. And for me
it is not a priority because it is a bit… I see it as a human issue instead, and not
specifically women… I know that lots of them suffered a lot, lack of education
and so on, but it is the whole system that needs to be changed.68
The young women who took part in the occupations, in the
collectives, and in the revolutionary committees of the 2011 Revolution
66. Samia Mehrez, Translating Gender, in «Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies», 3/1
(2007), pp. 106-127.
67. Rabab el-Mahdi, A Feminist Movement in Egypt? in «Political and Social Protest in
Egypt», 2 (2009), pp. 117-134.
68. Author’s interview to a member of the Popular Committee to Defend the Revolution,
Cairo, December 5, 2011.
35
were not acting in the name of gender equality, but in the name of the
goals that they shared with all the protesters: freedom, dignity and
social justice. Ahdaf Soueif has grasped this emancipated post-feminist
attitude from the beginning:
[…] here in Egypt today, we are engaged in an experiment, which is benign,
which is civil, which is modern, which is young, which is optimistic, which is
inclusive, and which will be a wonderful model for the world. And I think we are
doing something that is good for the entire world, not just for us Egyptians […].
This movement does not see gender as an issue. Women are citizens, just like men
are. And a lot of girls, a lot of young women will tell you that, for the first time in
years, they feel that they are not objectified as sexual objects in this space. This
is the first time in a very long time that young women have been in the streets
without any danger of harassment. And what is happening is that our young men,
who have a certain amount of machismo – and of course young men have to have
machismo – their machismo is now channelled in the right direction: they are here
to regain their country, and they’re here to protect anybody who is weaker. And
you see them. You see them sweeping the streets. You see them handing out food
and water. You see them forming human chains to block the militias of thugs that
our government is turning loose on us. And so, the young men have found a way
to express their manhood, which is benign, and we are safe here.69
However, most of the young women who were part of the 2011
Revolution are aware that this experience has changed their lives forever.
By taking to the streets, these young women have disobeyed70 three sets
of authority: they disobeyed the president (whose paternalistic tones
encouraged young people to return home), the army, and their parents.
I used to have very bad fights with them, my brother and my dad. I got back home
at 9am and there was no mobile phone, they couldn’t reach me anywhere during
the day, and they had just seen on TV that the army was in the street… and this
had never happened before, because during the revolution they lost control of me
totally for the first time. It was a kind of personal revolution as well.71
Focusing on young women’s narratives of the Egyptian Revolution,
we can understand the bond between their “personal revolution” and
the wider revolution occurring. The “personal revolution” which
69. “People Have Found Their Voice”: Acclaimed Egyptian Writer Ahdaf Soueif on the
Egyptian Uprising, interview to Ahdaf Soueif by Sharif Abdel Kuddous, in «Democracy Now»,
February 10, 2011, in http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/2/10/people_have_found_their_
voice_acclaimed_egyptian_writer_ahdaf_soueif_on_the_egyptian_uprising (last access: April 5,
2013).
70. The choice of this verb is deliberate. It functions as a means of stressing the patriarchal
structure in which these young women performed their transgression.
71. Author’s interview to an activist of the popular Committee to Defend the Revolution.
36
recurs in the words of the courageous young women who challenged
the three above-mentioned patriarchal institutions (the State, the
Army, and the family), in order to change both their public and their
private destiny, is indeed the thawra insaniya (the human revolution)
to which Egyptian intellectuals refer when they discuss the ongoing
cultural process in Egypt.
After this initiation into disobedience, Egypt cannot go
backwards. Old taboos have been challenged, for example, women
who were raped and harassed reported the facts, instead of hiding
themselves for fear of losing their “honor”. New behaviors and new
practices are not the extemporaneous result of the revolution. They
have been catalyzed by the Revolution, and are the result of a century
of feminism. A history which, perhaps, is not well known outside
the widening circle of feminist historians, but which has allowed,
generation after generation, the spread of new social practices, and
new sensibilities.
These new sensibilities were demonstrated dramatically in a
video posted on YouTube by Asma’ Mahfouz. In the video, Mahfouz,
a young veiled woman of the April 6 movement,72 encouraged her
fellow citizens to take to the streets on January 25: «If you consider
yourself a man, come with me on January 25. Instead of saying that
women should not come, because they will be beaten, let’s show a bit
of honor, be men, come with me on January 25».73 Who is this girl,
and what does her face tell us about the landscape of contemporary
Egyptian youth?
Although she is perhaps one of the most famous young Egyptian
women internationally, Mahfouz is not an exception in the landscape
of Egyptian youth activism.74 Before the Revolution, she was not
72. The April 6 Movement was established in 2008 to support the workers in the industrial
town of Mahalla al-Kubra, who were planning to strike on April 6. It played a crucial role in
the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. See Gennaro Gervasio, Egitto: una rivoluzione annunciata, in Le
Rivoluzioni arabe, a cura di Francesca Maria Corrao, Milano, Mondadori, 2011, pp.134-161.
73. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgjIgMdsEuk (last access: April 6, 2013).
74. In November 2012 I had the privilege of presenting a paper on Gender Agency and
Creativity in the Revolutionary Egyptian History at the International Symposium on Comparative
Literature, Creativity and Revolution (Cairo, November 13-15, 2012). During an informal and
friendly conversation, a colleague from Cairo University politely pointed out that he does not agree
with my interpretation of Asma’ Mahfuz’s speech. He found her tone aggressive towards men, and
he would have found a more inclusive call to the women and men of Egypt more appropriate in
the spirit of the 2011 Revolution. I would like to take the opportunity to thank my colleague for
his thought-provoking remark, and I am looking forward to further developing the analysis, also
taking into consideration men’s perception and the performance of gender in the revolution.
37
politicized, and she was not part of a traditional formal organization (the
April 6 movement is an informal movement). Mahfouz is part of a group
of young people, moving outside the precincts of ideologies. She wears
the scarf, like many young women who filled Tahrir Square, but her scarf
does not forbid her to stand up for the revolution.75 She uses the key
words of the revolution: “dignity” and “social justice”. She says several
times kifaya, which means “enough”, and it is the name of the social
movement which, since 2004, has given voice to the discontentment
of the Egyptian people.76 More importantly, she appropriates the words
of patriarchal culture: “honor”, “manhood”, “protection”, and she reinvents them to claim her right, as a young Egyptian woman, to join the
protests. This action of appropriation and re-invention of the words of the
oppressor – in this case, patriarchal authoritarianism – by the dissident is
also part of Egyptian feminist heritage. The re-appropriation of the public
space by Egyptian women is also in continuity with their participation
to the workers’ movement for labor rights in the early 2000s, where,
as highlighted by Tara Povey in her recent study, women challenged
government’s propaganda, that stated that it was shameful for Muslim
women strikers to sleep in the streets.77
The main contribution of feminism to Egyptian culture has been the
capacity to challenge patriarchal institutions, and to promote women’s
emancipation. Nawal el-Saadawi relates this art to creativity, and she
explains that the creative word is intrinsically dissident; dissident
authors can use the languages of imperialism and oppression, forging
them into instruments of liberation.78 The young women I interviewed
in November 2011 used the word “utopia” to refer to the 18 days of
Tahrir Square:
Those eighteen days were just utopia I have to say, everything was just perfect,
women were treated in an equal way. Also my friend had issues with harassment
during the demonstration, not during the eighteen days. I have to tell you that
75. In her most recent book, Leila Ahmed suggests a complex approach to the headscarf,
suggesting that, where and when it is a free choice, the veil does not matter. Leila Ahmed, A
Quiet Revolution: The Veil’s Resurgence, from the Middle East to America, Yale, Yale University
Press, 2011.
76. For a study of social movements between 1998 and 2008 see Joel Benin, Workers’ Protest
in Egypt: Neo-liberalism and Class Struggle in 21st century, in «21st Century, Social Movement
Studies: Journal of Social, cultural and Political Protest», 8/4 (2009), pp. 449-454.
77. Tara Povey, Voices of Dissent: Social Movements and Political Change in Egypt, in
Muslim Secular Democracy, edited by Lily Zubaidah Rahim, New York, Pallgrave Macmillan,
2013, pp. 233-252.
78. Nawwal el-Saadawi, The Nawal el Saadawi reader, London, Zed Books, 1997, p. 157.
38
before the revolution the idea of harassment was everywhere, and it wasn’t
just harassment by the people, but harassment by the State. I never forgot the
demonstration in Alex that was by socialist journalist women in 2008, as far as I
remember, and they were in the streets, and the State sent many [thugs] to harass
women inside the demonstration. And it was very brave, instead of standing
or hiding, women were there in front of international cameras, all the media
were there, and that was like to say «this is what Mubarak is doing to us». It
was very brave at that time, and many classes started then to train you how to
defend yourself when you get harassed and so on, at the beginning the idea of the
harassment and the square was not typical, as it was something new.79
What constituted utopia in the eyes of these young women was
also the management of the square through direct participation (there
were no leaders, decisions were made together), the public space was
kept in order through a distribution of tasks, the street children of
Wust al-Balad had poured into the square, where they found people
who took care of them, fed them, clothed them, and offered them a
tent in which to sleep. In this context, women felt safe and most of
them refer to the square as «the safest place in Egypt they have ever
experienced». Subsequently there have been several attempts to hijack
the Revolution, and significantly, once again in the history of Egypt,
women and women’s bodies can be found at the edge of these attempts.
In the memory of activists from different generations, social and
cultural backgrounds, and political affiliations, the events of March
2011 represent a shock. Overall, March is an important month in
Egyptian women’s memory. In March 1919 women joined anti-British
demonstrations, and on March 14 Hamidah Khalil, “a woman of the
people”, became the first woman martyr «when she fell to a British bullet
in front of the Husayn Mosque in the old city».80 On March 16, 1923
Huda Sha‘rawi founded the Egyptian Feminist Union. Twenty years
later the feminist activist Duriya Shafik wrote about the importance of
this date in Egyptian women’s cultural imaginary: «This day marks an
unforgettable date, not only in the history of women’s progress, but in
the whole of the history of Egypt: this is the date of women claiming
their rights. This claim came from women themselves, and in this lays
its strong originality».81
79. Author’s interview to a Lawyer of Alnakib, Center for Training & Democracy Support.
80. Badran, Feminists, Islam, Nation, p. 75.
81. Doria Shafik, La femme nouvelle, Cairo, E&R. Shindler, 1944, p. 50. Duriya Shafik is
considered the most impressive exponent of Egyptian liberal feminism. She was a strong advocate
of women’s political rights, a poet and a journalist. She was awarded the Doctorat d’état in
39
In the late ’70s, celebrations for International Women’s Day (March
8) were added to the traditional Egyptian Women’s Day (March 16)
in compliance with the gradual alignment of the Egyptian republican
government with the demands by international organizations to fill the
gender gap. The two dates were not conceived in opposition, but in
continuity, and public events were organized during the whole week.
However, independent women’s organizations, which especially in the
’90s were subjected to harsh pressures, were alienated by the formal
events organized by governmental bodies.
In 2011 spontaneous women’s movements tried to reappropriate
March 8 and they organized a rally. Unfortunately, they were harassed
by passers-by, with the tacit approval of the army, who did not intervene
against the harassers.
[…] if you’ve seen the demonstration on March 8 of the women, they have been
attacked, and I was there, and there was there the TV and everything, and some
girls were harassed, some girls were beaten by men that were there… [they
were] not a lot, around five hundreds, one-thousand maximum. But there were a
lot of international media there, and that’s why lots of people said «those women are foreigners, they are not Egyptians». It was not organized in a correct way,
the march started at 3pm, 4pm, and the attack started at 5pm. At the beginning it
was just strong arguments, and then it really happened in a very strong way, and
someone got harassed and also some friends of mine […]. There was a woman
that came there to me and asked me if I was able to cook, and saying like «are
you kidding me? It is not allowed to a woman to become a president, this is
haram, this is forbidden, this is taboo», and they even got me some other women
saying «this is the woman that is in Egypt, you are not Egyptian», I don’t have
anything Egyptian? I am totally Egyptian, black and brown… and so they told
me «but you are a cultural woman from a high class and you don’t represent the
majority of the Egyptian women…».82
On March 9, seventeen activists were arrested, held in the
Egyptian Museum, and those who were unmarried among them were
forced to take a so-called virginity test. The activists interpreted this
as an act of violence against people who want institutional change in
philosophy at La Sorbonne in 1940, with a thesis on La Femme et le droit religieux dans l’Egypte
contemporaine. A pupil of Huda Sha‘rawi, she funded the Ittihad Bint al-Nil (The Daughter of
the Nile’s Union) in 1948. The organization collapses in 1956, when the new constitution grants
women the vote, but all the voluntary and private organizations are suppressed. State co-opts
women’s voluntary associations, placing them under Ministry of Social Affairs. The biography of
Duriya Shafik in the context of XX century Egyptian political history has been written by Nelson,
Doria Shafik.
82. Author’s interview to a Lawyer of Alnakib, Center for Training & Democracy Support.
40
Egypt. I would argue that it is coherent with traditional institutional
attitudes to attack women, in order to discredit the Revolution.83 Only
one of the seventeen women, who experienced this violence, reported
it and lodged a lawsuit. Her name is Samira Ibrahim. Samira obtained
the solidarity of her peers, and of women’s associations. One of the
members of the Committee to defend the Revolution told me that,
among the reasons for this widespread solidarity, there is the fact that
she appears as an «ordinary young woman»: a student from Upper
Egypt, wearing the scarf, non-English-speaking. Samira Ibrahim’s
story is among those narrated in Cairo’s walls, where feminist graffiti
denounce the neglect of her case by international, which instead
covered the story of Alia Mahdi, the artist who uploaded on her blog
a naked picture of herself.
Samira Ibrahim: 25 years old. She was stripped and forcefully given a virginity testing
in front of military officers and soldiers. She vowed not to stay silent and pursued legal
action against them. No attention, no public interest, no media coverage, no one cares.
Aliaa El Mahdy. 20 years old. Stripped and revealed her whole body of her own
free will, media and public went crazy, her nude photo was viewed almost 3 million times and no less than 50 articles and several TV shows about her.
A salute of respect to Samira Ibrahim, daughter of Upper Egypt.84
The Revolution mobilized new forces: youth who were not
politicized, today are aware of politics. Young women who were not
involved in feminist organizations (for social and cultural reasons,
or because of political restrictions), are mobilized today within
anti-violence movements, and they adopt the practices promoted by
the feminist movement, even if they give it another name. All the
young women I met in Cairo in December 2012 deeply sympathized
with Samira Ibrahim, while expressed unanimous criticism against
Alia Mahdi’s performance.85 If Samira and her parents had behaved
according to “traditional” canons, they would have been too ashamed
to report the incident. Instead, they are claiming justice, the same
justice which is claimed by the Revolution.
83. Rape as a political weapon has been used in history since Greek and Roman times.
Examples range from the classic “Rape of the Sabines” in Roman history, to contemporary wars in
Bosnia, and in Ruanda, to give just a few examples.
84. Suzeeinthecity, A Tribute to Women of Egypt, January 7, 2013, in http://suzeeinthecity.
wordpress.com/2013/01/07/ (last access: April 6, 2013).
85. For an early analysis of the affaire see Sara Salem, Femen’s Neocolonial Feminism:
When Nudity Becomes a Uniform, in «Al-Akhbar English», 26 December 2012, in http://english.
al-akhbar.com/node/14494 (last access: May 6, 2013).
41
The will to rebel against gender violence is a leitmotif in
Egyptian feminist history. Since the beginning, Egyptian feminism
has challenged both local and colonial patriarchal violence. Then,
after 1956, when citizenship was granted to women, at least on paper,
second-wave feminists denounced the sexual violence suffered by
women in the private and the public sphere. The most outspoken
writer was Nawal el-Saadawi, but several Ngos have been working on
the ground since the late ’80s. Among them, al-Mar’a al-Gadida/ The
New Women Foundation (Nwf), which is also part of an international
network, and al-Nadeem, an Ngo supporting the victims of torture.
Today, women’s discourse against violence is multileveled, and it
includes all the new citizens of Egypt.
6. Conclusions
This study is part of a broader analysis of feminist discourse in
Egypt today, and its impact on the interaction between politics and
culture in Egyptian society. It has illustrated that the revolution in Egypt
continues (al-thawra mustamirra). It continues in the form of a human
revolution (thawra insaniya), and it aims at formulating new gender
relationships.
The dawn of Egyptian feminism in the ’20s was grounded in
women’s intellectual activism in the last decades of the XIX century.
It flourished in the context of the anti-British nationalism in the ’20s,
and after an underground phase, which lasted for about twenty years
after women obtained suffrage, it developed into a second wave in the
’70s. The nexus between feminism and politics in the XX century has
also been problematic. The link with nationalism, the appropriation
of gender politics by the State, the limiting of gender discourse to
themes of development and family did not benefit feminism, which,
instead, has found a more conducive space in the intellectual sphere,
in universities, and in the arts.
In Egypt, women’s activism did not start with the 2011 uprisings.
On the contrary, as the history has widely demonstrated, women’s
political activism is a key characteristic of XX century Egyptian
history. Today, women’s organizations and women’s activists are
facing important issues, among them, the redefinition of the self, and
redefinition in relation to the history of the movement. Defining feminist
and feminism is part of this discussion. The 2011 Revolution has opened
new spaces for political action, and has set on stage a new generation of
42
Egyptian feminists. This new feminism is scattered, non-institutional,
and it grows within the lines of the movements which gave rise to the
revolution, which find expression in social media and blogs, and in
popular culture (graffiti, comics….). This is, indeed, my interpretation
of the message I quoted at the beginning of this essay. At the dawn of
the XX century, the literary salons and the nationalist struggle paved the
way for the emergence of a feminist awareness and political activism.
Today the spaces are different, but the practice of women writing to and
for women, and of writing the history of the Revolution from a gender
perspective is consolidated, and it contributes to shaping feminist ideas.
The political scenario is still fluid, but it is possible to imagine that from
this laboratory of experiences a new wave of feminism might arise, a
wave which, like the past, will find its strength in the creative synthesis
between universal and local claims, transnational networks and national
specificities.

Early Reflections of an Historian on Feminism in Egypt

Transcript

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