Egyptian Feminism: Early and Modern Iterations (1890-1952)

Despite current attacks from both the left and the right, Egyptian feminism boasts a long and rich history that parallels and in many times goes beyond the nationalist struggle for independence. The rise of the modern nation-state grounded in the struggle for independence (from 1882 onward) witnessed the first manifestation of feminist organisation and the rise of feminist consciousness. Although many of the early reformers saw the role of women as “complementary” or at best secondary to the role of men, many feminists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries articulated, in a few instances, radical positions vis-à-vis the ongoing political debates about the role of women and their equal rights as citizens in a free, independent state.

This course looks at the early and modern iterations of a protofeminist/feminist articulations of the plight of women by some of the intellectual elite of the time (the work of Qassim Amin for example) as well as the contributions of the feminist pioneers who struggled to present a “female voice” at a time when women’s access to education and the public sphere was hotly contested (especially among the elite). In looking at these early attempts one finds the peculiar persistence of issues that are still being debated till today: segregation of the sexes, the veil, women’s education, women’s employment,...etc. One would think that after a century of feminist struggle and heated debates these issues would be long settled, if not by practical circumstance (women account for 50% of all enrolled students at all levels of education for example) then by the consensus reached one time after the other that gender equality is inevitable.

By examining these early debates, texts, reflections that range from autobiographies, to articles, to academic dissertations we get to understand the limits of some of the visions and demands by some of the pioneers but also the ways in which many of their positions were radical, even by today’s standards. In doing so, we come into confrontation with the present realities of the position of women post-2011 and how many ideas about the agency and presence of women in public and political spheres have a longer history of struggle than commonly known and a longer tradition than  the specificity of the current moment.

Session (1): Historical Roots of the Women Question

Ch. 4 "Women, resistance, and repression", in Judith E. Tucker, Women in Nineteenth-century Egypt, Cambridge University Press (1985)

تحرير المرأة في "الفكر السياسي والاجتماعي"، الباب الأول، الفصل الثاني في لويس عوض، تاريخ الفكر المصري الحديث ص 196-214

تحرير المرأة 1830 في "الفكر السياسي والاجتماعي"، الباب الثاني، الفصل الثاني، لويس عوض، تاريخ الفكر المصري الحديث ص 260-268

  

Session (2): Intellectual Milieu and Early Debates 

قاسم أمين، تحرير المرأة 1899 

Optional: Juan Ricardo Cole, Feminism, Class and Islam in Turn-of-the-Century Egypt, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Nov., 1981)

 

Session (3): Intellectual Milieu and Early Debates: Responses

محمد طلعت حرب، تربية المرأة والحجاب، 1899

 

Session (4): Early Feminist Writings

Margot Badran, Dual Liberation: Feminism and Nationalism in Egypt, Feminist Issues 8:15, 1988

مختارات من نسائيات ملك حفني ناصف من ص 6-57

 Optional: دراسة مي  زيادة عن عائشة التيمورية

Session (5): Early Feminist Writings cont’d

مختارات من نسائيات ملك حفني 

Session (6) Early Feminist Writings: The Rise of the Women Press

Part One: From Production to Consumption in Beth Baron, The Women's Awakening in Egypt, Yale University Press (1994)

Optional: A study on al-Jins al-Lateef (1908-1921):

http://dar.bibalex.org/webpages/mainpage.jsf?PID=DAF-Job:35819&q

 

Session (7): Feminist Voices take the stage

Ch.2 “Claiming Public Space” in Margot Badran’s Feminists, Islam and Nation, Princeton University Press (1995)

Optional:

مختارات من نظيرة زين الدين "السفور والحجاب" 1928

 

Session (8): Feminist Voices take the stage

Ch. 4 “Egypt for Which Egyptians?” and Ch. 5 “The House of Women”, in Margot Badran's Feminists, Islam and Nation, Princeton University Press (1995)

 

Session (9): History retold

مذكرات هدى شعراوي 1-120

Session (10): Doria Shafik, the last radical

  • Ch.7-11 in Cynthia Nelson's Doria Shafik, Egyptian Feminist, AUC Press (1996)

  • Ch. 11 Suffrage and Citizenship in Margot Badran's Feminists, Islam and Nation, Princeton University Press (1995)

 

Session (11): The Rise of State Feminism

  • Ch.1 in Laura Bier’s, Revolutionary Womanhood: Feminims, Modernity, and the State in Nasser's Egypt, Stanford University Press (2011)

  • Discussion of individual projects