An early twentieth century Egyptian nationalist and feminist, Shaarawi's life and works had a profound influence on Egyptian women, indeed, on women throughout the Arab world.

      An upper-class woman, Huda was born and educated in the harem system, a system designed, in principle, to confer respect upon women and to separate women and children from the men. In practice, the harem system and veiling served to oppress women. According to Badran,

      Veiling and high seclusion were the marks of prestige and sought-after symbols of status. Only the few very wealthy families could afford the most elaborate measures for secluding women -- the grand architectural arrangements and eunuchs (castrated men who were usually slaves from Sudan) to guard their women and act as go-between with the outer world. In the houses of the poor, women and men were crammed together in the same, limited space. However, when poor women went out -- at they did far more often than their richer sisters -- they too veiled. Life was different in the countryside, where any visitor could plainly see peasant women moving freely with faces unencumbered by the veil.
      Veiling and the harem system were social conventions connected with economic standing. They had nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.

      This was the world into which Huda was born and in which she spent her formative years. The daughter of a wealthy father who died when she was still a small child, she was married at age 13 to her cousin. Her marriage contract stated that he had to leave his slave-concubine. When her husband's slave-concubine bore his child about 15 months after their marriage, she separated from him. She remained separated from him for 7 years, years in which she matured into a woman. Over the next few years, she gave birth, first to a daughter, Bathna, and then to a son, Muhammad.

      Speaking French and Turkish, as well as Arabic, and, using her husband's influence, Huda had high contracts throughout Egyptian society and in the foreign community. One evening while at the opera Marguerite Clement, traveling on a tour sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment, asked Huda if Egyptian women were in the habit of giving and attending lectures. Huda admitted that they did not, but suggested that Clement give a lecture for the women. Chancing to run into Princess Ain al-Hayat, the Princess decided to personally sponsor the lecture. Huda's husband arranged for the lecture to be given in a lecture hall at the university. The lecture was a success, Clement was invited to give a series of lectures, and the lecture hall was reserved for the women on Fridays. Soon, Egyptian women began to speak. And that is how the first public lecture for and by Egyptian women was given. Eventually, the lecture series grew into the Intellectual Association of Egyptian Women.

      Huda's next excursion into social reform occurred a short time later when the same Princess asked Huda to establish a dispensary for the poor, which, at Huda's suggestion, was eventually expanded to teach classes in infant care, family hygiene, home management, and the like.

      Social progress was halted by the advent of World War I. But shortly after the war, Egyptian men demanded independence from English occupation. Huda's husband was treasurer of Wafd, the political party which was leading the effort for Egypt's independence. Leading the first demonstration of women against the British occupation, Huda early established her own reputation as a fighter for her country's freedom. To coordinate women's efforts in the independence movement, Huda formed the Wafdist Women's Central Committee.

      Huda's husband died in 1923 and she was left without a strong male-authority figure to control her movements (her father, her brother, and her husband were all dead), with an impeccable reputation and a huge fortune, and trained in the techniques of organization building. She turned her attention away from the independence movement and toward the movement for woman's equality. Friends gathered at the Cairo railway station to greet her when she returned from an international meeting of women in 1923. As Huda disembarked from the train, she removed her veil. At first there was silence, then loud applause, and a few women also removed their veils. Within a decade, only a few women still veiled. After Egypt gained independence, the men wanted to 'normalize' relations between the sexes by returning women to the harem, but it was too late.

      Huda founded Egyptian Feminist Union, serving as President from 1923 until 1947; was a member of the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship, serving as vice-president in 1935; was founding President of the Arab Feminist Union (1945-1947) and supported the founding of al-Mara al-Arabiyya, the newsletter of the Arab Feminist Union (1946); founded the magazines l'Egyptienne (1925) and al-Misriyya (1937). Huda was also a speaker throughout the Arab world and throughout Europe.

      Huda Shaarawi synthesized western-style feminism, Egyptian nationalism, and her country's customs and culture, to create a unique blend of Egyptian feminism which was later adapted by other Arabic women to fit their own cultures. She influenced the lives of millions of Arabic women, men, and children, bringing the blessings of feminism to the Arab world.

References:

      Shaarawi, Huda and Margot Badran (translator and editor), Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist, Feminist Press, 1986

      Badran, Margot and Miriam Cooks, Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing, Indiana University Press, 1990 pp. 41, 337-340, 359-362

      Ashby, Ruth and Deborah Gore Ohrn, Herstory: Women Who Changed the World, Viking Press, 1995 pp. 184-186 (This bio is mostly a summary of what's in Harem Years)

      Badran, Margot, Feminists, Islam and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt, Princeton, NJ: Princeton U. Press (1995).

      Huda Shaarawi (includes picture)

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