Huda Sharawi

Huda Sharawi (born June 23,1879, Al-Minyā, Egypt—died December 12, 1947, Cairo) was an Egyptian feminist and nationalist who established numerous organizations dedicated to women’s rights and is considered the founder of the women’s movement in Egypt.

Sharawi was born into a prosperous family in the Egyptian city of Al-Minyā and was raised in Cairo. Her father, Muhammad Sultan Pasha, a landowner, was active in Egyptian national politics, holding a variety of government posts and becoming a member of the Chamber of Delegates in 1876. As an upper-class female, Huda Sharawi grew up in the harem system, in which women were confined to secluded apartments within the home and wore face veils when going outside. She received an elite education at home, with the primary language of instruction being French, but also memorized the Qurʾān in Arabic. She was married at age 13 to her older cousin, Ali Sharawi, who was already in his late 40s. She lived separately from him for seven years, during which time she advanced her education, and in 1900, under pressure from her family, she reconciled with him. They had two children together: a daughter, Bathna, in 1903 and a son, Muhammad, in 1905.

In 1908 Sharawi helped found the first secular philanthropic organization operated by Egyptian women, a medical dispensary for underprivileged women and children. She and her husband were strong supporters of the cause of Egyptian independence from Great Britain, and Ali Sharawi was a founding member of the nationalist Wafd party. She went on to found and serve as president of the Wafdist Women’s Central Committee in 1920. Egyptian women’s open participation in the nationalist movement marked a turning point in Egyptian society; never before had so many women publicly engaged in political activism.

After the death of her husband, Sharawi shifted her efforts from the nationalist movement toward women’s equality. In 1923 she founded the Egyptian Feminist Union, which sought woman suffrage, reforms to personal status laws, and increased educational opportunities for girls and women. In March of that year she performed the act of protest for which she is best remembered: while returning home from a conference of the International Women Suffrage Alliance in Rome, she removed her face veil in a Cairo train station, causing a commotion.

Sharawi remained president of the Egyptian Feminist Union for the rest of her life and became the founding president of the Arab Feminist Union in 1945. Under her leadership, the Egyptian Feminist Union launched the magazine L’Égyptienne (later Al-Misriyyah) in 1925, and the Arab Feminist Union launched Al-Marʾah al-Arabiyyah (“The Arab Woman”) in 1946. Mudhakkirātī (1986; Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist) is her memoir of growing up in a Cairo harem.