Hello Gentle Reader,
The term feminist has become increasingly contorted, twisted and disfigured as of late. Its overarching term embraces the good, while being pelted with the insults of its misappropriation. Perhaps in the western world, feminism has begun to being viewed and perceived with the lens of invalidity and a certain outdated sense of quality, which is now chalked up to the fervour zealotry of pettifogging myopia. As if in some unfortunate manner, feminism had completely lost its fighting spirit, its ideals, or its direction. Now placed into a position of venomous vitriol which is spat at anything or anyone who dares to provide a contrary argument to their faux pearl perspectives. Consider it - if you will - yet another milestone in the campaign of overt political correctness and its mutilating and corrosive touch, as it advocates for further petulance and outcries leading to the now designated term: 'Cancel Culture,' - as the defining ultimate concept, to what would otherwise be called a temper tantrum. Surely any feminist of previous generations looks at this demagogue militia of youth, with a perturbed disgust. How they lost not only their principle standings, but who have become iconoclasts of sensibility and human rights.
Then there is the light in the tunnel, who became firebrand freethinkers, who balance feminism with human rights, often swaying to the later in their overall theories of social egalitarianism. Such people as, Nawal El Saadawi, the Egyptian Doctor, writer and feminist activist. There was no doubt, that Nawal El Saadawi was a feminist - she wore the term with exclusive dignitary honour - but she fought for human rights as well, the very basic human rights, which were disagreeably denied to girls and women of her homeland Egypt, and are perhaps still denied on some form of outdated principle.
In her childhood, Nawal El Saadawi was to be married off, but she refused with her mother standing by her side on the refusal. She also stamped her feet at her grandmother in direct opposition, when her grandmother referred to girls as a blight, and propagated the misguided notion that boys were more worthy of the family. At the age of six, however, Nawal El Saadawi was subjected to the form of female genital mutilation; a practice that she denoted as torturous and barbaric and advocated against for the remainder of her life. Despite the perspectives held, that woman was of no consequence and had little value; Nawal El Saadawi's education was also promoted and encouraged by her family. At the age of thirteen she would write her first novel and would later become a doctor in the mid-fifties, specializing soon after in psychiatry. She would become the director of public health in the Egyptian government, but was later dismissed in the early seventies, after publishing: "Women and Sex," which documented, advocated against, and opposed female genital mutilation.
In the mid-seventies, she published "Woman at Point Zero," an account of a woman on death row in prison that Saadawi had met. By the late seventies, Saadawi once again published another novel "The Hidden Face of Eve," a recount of her time as a doctor in a small village, which recorded the honour killings, prostitution and abuse women suffered at the hands of their husbands. Critics assaulted the novel with vulture’s glee. They accused the novel of perpetuating stereotypes of Arabic women, and a slanderous smear campaign.
By the early eighties Nawal El Saadawi was rounded up as a dissident by the then President Anwar Sadat. She was imprisoned for three months, and wrote her memoirs on toilet paper, with an eyebrow pencil smuggled in by a sex worker. After President Sadat's assassination, Saadawi was released, but her work was either censored or banned from publications. Through continued death threats for religious fundamentalists and extremists, she was forced to leave Egypt for exile in the United States. Yet, even in exile, Saadawi continued to leverage criticism at all oppositional and oppressional forces at work. She decried revealing clothing and makeup, in the same fashion she opposed the veil, which irritated feminists, who selectively challenged such matters.
Throughout her life, Nawal El Saadawi, was a adamant fighter against oppressive forces, be it they are masculine or arbitrary in any manner. She was committed to truth as an ideal, as a perspective that equates justice. Anything else would never meet the mark. It is Saadawi's commitment to truth which was so startling and provides testament to her character, both literary and politically. This devotion could never be devalued as anything but. Though she never won the Nobel Prize for Literature, she was often considered a strong contender for the prize, especially after the 2018 Scandal which saw the prize postponed. Regardless, Nawal El Saadawi blazed a trail that other women of Egypt and elsewhere would need to foster, support, and continue to advocate for. Bringing feminism back to its rudimentary roots, as a movement that fights for egalitarian values, not the needless battle of myopic arguments.
Nawal El Saadawi died at the age of 89.
Rest in Peace, Nawal El Saadawi.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
M. Mary
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