Bahithat
al-Badiya (born Malak Hifni Nasif, 1886-1918) was an Egyptian
feminist who lived during an era in which Egypt, though supposedly
an autonomous province of the Ottoman Empire, was in reality ruled
by the British. Al-Badiya was born to a middle class family and
was encouraged by her parents to acquire an education. She became
a critic both of western influence in Egypt and the manner in
which traditional Egyptian culture restricted women. As a
political activist, whe sought to expand educational opportunities
and access to healthcare for Egyptian women. Al-Badiya's 1909
lecture sets out her characteristic blend of feminism, Egyptian
nationalism, and moderate Islam. She died of influenza at the age
of 31.
Bahithat al-Badiya, Excerpts from "A Lecture in the
Club of the Umma Party, 1909"
Ladies, I greet you as a sister who
feels what you feel, suffers what you suffer and rejoices in what
you rejoice. I applaud your kindness and accepting the the
invitation to this talk where I seek reform. I hope to succeed but
if I fail remember I am one of you and that as human beings we
both succeed and fail. Anyone who differs with me or wishes to
make a comment is welcome to express her views at the end of my
talk.
Our meeting
today is not simply for getting acquainted or for displaying our
finery but it is a serious meeting. I wish to seek agreement on an
approach we can take and to examine our shortcomings in order to
correct them complaints about both women and men are rife. Which
side is right? Complaints and grumbling are not reform. I don't
believe a sick person is cured by continual moaning. An Arab
proverb says there is no smoke without fire. The English
philosopher, Herbert Spencer, says that opinions that appear
erroneous to us are not totally wrong but there must be an element
of truth in them. There is some truth in our claims and in those
of men. At the moment there is a semi-feud between us and
men Because of the low level of agreement between us. Men
blame the discord on our poor upbringing and haphazard education
while we claim it is due to men's arrogance and pride. This mutual
blame which has deepened the antagonism between the sexes is
something to be regretted and feared. God did not create man and
woman to hate each other but to love each other and to live
together so the world would be populated. If men live alone in one
part of the world and women are isolated in another both will
vanish in time.
....
The question of monopolizing the workplace comes down to
individual freedom. One man wishes to become a doctor, another a
merchant. Is it right to tell a doctor he must quit his profession
and become a merchant or vice versa? No. Each has the freedom to
do as he wishes. Since male inventors and workers have taken away
a lot of our work, should we waste our time and idleness or seek
other work to occupy us? Of course, we should do the latter. Work
at home now does not occupy more than half the day. We must pursue
an education in order to occupy the other half of the day but that
is what men wished to prevent us from doing under the pretext of
taking their jobs away. Obviously, I am not urging women to
neglect their home and children to go out and become lawyers or
judges or railway engineers. But if any of us wish to work in such
professions our personal freedom should not be infringed. It might
be argued that pregnancy causes women to leave work, but there are
unmarried women, others who are barren or have lost their husbands
or are widowed or divorced or those whose husbands need their help
in supporting the family. It is not right that they should be
forced into lowly jobs. These women might like to become teachers
or doctors with the same academic qualifications. Is it just to
prevent women from doing what they believe is good for themselves
and their support? If pregnancy impedes work outside the home it
also impedes work inside the house. Furthermore, how many
able-bodied men have not become sick from time to time and have
had to stop work?
Men say to us
categorically, "You women have been created for the house and we
have been created to be breadwinners." Is this a God-given
dictate? How are we to know this since no holy book has spelled it
out? Political economy calls for a division of labor but if women
entered the learned professions it does not upset the system. The
division of labor is merely a human creation. We still witness
people like the Nubians whose men sew clothes for themselves and
the household while the women work in the fields. Some women even
climb palm trees to harvest the dates. Women in villages and both
upper and lower Egypt help their men till the land and plant
crops. Some women do the fertilizing, haul crops, lead animals,
draw water for irrigation, and other chores. You may have observed
that women in the villages work as hard as the strongest men and
we see that their children are strong and healthy.
Specialized
work for each sex is a matter of convention. It is not mandatory.
We women are now unable to do hard work because we have not been
accustomed to it. If the city woman had not been prevented from
doing hard work she would have been a strong as the man. Isn't the
country woman like her city sister? Why then is the former in
better health and stronger than the latter? Do you have any doubt
that a woman from Minufiya (a town in the Delta) would be able to
beat the strongest man from al-Ghuriya (a section of Cairo) in a
wrestling match? If men say to us we have been created weak we say
to them, "No it is you who made us weak through the path you made
us follow." After long centuries of enslavement by men, our minds
rusted and our bodies weakened. Is it right that they accuse us of
being created weaker than them in mind and body? Women may not
have to their credit great inventions but women have excelled in
learning and the arts and politics. Some have exceeded men in
courage and valor, such as Hawla bint al-Azwar al-Kindi who
impressed Umar ibn al Khattab with her bravery and skill in
fighting when she went to Syria to free her brother held captive
by the Byzantines. Joan Of Arc who led the French army after its
defeat by the English and encouraged the French to continue
fighting and valiantly waged war against those who fought her
nation. I am not giving examples of women who became queens and
were adept in politics such as Catherine, Queen of Russia; Isabel,
Queen of Spain; Elizabeth, Queen of England; Cleopatra; Shajarat
al-Durr, the mother of Turan Shah, who governed Egypt. Our
opponents may say that their rule was carried out by their
ministers who are men but while that might be true under
constitutional rule it is not true under absolute monarchies.
When someone
says to us that's enough education it discourages us and pushes us
backwards. We are still new at educating our daughters. While
there is no fear now of our competing with men because we are
still in the first stage of education and our oriental habits
still do not allow us to pursue much study, men can rest assured in
their jobs. As long as they see seats in the schools of law,
engineering, medicine, and at university unoccupied by us, men can
relax because what they fear is distant. If one of us shows
eagerness to complete her education in one of these schools I am
sure she will not be given a job. She is doing that to satisfy her
desire for learning or for recognition. As long as we do not work
in law or become employed by the government would our only
distraction from raising children be reading a book or writing a
letter? I think that is impossible. No matter how much a mother
has been educated or in whatever profession she works this would
not cause her to forget her children nor to lose her maternal
instinct. On the contrary, the more enlightened she becomes the
more aware she is of her responsibilities. Haven't you seen
ignorant women and peasant women ignore their crying child for
hours? Were these women also occupied in preparing legal cases or
in reading and writing?
Nothing
irritates me more than when men claim they do not wish us to work
because they wished to spare us the burden. We do not want
condescension, we want respect. They should replace the first with
the second.
....
Men criticize the way we dress in the street. They have a point
because we have exceeded the bounds of custom and propriety. We
claim we are veiling but we are neither properly covered nor
unveiled. I do not advocate a return to the veils of our
grandmothers because it can be rightly called being buried alive,
not hijab, correct covering. The woman used to spend her whole
life within the walls of her house not going out into the street
except when she was carried to her grave. I do not, on the other
hand, advocate unveiling, like Europeans, and mixing with men,
because they are harmful to us.
....
Veiling
should not prevent us from breathing fresh air or going out to buy
what we need if no one can buy it for us. It must not prevent us
from gaining an education nor cause our health to deteriorate.
When we have finished our work and feel restless and if our house
does not have a spacious garden why shouldn't we go to the
outskirts of the city and take the fresh air that God has created
for everyone and not just put in boxes exclusively for men. But,
we should be prudent and not take promenades alone and we should
avoid gossip. We should not saunter moving our heads right and
left. If my father or husband will not choose clothes I like and
bring them to the house, why can't he take me with him to select
what I need or let me buy what I want?
....
The imprisonment in the home of the Egyptian woman of the past is
detrimental while the current freedom of the Europeans is
excessive. I cannot find a better model [than] today's Turkish
woman. She falls between the two extremes and does not violate
what Islam prescribes. She is a good example of decorum and
modesty.
I have heard
that some of our high officials are teaching their girls European
dancing and acting. I consider both despicable-a detestable
crossing of boundaries and a blind imitation of Europeans. Customs
should not be abandoned except when they are harmful. European
customs should not be taken up by Egyptians except when they are
appropriate and practical. What good is there for us in women and
men holding each other's waists dancing or daughters appearing on
stage before audiences acting with bare bosoms in love scenes?
This is contrary to Islam and a moral threat we must fight as much
as we can. We must show our disdain for the few Muslim women who
do these things, who otherwise would be encouraged by our silence
to contaminate others.
....
If we pursue everything Western we shall destroy our own
civilization and a nation that has lost its civilization grows
weak and vanishes. Our youth claim that they bring European women
home because they find them more sophisticated than Egyptian
women. By the same token, they should bring European students and
workers to Egypt because they're superior to our own. The
reasoning is the same. What would be the result of this happens?
If an Egyptian wife travels to Europe and sees the children there
with better complexions and more beautiful than children in Egypt
would it be right that she should leave her children and replace
them with Western children or would she do her best to make them
beautiful and make them resemble as much as possible that which
she admired in those other children? If the lowliest Western woman
marrying an Egyptian is disowned by her family shall we be content
with her when she also takes the place of one of our best women
and the husband becomes an example for other young men? I am the
first to admire the activities of the Western woman and her
courage and I am the first to respect those among them who deserve
respect, but respect for others should not make us overlook the
good of the nation. Public interest is above admiration. In many
of our ways we follow the views of our men. Let them show us what
they want. We are ready to follow their views on condition that
their views do not do injustice to us or trespass on our rights.
Our beliefs
and actions have been a great cause of the lesser respect that men
accord us. How can a sensible man respect a woman who believes in
magic, superstition, and the blessing of the dead and who allows
woman peddlers and washer women, or even devils, to have authority
over her? Can he respect a woman who speaks only about the clothes
of her neighbor and the jewelry of her friend and the furniture of
a bride? This is added to the notion imprinted in a man's mind
that woman is weaker and less intelligent then he is. If we fail
to do something about this it means we think our condition is
satisfactory. Is our condition satisfactory? If it is not, how can
we better it in the eyes of men? Good upbringing and sound
education would elevate us in the eyes of men. We should get a
sound education, not merely acquire the trappings of a foreign
language and rudiments of music. Our education should also include
home management, health care, and child care. If we eliminate
immodest behavior on the street and prove to our husbands through
good behavior and fulfillment of duties that we are human beings
with feelings, no less human [than] they are and we do not allow
them to under any condition hurt our feelings or fail to respect
us, if we do all this, how can a just man despise us? As for the
unjust men, it would have been better for us not to accept
marriage to him.
....
Now I shall
turn to the path we should follow. If I had the right to legislate
I would decree:
1. Teaching girls the Quran and the
correct Sunna.
2. Primary
and secondary education for all girls, and compulsory
preparatory school education for all.
3.
Instruction for girls on the theory and practice of home
economics, health, first aid, and child care.
4. Setting
a quota for females in medicine and education so they can serve
the women of Egypt.
5. Allowing
women to study any other advanced subjects they wish without
restriction.
6.
Upbringing for girls from infancy stressing patience, honesty,
work and other virtues.
7. Adhering
to the Shariah
concerning betrothal and marriage, and not permitting any woman
and man to marry without first meeting each other in the
presence of the father or male relative of the bride.
8. Adopting
the veil and outdoor dress of the Turkish women of Istanbul.
9.
Maintaining the best interests of the country and dispensing
with foreign goods and people as much as possible.
10. Make it
incumbent upon our brothers, the men of Egypt, to implicate this
program.
Source: Sources in the History of the Modern
Middle East, edited by Akram Fouad Khater.
Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004, pp. 91-100.