Feminists, Islam and Nation: Gender and the Making of Modern Egypt.

• Author: Ismail, Salwa

Reviewed by Salwa Ismail

Feminists, Islam and Nation narrates the story of Egyptian feminism as it unfolds from the turn of the Twentieth Century until the 1950s. The author divides the history of the movement into three stages: the first is marked by poems and stories voicing "feminist consciousness"; the second and third are characterized by women's public activism, their entry into society and the establishment of the Egyptian Feminist Union (EFU). Badran's stated focus is on the second and third stages. To this end, the book provides a chronicle of women's efforts in acquiring formal education and gaining access to institutions of higher learning. It also documents their struggle for citizenship rights, their attempt to improve the family code, their engagement in the international feminist movement and their position on various issues such as prostitution.

Badran identifies the feminist movement as an upper and middle class phenomenon. As such, she locates the first stirrings of feminism in the cultures of these classes and particularly of the upper class. The Harem becomes a starting point for this narrative and Badran finds a point of entry in the salon of Princess Nazli Fazil. This, however, represents a troubling beginning, for setting up literary salons and taking excursions on the Nile seem more to express the aspirations of a particular class of women rather than of Egyptian women in general.

The book explores two interrelated issues, namely the articulation of a feminist discourse with and within the nationalist frame, and the criss-crossing of gender and class lines in the nationalist ideology. Badran links the feminist agenda to the national activism of upper-class women. The latter's militancy was undergirded by a concern for their position vis-a-vis the colonial state and in society at large. Their nationalist political action was part of assuming their voice and role as women in society. The class positioning of the early feminists is something that Badran acknowledges, yet, at times, downplays. Her argument here is that these women "operated within... their classes" (p. 21) and in the case of middle-class women like Nabawiyah Musa, they attempted to change class. It is not clear, however, who constituted the middle-class at turn-of-the-century Egypt; the social and economic determinations of women from this class are not adequately explored.

Badran does not take enough of a critical stand toward her subject to show the...