modernist-nationalist discourse espoused by the al-
Jarìdagroup (which included Amìn and Zaghlùl),
especially its blame of Egyptian women for the
backwardness of the Muslim family and the soci-
ety. As the only woman writer who had a column in
the mainstream al-Jarìdanewspaper, she suggested
that men were using this new discourse and the goal
of liberating women to impose their gender agenda
on women, belittling the latter’s perspective on
such matters as the veil, polygamy, and public pol-
icy (El-Sadda 1994, 1998). In an effort to develop a
distinct voice for women, Nàsif argued that the
abolition of the veil was less important than chang-
ing the social and economic conditions that were
responsible for the subordination of women. She
also underlined the continuing role that men played
in the reproduction of conditions that oppress
women through polygamy, divorce, and resistance
to an expanded public presence of women (Hatem
2001, 31–2).
The death of Nàsif in 1918, at the age of thirty-
two, evoked numerous public testimonials by men
and women that acknowledged her contributions
to the development of an independent voice for
women. The outbreak of a national revolution in
1919, calling for the end of British rule, contributed
to a switch in perspective that strengthened the
leading role played by the male nationalist elite and
their modernist-nationalist discourse in shaping the
public agendas of women. Upper- and middle-class
women were mobilized by the women’s committee
of the Wafd party, which led the revolution. While
the newspapers of the period pointed out that
urban working-class women participated in indus-
trial strikes, with rural women joining their men in
the demolition of railway tracks and telegraph
poles, the upper- and middle-class women’s peace-
ful orderly demonstration monopolized national and
international attention. The Wafd’s women’s com-
mittee also organized a successful boycott of British
goods and wrote to local and international news-
papers as well as to the British government voicing
their views on the political issues of the day (al-
Subkì1986, 25).
The political mobilization of women in support
of the 1919 revolution contributed to their co-
optation by the nationalist discourse and its gender
agenda. For example, HùdàSha≠ràwì, whose hus-
band was an original member of the Wafd, con-
curred with the leaders of the revolution that
Egyptian women were not yet ready for political
rights. She utilized the new visibility and the skills
she developed as one of the leaders of the Wafd’s
women’s committee in the formation of the Egyp-
tian Feminist Union in 1923, which undertook the68 colonialism and imperialism
task of preparing women for these rights through
education and extensive social work among the
poorer classes. As one of the wealthiest Egyptian
women of her time, she quickly allied the union
with the International Alliance for Women’s suf-
frage, embracing its Western gender agenda and
attending its different international conferences
(Sha≠ràwì1981, 248–60). Here, the desire for
national independence from British colonialism did
not coincide with the rejection of Western feminist
agendas. These remained as the only social and
political model for feminist organizing in Egypt.
The union, its French journal, L’Egyptienne(1925–
40), and the Arabic journal, al-Mißrìyàt(1937–40)
appealed to an audience that was primarily West-
ernized and well-to-do (Badran 1995).
Like the Western women of the alliance, the
union used its dispensary and domestic school to
present itself as the caretaker of women of poorer
classes, seeking to socialize them into middle- and
upper-class domesticity with classes that taught
them family hygiene and genteel domestic skills
such as sewing (Mariscotti 1994). The result was
another variant of the hegemonic modernist-
nationalist discourse first introduced by Amìn at
the end of the nineteenth century that sanctioned
domesticity as the primary role of women. Not only
was this discourse oblivious of the fact that urban
and rural working-class women have always had
to juggle work inside and outside the home,
but it also ignored the professional aspirations of
middle-class women who were increasingly inter-
ested in public work. By the time Sha≠ràwìdied in
1947, other middle-class women’s organizations,
such as Bint al-Nìl led by Durriyya Shafìq, began to
eclipse the Egyptian Feminist Union with a plat-
form that addressed the more complex political and
professional needs of this new generation of women
(Nelson 1996). The 1952 revolution, which put an
end to colonial rule, embraced this new middle-
class agenda and used it as a source of national and
international support.
In conclusion, the gender claim of the civilizing
mission of colonial rule proved empty. It did not
improve the economic, social, or political condi-
tions under which women lived or worked. Nor
was it associated with the advancement of women
and/or their rights. The prominent Orientalist
assumptions and categories of the colonial dis-
course indirectly influenced the development of the
modernist-nationalist discourse that constructed
the identities of Egyptian men and women, their
views of themselves and of each other. It privileged
the views of middle- and upper-class men as the
agents of modernity and treated women as the party