Her Story ... Feminist & Activist
VIII. A Hardening Ideology
Milestones:
DS becomes more vocal on women's rights
Newly established Bint Al Nil Union
By 1948 a shift in emphasis in Doria’s editorials for the Bint al-Nil magazine began to emerge. As Cynthia Nelson notes in her biography of Doria (Doria Shafik: Egyptian Feminist, A Woman Apart, by Cynthia Nelson, AUC Press 1996) there is a move away from talking about ‘women’s nature’ to discussing ‘women’s rights’. “Depriving educated women of that which illiterate men enjoy is a sin against Egypt, which will remain an undemocratic society so long as women are deprived of their full political rights. Men who stand between women and their political rights do not love their country for they insist on depriving Egypt of the services of their women.”
Within the magazine’s offices, Abdu, her longtime collaborator, was an advocate of slow, cautious change The more Doria learned about the conditions of women in the working class through the activities of the Bint al-Nil Union however, the more impatient she became for real change.
