Woman Against the World
El Saadawi, currently in residence at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has published 30 books–novels, plays, memoirs, essay collections, and books of short stories–since the late 50s. Her problems with the Egyptian government started with the publication of Women and Sex (1969), which addressed the physical, mental, and social oppression of women in Egypt and the Arab world; she asserted that veiling, female circumcision, and the glorification of virginity were linked to the political and economic oppression of women. El Saadawi lost her job as director general at the Egyptian Ministry of Health, and the authorities shut down her magazine, Health.
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After she was released from prison El Saadawi founded the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association, which now has affiliates throughout the world. She writes: “AWSA made the link between gender . . . and the political, economic, social, cultural, religious and psychological aspects of life in Arab societies. In addition it insisted on the link between local, national, regional, and international levels.” After she spoke out against U.S. involvement in the gulf war in 1991, the Egyptian government shut down AWSA and its magazine, Noon, and handed its funds over to the Women and Islam Association.
When asked whether she’s religious, El Saadawi hesitates. “Usually I say my parents were Muslims, but I am not in approval of inheriting religions. I am critical of all religions, including Islam. To me all religions are a social phenomenon. They did not come out of the sky. They are political ideologies and have nothing to do with spirituality or justice or freedom or love.”
