Egyptian Feminist Movement
The Egyptian Feminist Union was founded at a meeting on 6 March 1923 at the home of activist Huda Sha’arawi who served as its first president until her death on December 12, 1947. One of the Union’s pioneering works were its fortnightly periodical L’Egyptienne from 1925, and from 1937 the journal el-Masreyyah (The Egyptian Woman).
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The objective of the feminist movement was social freedom as symbolized by the publicized gesture by Sha’rawi and her associate, Saiza Nabrawi, who removed their veils as they stepped off a train at Cairo’s main railway station in 1923.
The Union has been especially active in the area of education where their demands were met in 1925 when the government made primary education compulsory for girls as well as boys. Because of its work, women were admitted to the national university for the first time in 1935. In 2011, the group reformed as a non-profit, non-governmental organization under the same name but with a different goal and team.
