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"[N]early all of the difficulties facing Egyptian women centered around polygamy and hasty divorce by men without protection for women and children."
Doria ShafikShe... not only founded and edited two prominent womens journals but a — Doria Shafik
"She... not only founded and edited two prominent womens journals but also authored and coauthored several books... on the history, development, and renaissance of the social and political rights of the Egyptian woman. She established a feminist organization and a political party through which she challenged the very bastions of male authority under both pre-revolutionary and revolutionary regimes, shaping a feminist consciousness through a strategy of confrontation: storming the Egyptian parliament, attempting to run illegally for parliamentary elections, staging sit-ins to protest British occupation of Egypt, and... organizing an eight-day hunger strike for womens rights. She met and spoke openly about "womens rights"... with the heads of state of [Egypt,] India, Ceylon, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran; she... lectured to audiences in Europe, the United States, and the Far and Middle East... only to lose her own freedom and civil liberties in 1957 following her... protest against the erosion of democracy in Egypt under... Nasser."
Doria Shafik
Doria Shafik
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Doria Shafik was an Egyptian feminist, poet and editor, and one of the principal leaders of the women's liberation movement in Egypt in the mid-1940s. As a direct result of her efforts, Egyptian women were granted the right to vote by the Egyptian constitution.
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"It was obvious to me that women representatives were essential in the Parliament. They must not only be present in the legislative chambers when laws concerning them are legislated; but also... involved in writing the laws. ...[T]he only two bills presented in 1923 by Huda Sharawi (... for limiting polygamy and ... curbing easy divorce) had long been forgotten; while other laws concerning men were developing and improving... Women as half the nation had to be represented in Parliament, and justly protected. ...Women should have an equal say in the laws that... affect them and their children. The only solution was to build... a Feminist Union to demand political rights..."
Doria ShafikQuote
"To Want and To Dare! Never hesitate to act when the feeling of injustice revolts us. To give ones measure with all good faith, the rest will follow as a logical consequence."
Doria ShafikQuote
"Nothing really worthwhile can be accomplished without suffering."
Doria ShafikQuote
"Poetry! My great comfort ... When As a shipwrecked woman on the High Seas Desparing... Overwhelmed by the Tempest ... I do not know from Which illumened Heavens You appeared ...Love ...Beauty I took refuge In your tenderness No longer a Flotsam on the Sea."
Doria ShafikQuote
"To catch the imponderable thread connecting my... existence to my... past, as well as to my countrys history and civilization. The Egypt I knew... was... awakening from a thousand years sleep, becoming conscious of its long sufferings—that it had rights! And I learned in my... childhood that the Will of woman can supersede the law."
Doria Shafik