Doria Shafik

Doria Shafik (درية شفيق‎; 14 December 1908 – 20 September 1975) 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.

Doria Shafik was born on 14 December 1908 to Ahmad Chafik and Ratiba Nassif in Tanta, Egypt.

She studied in a French mission primary school in Tanta and a Tanta secondary school for girls until 16 years.

Then she studied the last 2 years of secondary education called bacaloria in Cairo.

At the age of 18 she became the one of first Egyptian girls to earn the degree of bacaloria of secondary school.

She was awarded a scholarship by the Egyptian Ministry of Education to study at Sorbonne University in Paris.

She also studied for a PhD in philosophy at the Sorbonne.

She wrote two thesis, one refuting the merely utilitarian ends generally associated with Ancient Egyptian art, and the second, arguing about recognised women's equal rights.

She was awarded her PhD with high qualifications (Mention très honorable).

In 1935 and as a girl in Egypt, she entered a beauty pageant, which sparked controversy.

While in Paris, Shafik married Nureldin Raga'i, a law student who was also on scholarship and working on his PhD.

Upon her return from France to Egypt in 1940, Shafik hoped to contribute to the education of her country's youth, but the dean of the Faculty of Literature of Cairo University denied her a teaching position on the pretext that she was "too liberal."

In 1945, Princess Chevicar, the first wife of Egypt's then former King Fuad I, offered Shafik the position of editor-in-chief of La Femme Nouvelle, a French cultural and literary magazine addressing the country's elite.

Also in 1945, Shafik decided to publish an Arabic magazine, Bint Al Nil (meaning Daughter of Nile in English), intended to educate Egyptian women and to help them to have the most effective role possible within their family and their society.

The first issue came out in November 1945 and was almost immediately sold out.

Shafik accepted the position, and with Chevicar's death in 1947, took complete responsibility for the magazine, including its financing.

Under her direction La Femme Nouvelle gained regional status.

In 1948 Shafik created the Bint Al Nil Union to help solve women's primary social problems and to ensure their inclusion in their country's policies.

The union also worked to eradicate illiteracy by setting up centres for that purpose throughout the country, set up an employment office and a cafeteria for working women.

In February 1951, she managed to secretly bring together 1500 women from Egypt's two leading feminist groupings (Bint Al Nil and the Egyptian Feminist Union).

She organized a march of people that interrupted parliament for four hours after they gathered there with a series of demands mainly related to women's socioeconomic rights.

Mufidah Abdul Rahman was chosen to defend Shafik in court in regards to this.

When the case went to trial, many Bint al-Nil supporters attended the courtroom, and the judge adjourned the hearing indefinitely.

However, in spite of receiving promises from the President of the Senate, women's rights experienced no improvements.

In 1951, Shafik "started a uniformed paramilitary unit of the Daughter of Nile".

In January 1952, she led a brigade of its members to surround and shut down a branch of Barclays Bank, though she was arrested by the police when the demonstration turned "rowdy".

After the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, Doria Shafik requested government recognition of Bint Al Nil as a political party, with Doria Shafik herself as its president, which the government accepted to grant.

On 12 March 1954, Doria Shafik undertook an eight-day hunger strike at the press syndicate, in protest at the creation of a constitutional committee with no women on it.

She ended her strike upon receiving a written statement that President Naguib was committed to a constitution that respected the rights of women.

As a result of the interest sparked by her hunger strike, Doria Shafik was invited to lecture in Asia, Europe and the United States about Egyptian women.

She travelled to Italy, England, France, the United States, Japan, India, Ceylon and Pakistan.

As a result of Doria Shafik's efforts, women were granted the right to vote under the constitution of 1956, with the proviso, however, that they must be literate, which was not a prerequisite for male voting.

In 1957 Shafik undertook a second hunger strike in the Indian embassy, in protest over President Gamal Abdel Nasser's dictatorial regime.

As a result, she was put under house arrest by Nasser, her name was banned from the press and her magazines from circulation.

In addition to her magazines, Shafik wrote a novel, L'Esclave de Sultane (Slave of King) about slavery of a woman to a man, several volumes of poetry published by Pierre Fanlac, and her own memoirs that were translated into many languages.

Poetry from her final days was translated by Nadeen Shaker and published in The Cairo Review:

"Daughter of the Nile I have demanded women’s rights

My fight was enlarged to human freedom

And what was the result?