El Saadawi also describes the problem of sexual abuse of young girls by other family members and the excessive attention given to virginity in Arab culture. She sees women as an integral part of their larger society and polices making improvements in their lives as necessary for substantial social change to occur.įemale circumcision is not the only problem which Arab women and girls faced. The images are disturbing, but El Saadawi believes that progress can only come when the problems of women, traditionally kept hidden, are exposed. She goes on to relate the physical damage to women and girls that she saw in her medical practice. The fact that both her parents were unusually well educated did not prevent them from assuming that this act was simply what was done. The Hidden Faces of Eve opens with El Saadawi’s own traumatic experience of circumcision, when she was taken from her bed at age 6, unaware of what was happening. Although her words sometimes resonate with those of western feminists, she is never a mere copy of them. Nawal El Saadawi speaks out as an Arab woman, grounding her words in the unnecessary abuses she and other women face in the present and the strengths they have shown in the past. Zed Books (1980), Paperback, 224 pages.Īn account, written in 1980, of the problems faced by Arab women by an important Egyptian doctor and literary figure. The Hidden Faces of Eve, by Nawal El Saadawi.
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