The History of Feminism in the Arab World

Abstract

This paper investigates the history of Arab feminism. It traces how those women came from different parts of Arab world and how they developed their awareness towards women's issues, though they do not call themselves as 'feminists' at the beginning. The paper aims to study the history of feminism in the Arab world. To show the struggle of the first Arab women feminists. To focus on the crucial issues of women's concern. The paper uses feminist approach as it concerns with women's important issues. The study traces how the Arab feminism started in Egypt and then the other parts of Arab World as Egypt has been the first Arab country to get its independence from the British rule. The concern for women issues started first in the national level as struggle for their independence and after the independence the struggle changed to women issues. The paper concluded by stating that the struggle of Arab women's feminist discourse advocated to significant women's problems like education, work, and the right for suffrage. They also confronted by other troubles, such as breaking out of gender segregation.

Keywords

• feminism
• gender segregation
• pioneers
• feminist discourse