READ
For my book
from Egypt, I read Woman
at Point Zero, by the acclaimed feminist writer Nawal El Saadawi. It
took me much longer to get around to reading this thin volume than it should
have. I knew it was based on a true story, and that it would not end well for
the protagonist, so I had a hard time convincing myself to delve into its
pages.
My intent in
creating this project, however, was not to be entertained, but to be educated,
and so I read about the life of a woman in prison, condemned to die for
stabbing a pimp to death. Most of the book is written from her point of view,
as told by a woman psychiatrist who visits the prison to do research on the
personalities of women prisoners.
The
condemned woman, Firdaus, has spent a lifetime experiencing the bad treatment of
women by men. Her father beat her mother, her uncle molested her, she was
married off to a much older husband who beat her, and when she left him, she was
held captive by a man who raped her and passed her around to his friends. At
some point, she realizes that being a prostitute will tilt the balance of power
in her favor, as she can charge as much money as she wants for performing the
same acts she was previously forced to do for free, and she can maintain an
emotional distance from the clients who pay for her services.
As a
prostitute, Firdaus has a very good life for quite some time. She lives in a
nice house, eats good food, has servants to look after her, has a healthy bank
balance, and has leisure time to go to the movies, read, or discuss politics
with friends. She is content, and feels as though she’s in control of her own destiny.
But then one of her clients makes an offhand remark about how she is not
respectable, and that causes her to question her chosen profession. She decides
she prefers respectability to comfort, and she gives up her luxurious life to
begin working as an assistant to the chairman of a local company. She does her job
well, but as a woman, she will never rise very high in the company’s power
structure. She falls in love with a fellow worker, and believes he feels the
same, but then she learns that he has become engaged to the chairman’s
daughter.
Disillusioned,
Firdaus returns to her life of prostitution, believing that “[a] successful
prostitute was better than a misled saint.” She is able to reestablish herself
and regain her creature comforts, but things take an ominous turn when a pimp
forces himself into her life. Eventually, she reaches her breaking point and
kills him, which lands her on death row. She faces her execution with no fear
and no remorse.
The book’s
author, Nawal El Saadawi, met Firdaus at Qanatir Prison near Cairo while
conducting research about women and neurosis in Egypt. At the time, she had no
way of knowing that she herself would be sentenced to spend a few months in the
same prison, sent there by then-President Anwar Sadat because of her feminist
activism.
Of Firdaus,
Saadawi says: “Firdaus is the story of a woman driven by despair to the darkest
of ends. This woman, despite her misery and despair, evoked in all those who,
like me, witnessed the final moments of life, a need to challenge and to
overcome those forces that deprive human beings of their right to live, to love
and to real freedom.”
COOK
Either the
scarcity or the abundance of food was mentioned frequently in Woman
at Point Zero, but no dishes were described that were suitable for this
blog. When I searched the Internet, I found a recipe
for vegan kofta from a blog called “One Arab Vegan.” The recipe uses Field
Roast Fieldburger patties as the base.
For some reason, I could not get the kofta mixture to stick together. I
tried adding more liquid, which made the mixture too wet, and then I added more
bread crumbs, which made it too dry. The first picture below shows the four
kofta fingers I was somehow able to piece together. The picture below that
shows what happened when I gave up and just decided to fry up the mixture into
a kind of hash and serve it on a bed of rice. It was actually quite good!
GIVE
Since the
mistreatment of women was pretty much the entire theme of Woman
at Point Zero, I looked for a project that would help to address this
problem. On the GlobalGiving
website, I found a project that provides sexual abuse prevention curriculum to
middle school students and teachers. According to the project description, “[t]his
curriculum aims to intercept children at a young age to instill anti-abuse
values, allowing them to refuse, advocate and report sexual abuse.” It is hoped
that providing this training to students will cause a ripple effect in the
community and raise awareness at both the local and national level. More
information about this project is available at https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/anti-sexual-abuse-training-for-200-egyptian-students/.
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