Internationally-acclaimed novelist, writer, doctor and hardcore feminist, Nawal Al Saadawi proved throughout the years to be a real trooper, combating injustice and societal constraints in No Man's land. Saadawi was a founder and co-founder of the Arab Women's Solidarity Association and the Arab Association for Human Rights, respectively, among many positions that she has held. Saadawi comes from a humble family in the small village of Kafr Tahla along with 8 other siblings. Her father was a government official who voiced against the British Rule in Egypt and taught her to speak her mind and have self-respect. After losing both her parents she became fully responsible of her large family. Saadawi studied to be a medical doctor in Cairo University and graduated in 1955. She met Ahmed Helmi, a fellow student whom she married, but the marriage only lasted 2 years. During her career as a doctor, Saadawi became closely involved with women's problems in Egypt. She noticed that her female patients suffered from serious psychological and physical ailments mainly due to societal oppression and inequality as well as domestic violence. In 1972, while acting as the director of Public Health, she published her provocative book "Al Mara'a wa Al Jins" (Women and Sex). Due to the controversial nature of the book which dealt with the violation of the woman's body through Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) as well as her political activism Saadawi was dismissed from her position in the Ministry of Health. She was also discharged from a position as Chief Editor of a health journal, as one of the numerous consequences the publishing of this book had on her career. Saadawi didn't budge and her pattern never changed. Between 1973 and 1976, she conducted extensive research on the correlation between women and neurosis at Ain Shams University. Shortly after, she became the United Nations advisor for the Women's program in Africa and the Middle East. She helped publish a feminist magazine "Confrontation", but being the controversial nonconformist that she is, President Anwar Al Sadat ordered her incarceration. From Jail she wrote her "Memoirs from the Women's Prison" where she described her experience as a political detainee: "Danger has been a part of my life ever since I picked up a pen and wrote. Nothing is more perilous than truth in a world that lies." It comes as no surprise that she was threatened numerous times by Islamists, which eventually forced her to flee Egypt. During her exile, Saadawi held a number of positions in prestigious universities such as Georgetown, Yale, Columbia and Harvard among many others. The highly renowned activist is a Jane of all trades and manages to master them all. She wrote acclaimed works of fiction, among which her famous short stories "I Learned Love" and "Memoirs of a Woman Doctor". She's been very outspoken about FGM on which she elaborated in "Women and Sex": "When I was six, the daya (midwife) came along holding a razor (...). She said it was the will of God and she had done his will . . . I lay in a pool of blood. After a few days the bleeding stopped . . . But the pain was there like an abscess deep in my flesh . . . I did not know what other parts in my body there were that might need to be cut off in the same way." In June of 2008, the Egyptian Parliament agreed to criminalize FGM/C in the Penal Code, establishing a minimum custodial sentence of three months and a maximum of two years, or an alternative minimum penalty of 1,000 Egyptian pounds and a maximum of 5,000 LE. However Saadawi says it "still happens – it is even increasing. Some religious leaders talk against it, but others are for it." She also strongly opposes the veil calling it "a tool for women's oppression" and a way of objectifying her in Egypt's patriarchal social structure. Like her or hate her, perseverance is one thing Saadawi has in droves. In a society where the oppression of women is not denounced forcefully enough and "girls are a blight" as she writes in her book, Saadawi's willing to carry on the fight, with no hidden motives and a stubborn yearning for justice.
