Women In Egyptian Public Life

The Elephantine texts have been variously studied, mainly with respect to their impact on Jewish history. But these texts have more to offer, particularly in relation to the history of women. Annalisa Azzoni, in The Private Lives of Women in Persian Egypt, delves deeply into these texts, examining these Egyptian Aramaic documents in order to make public the lives of women, including their social status, their economic activities, and their private lives. Azzoni recovers the lives of everyday women, allowing them to take their place in the larger context of women in the ancient Near East. Challenging any oversimplification about the lives of ancient women, Azzoni painstakingly examines legal documents, administrative texts, and letters. The archives provide a wealth of data in terms of legal and economic status as well as position in the community. Three women receive particular attention in this study: the wealthy Judean Mipṭaḥiah, the Egyptian slave Tamut, and Yehoyismaʿ, Tamut’s manumitted daughter.

The book provides a unique account of the very active economic, social and political roles of nineteenth-century women.

A "New Woman" was announced in Egypt at the turn of the nineteenth century. With a new genre of prescriptive literature, new products, a new education, and a physically changed home, she increasingly emerged in public life. This book discusses and debates the place of Egyptian women, while focusing on consumerism and education. Russell sheds much-needed light on the struggle for identity in Egypt at a time of considerable flux and tension and provides a powerful angle to explore changing concepts of social dynamics and broader debates of what it meant to be "modern" while retaining local authenticity.

“Can anything new be said about modern Egyptian nationalism? Beth Baron's book Egypt as a Woman, one of the best modern Egyptian history books to appear in several years, leaves no doubt that it can. With evenhandedness and generosity, Baron shows how vital women were to mobilizing opposition to British authority and modernizing Egypt.”—Robert L. Tignor, author of Capitalism and Nationalism at the End of Empire “A wonderful contribution to understanding Egyptian national and gender politics between the two world wars. Baron explores the paradox of women’s exclusion from political rights at the very moment when visual and metaphorical representations of Egypt as a woman were becoming widespread and real women activists—both secularist and Islamist—were participating more actively in public life than ever before.”—Donald Malcolm Reid, author of Whose Pharaohs? Archaeology, Museums, and Egyptian National Identity from Napoleon to World War I

Binge drinking and equal rights in Ancient Egypt... with her eye for the quirky; the only dry thing youll find here is her wit. THE DAILY MAIL (quote will appear on front cover of B-format).

An examination of women′s political participation and engagement during and after the 2011 uprising in Egypt.

This report provides a comparative overview of the policies affecting women’s participation in public life across the MENA region. It examines the existing barriers to women’s access to public decision-making positions, and provides a cross-country assessment of current instruments and institutions.