Pioneering Egyptian feminist and human rights advocate, prolific author, novelist, physician and psychologist Nawal El Saadawi passed away last Sunday at the age of 89. She leaves behind an incredible feminist legacy. I can’t remember where I was the first time I saw Nawal El Saadawi on TV. I only remember this strange sense of relief coming over me. I must have been 10 or 11 years old, but I had already made the discovery. It started with what felt like a constant barrage of personal slights and parental favoritism that always seemed to favor my brother over me. As a child, I had internalized these dynamics as the natural consequences of my own personal inadequacies until that fateful day Saadawi’s voice came blasting from a dusty old TV set. Her eloquence and witticisms didn’t just put my feelings into words, they also gave me permission to be angry, to rage against the constructs that seek to put me and my kind down. That was the first of many lessons I learned from Nawal. Her death, which coincided with Egyptian Mother’s Day, comes at a time when Egyptian women are facing…
