“Every single man I did get to know filled me with but one desire: to lift my hand and bring it smashing down on his face. But because I am a woman I have never had the courage to lift my hand.”
Egyptian writer, activist, and physician Nawal El Sadawi’s 1977 novel Woman at Point Zero raises many pertinent questions that feminists still struggle to answer – the most prominent of which might be the legitimacy of sex work. While it is the most exploitative industry of all, the other side of the story, as Sadawi’s novel shows, is a shot at financial stability and independence for many socially disadvantaged women.
The novel, which can also be categorised as creative nonfiction, was written after Sadawi’s encounter with Firdaus, a woman prisoner in Qanatir Prison, awaiting a death sentence. Like Firdaus, Sadawi too would be imprisoned in 1981, along with 1,035 others, for defying the then-president of Egypt, Anwar El-Sadat.
However, unlike Sadawi and her compatriots, Firdaus has been sentenced to death for murdering a man. The story eventually reveals that he was her pimp. The possible illegal nature of his work or his sure hand in dehumanising Firdaus is overlooked – taking a life is unpardonable and Firdaus...
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