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Egyptian woman dresses like a man for 43 years to care for family

Sisa Abu Daooh has been honored as the perfect Egyptian mother, beginning with her husband dying when she was young and pregnant, leaving her without an income. She made the decision to dress like a man once her daughter was born, thinking it would help bring in more money for her care than begging for nothing in the streets with other widows.

The Egyptian woman disguised herself as a man for 43 years in order to raise her daughter until the girl married. When her son-in-law became very ill, she went back to dressing like a man and helping care for her daughter’s family and her grandchildren.

Obstacles in the Egyptian workforce for women
Local Egyptian culture at that time was filled with obstacles for women in the workforce. The greatest obstacles for women are culture, religion and industrial needs. Women are required to follow specific religious practices (i.e. full face cover) or they are excluded from getting certain jobs.

Combine these with a serious lack of anti-discrimination policies, and women will be effected in two ways:
(1) Discouraging women from trying to go out a find a good job, or any job.
(2) Alienating women from participating in any way in the local workforce.

The above situation forced Sisa Abu Daooh to dress like a man in order to adequately support her daughter, Houda, as a single parent right after she was born. It also forced her to work outside the home, away from her daughter.

The type of work that she did mainly consisted of making or lifting bricks, lifting cement bags, or polishing shoes in the street. She did not wear female clothing, instead choosing to don a local “jilbab,” wear black men’s shoes, a loose and full-length robe with a white turban or a man’s hat called a “Taqiyah”.

“I preferred working in hard labor like lifting bricks and cement bags and cleaning shoes to begging in the streets in order to earn a living for myself and for my daughter and her children,” said Abu Daooh.

“So as to protect myself from men and the harshness of their looks and being targeted by them due to traditions, I decided to be a man … and dressed in their clothes and worked alongside them in other villages where no one knows me.”

Her daughter Houda said: “my mom is the one who still provides for the family. She wakes up every day at 6 a.m. to start polishing shoes at the station in Luxor. I carry the work kits for her as she now advanced in age.”

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