Summary
An Egyptian feminist whose refusal to be censored on Palestine at the 1985 UN International Conference on Women in Nairobi is quoted at length in Chapter 8 of Palestine: A Socialist Introduction (Palestine: A Socialist Introduction, lines 1545-1560).
Details
- Betty Friedan told her, “Please do not bring up Palestine in your speech”, explaining “this is a women’s conference, not a political conference” (lines 1545-1555).
- El Saadawi’s reply, as quoted: women’s issues cannot be dealt with in isolation from politics, and “how can we speak of liberation for Palestinian women without speaking of their right to have a land on which to live?” (lines 1549-1560)