But the worst shock of all was when I looked around and found her standing by my side. I just wept, and called out to my mother for help. El Saadawi was circumcised when she was six years old. is extremely common in Egypt a 2005 UNICEF study cited the rate as ninety-seven per cent of all Egyptian girls. F.G.M.-otherwise known as female circumcision or female genital cutting (or, in certain contexts, simply “cutting”)-is the custom by which a girl’s external genitalia (almost always the clitoris) is removed in order to preserve her “modesty.” F.G.M. The book includes a frank discussion of female genital mutilation. “Women and Sex” was banned in Egypt for nearly two decades after it was first published, and when it did finally appear here, in 1972, it resulted in El Saadawi, who has a degree in medicine, losing her job as Director of Public Health at the Ministry of Health. On her bookshelves, I note, are Japanese translations of her own work, which has also been translated into English (and twelve other languages), including her first book of non-fiction, “Women and Sex.” In a Talk of the Town piece in this week’s issue, I report on Nawal El Saadawi-feminist, writer, dissident, octogenarian-and her efforts to unite Egyptian women of all ages in a post-Mubarak Egypt.
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