Abby Mapel

Hist 181 Midterm Essay

23 March 2017

The Benefit of the Harem

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the birth and growth of the

Egyptian feminist movement. The harem was still effectively keeping women

secluded from many parts of society at this time, and while often seen as

negative, actually allowed women to grow in their ideas without being

hushed by male dominated Egypt. Two women who penned books on their

thoughts and experiences of and from within the harem are Huda Shaarawi

and Sophia Lane Poole. These women led very different lives, and so they

wrote in distinct styles at separate times in this era. Shaarawi wrote her

memoir, Harem Years, just before her death in 1947. Lane Poole had a series

of letters published in 1845 under the title The Englishwoman in Egypt.

These two books are particularly interesting to study together because the

two women have different lives within the harem, but the same conclusion

can be drawn from their differing experiences. Using both the insider and

outsider perspectives these works provide is key to understanding the

bond of women in the harem and how women used this bond and the

separation from men to their advantage. While the seclusion of women

enforced by the harem can be viewed as oppressive, it was also beneficial as

it provided a liberation which allowed for women to form the beginnings of

the feminist movement in Egypt.

 It is important to understand what and how the women wrote, as it

provides insights into the intricacies of their lives and how those impacted

their views of the harem. As mentioned before, Huda Shaarawi wrote Harem

Years as a memoir depicting her actual life growing up in a harem. The

memoir is split into sections that break up the sections of her life, from

childhood and through adulthood. She explains the harem from the inside

and shows how her feminism grew from it, all with the goal of promoting the

equality of women in Egypt and telling her life story. In contrast, Sophia Lane

Poole did not grow up in the harem or even live in one for any extended

portion of her life. However, she did spend enough time in a harem to have

an important, but still outside perspective. As the title of her book The

Englishwoman in Egypt suggests, she was from England. She went on a trip

to Egypt and wrote her book for the purpose of completing the studies her

brother had been conducting in the region. It was written as a series of

letters so she could say what she truly thought and felt without the

implications of objective academic writing. She approaches the harem as an

outsider, and her view is a great complement to Shaarawis insider view.

Examining both works together allows for one to see the bond of womanhood

that took place in a harem, which is what eventually allowed for the feminist

revolution to take place.

It is most beneficial to look at Harem Years in examining how the

women in the harem formed close bonds. Huda Shaarawi grew up in the

harem and meaningful relationships grew there along with her. Her
closeness to her tutor and Mme Richard helped her in times of stress, like

their support on her wedding day at a very young age (Shaawari 57). Later

on in life while she was separated from her husband, her friendships with a

girl similar to her age who she describes as strong-willed and well

educated and Mme Richard again provided companionship and support

which helped Shaarawi to continue her studies (Shaarawi 63). These bonds

not only were systems of support but also inspiration to continue to learn in a

society that did not allow women to learn as much as men. Only through

Shaarawis education and desire for more knowledge was her feminism born,

so without these women her life could have, and most likely would have

ended up very differently. Sophia Lane Poole could not have had these

experiences without growing up in the harem, but she was able to witness

the results of the bonds that were formed.

Women of this era were secluded from society by both veil and the

harem. It may come as a surprise then that the women also enjoyed a high

degree of liberty within and due to the harem. Sophia Lane Poole observed

No person can imagine the strictness of the harem without adopting its

seclusion, nor can a stranger form a just estimate of the degree of liberty

enjoyed by the women without mixing in Eastern society, (Lane Poole 137).

She noticed how the harem allowed women to let their guards down and be

more open with each other, which both contributed to and was a result of the

strong bonds of womanhood that formed there. Shaarawi also explains how

her separation from men, namely her husband, to grow more. Upon being
separated from her husband, she was able to continue her education longer

than most Egyptian women at that time (Shaarawi 62). Shaarawis situation

was peculiar, but it shows the freedom women had without men pushing

them down and holding them back. The harem may have been a system of

oppression through seclusion, but it ended up giving women some freedom

over their lives that they otherwise would not have had.

This relates to the power that harems actually gave women. As

mentioned before, separation allowed Shaarawi to continue her education,

and education has been a source of power throughout almost all societies in

history. Sometimes, women even found some measure of power over their

husbands. Lane Poole highlighted how it would surprise English people, but

a wife could exclude her husband from the harem if she wanted to (Lane

Poole 141). She also discusses the use of honorific titles for the chief lady of

the harem in unprecedented ways (Lane Poole 164). Though women could

not find any real societal or political power, they could find some through the

harem. Women came together and used this liberty and power to their

collective advantage.

Women may have been secluded, but that did not stop them from

knowing what was going on. They would have been disregarded in public

discussion of current events or politics, but as they realized the power they

had through their harems they used them for discussion. Sophia Lane Poole

noticed multiple times the social awareness that the Habeeb Effendi harem

had. First, she said she arrived to find them immersed in politics (Lane
Poole 151). She was surprised at this, but really it was just the women using

the freedom of the harem situation to discuss something they would not

normally be able to fully examine. After getting to know the women better

she even joins the discussion, which continues through later meetings with

this group of women when she visits them (Lane Poole 231). By this point,

Lane Poole had realized that her previous beliefs were misconceptions and

by joining them in conversation she can see how they are liberated in their

seclusion. However, she was still an outsider and could not have known the

scope of what would come from their increased interest in and understanding

of politics.

The political savviness of women in harems did not stay dormant for

long. They realized that while they did enjoy some degree of power and

freedom, it was all within the harem and they were still not equal to men.

So, the birth of Egyptian feminism occurred. It began with public lectures for

women, which may have come from a French woman but their popularity and

continuation relied on the Egyptian women (Shaarawi 93). Women were

relieved to finally be able to be public with their discussions and desire to

learn. Shaarawi says there had been an intellectual awakening of upper-

class women for a number of years that eventually led to the development

of the Intellectual Association of Egyptian Women (Shaarawi 98). The public

increase in female knowledge was not ignored by men. Husbands and wives

grew closer, especially with the Nationalist movement (Shaarawi 116). The

importance of all of this is that women were finally being perceived as more
capable, and therefore, more equal. Feminism in Egypt was born from the

power and knowledge that began in their seclusion through harems.

However, harems were still a form of oppression, so the increasingly public

lives of women were a huge step forward in society.

After all of this occurred, equality among the sexes only continued to

increase. Still, the birth of Egyptian feminism can be traced back to harems.

While the harem was at first an oppressive power structure against women,

it allowed them to form bonds and inspire each other. The liberty in their

seclusion allowed them to grow powerful in themselves and to discuss things

the public had not truly considered women a part of. Finally, women found it

within themselves to bring themselves out of this seclusion which allowed

them to gain rights they did not have before. However, without the seclusion

of the harem they never would have been able to grow the way that they

did. Harem Years and The Englishwoman in Egypt provide two unique

perspectives on the harem that contribute to the understanding of the birth

of the feminist movement. One was an insider and the other was an

outsider. Combining both views gives the clearest picture of how Egyptian

feminism was proliferated in harems. It is important that these works are

used together to show this because Shaarawi was showing the oppression of

harems and Lane Poole only intended to study the culture. Still, they both

serve to contradict themselves, because without the privacy that harems

provided, women would not have been able to grow the way that they did.
 Works Cited

Lane Poole, Sophia. The Englishwoman in Egypt: Letters from Cairo. Charles

Knight and Co., 1844.

Shaarawi, Huda. Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist.

Translated by Margot Badran, The Feminist Press, 1987.