Cairo – In March 1954, Egypt was, much like today, drafting a new constitution after the July 1952 revolution, when Durriya Shafiq (1908-1975) discovered that the constitution’s drafting committee did not include a single woman.
So, she led a group of women into protests and went on a hunger strike at the journalists’ syndicate. She did not end her strike until the political rights of Egyptian women were secured, specifically, the right to run for office and vote for the first time.
Shafiq’s strike was not her first challenge. One year before the July 1952 revolution, she and hundreds of other women stormed the parliament building to demand women’s political rights. Months later, she established a women's paramilitary force to join the resistance against the British occupation in the cities around the Suez Canal.
