How Saadawi’s “Memoirs of a Woman Doctor” Works to Show the Oppression and Feminist Sentiments of Women in Modern Day Egypt Anonymous College

Nawal el Saadawi, an Egyptian feminist writer, has worked throughout her life to highlight the need for improvement in the lives of the modern Arab woman. Her book, “Memoirs of a Woman Doctor”, written in 1958, takes her own experiences from living in Egypt and her professional life as a doctor, and uses these to create a personal reflection on her suppression and her feelings of gender dissatisfaction as a younger woman. She reflects on not only the way men have pushed her to despise her sexuality throughout adolescence and into her adult life, but also on the constraints older women put on the younger generation of girls that are developing. By looking at Saadawi’s work and examining the current day life of Egyptian woman, we can see how literature helps to share the stories of women all over the world and spread the documentation of the oppression and fighting of women everywhere for their rights and freedoms. Saadawi’s, “Memoirs of a Woman Doctor” is an insightful work that uses personal experience and perspective to expose the Egyptian women’s plight.

“Memoirs of a Woman Doctor” begins with a young girl starting to question why the separation between sexes is so pronounced in Egypt. Because she has a younger brother, her...