You're listening to an I-Heart podcast.

Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Wamanica.

This month we're talking about word weavers, people who coined terms, popularized words,

and even created entirely new languages.

These activists, writers, artists, and scholars used language to shape ideas and give voice

to experiences that once had no name.

Today we're talking about an educator and writer who's been referred to as the first

feminist of Egypt.

Please welcome Malak Hifni Nasif.

Malik was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1886, just a few years after the British had invaded and occupied Egypt.

As a city, Cairo was considered the mother of the world for its rich culture and wealth,

vied over by competing powers for hundreds of years.

Now, during the British occupation,

Malik was growing up in a climate of anti-colonial sentiment and a wide re-interrogation of how

Egyptian life should be organized. This included the role women should have in society. At the time,

only middle and upper class women were beginning to benefit from advances like access to education.

Fortunately for her, and Malik's large middle-class family, intellect, was highly valued.

Her mother was an avid reader and her father, a judge, who believed in universal education.

Malik took on their love of learning, and later a new all-women's school in Cairo,

where she was one of its first graduates.

A few years later in 1903, she became a teacher and taught at the women's school for several years.

When Malik married in 1907, she was forced to quit her job.

...