Egyptian Woman Dressed Like Man For More Than 40 Years To Provide For Family
My novel SINFUL FOLK features a woman who dressed like a man for 10 years — and some readers have found it unbelievable that a woman could live like this for 10 years.
Well, here’s a woman (in Egypt) who lived as a man FOR 43 YEARS!
Abu Daooh was pregnant with her daughter Houda when her husband
passed away in the 1970s, leaving her as the sole breadwinner of the family, Al-Arabiya reported. Abu Daooh quickly found that in a
traditional Egyptian society at the time, few jobs were available to illiterate
women, and it proved much easier to find work dressed as a man. She took up
jobs in brick making and shoe shining, but altered her appearance to avoid
being harassed.
"As
to protect myself from men and the harshness of their looks and being targeted
by them due to traditions, I decided to be a man … and dressed in their clothes
and worked alongside them in other villages where no one knows me,” she told
the network.
