The Hidden Face of Eve

This powerful account of brutality against women in the Muslim world remains as shocking today as when it was first published, more than a quarter of a century ago. It was the horrific female genital mutilation that she suffered aged only six, which first awakened Nawal el Saadawi's sense of the violence and injustice which permeated her society. Her experiences working as a doctor in villages around Egypt, witnessing prostitution, honour killings and sexual abuse, inspired her to write in order to give voice to this suffering. She goes on explore the causes of the situation through a discussion of the historical role of Arab women in religion and literature.Saadawi argues that the veil, polygamy and legal inequality are incompatible with the just and peaceful Islam which she envisages. 

New Foreword by Ronak Husni
Preface to the English Edition
Introduction
Part I – The Mutliated Half Chapter 1 – The Question that No One Would Answer
Chapter 2 – Sexual Agression Against the Female Child
Chapter 3 – The Grandfather with Bad Manners
Chapter 4 – The Injustice of Justice
Chapter 5 – The Very Fine Membrane Called 'Honour'
Chapter 6 – Circumcision of Girls
Chapter 7 – Obscurantism and Contradiction
Chapter 8 – The Illegitimate Child and the Prostitute
Chapter 9 – Abortion and Fertility
Chapter 10 – Distorted Notions about Femininity, Beauty and Love
Part II – Women in History Chapter 11 – The Thirteenth Rib of Adam
Chapter 12 – Man the God, Woman the Sinful
Chapter 13 – Woman at the Time of the Pharaohs
Chapter 14 – Liberty to the Slave, But Not for the Woman
Part III – The Arab Woman Chapter 15 – The Role of Women in Arab History
Chapter 16 – Love and Sex in the Life of the Arabs
Chapter 17 – The Heroine in Arab Literature
Part IV – Breaking Through Chapter 18 – Arab Pioneers of Women's Liberation
Chapter 19 – Work and Women
Chapter 20 – Marriage and Divorce
An Afterword