Egyptian Feminist Union

The Egyptian Feminist Union was the first nationwide feminist movement in Egypt, founded on 6 March 1923 at the home of Huda Sha'arawi, who led it until her death in 1947. Formed out of dissatisfaction with an independence movement that put women's rights second, it campaigned for women's suffrage, education for girls, an end to legalized prostitution and reform of the personal status law, publishing the periodical L'Egyptienne from 1925. Primary education became compulsory for girls in 1925, but its campaign to reform family law failed. In 1944 it convened the congress that founded the Arab Feminist Union. Women won the vote in 1956, the year the Nasser regime dissolved the union.