Creating the New Egyptian Woman:
Consumerism, Education, and
National Identity, 1863-1922

Mona L. Russell
New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004. 237 pages.

In this tome, Russell examines four principal foci in her historiographic
work on Egypt: “the rise of capitalism, the development of an indigenous
bureaucracy, the creation of a modern educational system, and the evolution
of the nationalist movement” (p. 5). The author compares and contrasts con-
sumption rates between lower-, middle-, and upper-class Egyptian women
and investigates how western patterns of capitalism paralleled and diverged
from indigenous urban templates of consumerism. Against this backdrop,
she frames women’s education “in a larger struggle for cultural and intellec-
tual hegemony” (p. 7). Her engaging work is sprinkled with examples and
analyses of Egypt’s societal “contact and confrontation with European
thought and culture” (p. 8). 

Russell’s volume is intended to be accessible to non-specialists as well
as helpful to specialists in the field. Its sources include archival documents
from the Dar al-Kutub, L’Institut d’Egypte, the Egyptian National Archives,
the libraries of the American University in Cairo and the Presbyterian
Historical Society in Philadelphia, and other primary materials. An earlier
version of this manuscript stemmed from the author’s doctoral research
under the tutelage of Judith Tucker. Russell’s work is a noteworthy contri-
bution to the fields of Middle East and women’s studies, communication,
education, economics, and other related areas of inquiry. 

The author’s introduction addresses Qasim Amin’s concept of the “New
Woman.” Russell places the disparate views of Egyptian women in the con-
text of growing consumerism and educational opportunities in the late nine-
teenth and early twentieth centuries. Chapter 2 discusses Khedive Ismail’s
nation-building, chapter 3 studies urban patterns of consumption and eco-
nomic development, and chapter 4 deftly analyzes the rise of consumer cul-
ture and advertising in the West in contrast to the development of robust
consumerism in Egypt. Chapter 5 addresses “The New Egyptian Woman
and Her Western Sisters,” and chapters 6 and 7 focus on female education.
The politics of textbooks is reviewed in chapter 8, which is followed by the
author’s “Conclusion,” detailed notes, and a helpful index.

An intriguing passage (p. 20) references the types of education received
by male and female slaves in the royal harem. Russell explains that potential

Book Reviews 107



suitors considered it an honor to marry former slaves of the royal family.
Rising literacy rates in the nineteenth century helped to spur further societal
development, including the advent of widespread advertising for home and
health products that, in turn, fueled the rate of consumption. However, the
author notes that the most significant change in the late nineteenth century
was the expansion of Cairo’s environs to the north and northeast via the
newly developed modes of public transportation (p. 34).

Of particular interest are the chapters pertaining to women’s education.
In the nineteenth century, the Egyptian government was unable to keep pace
with the pressing demands for primary education and, in particular, for
schools for women. At this point, foreign mission schools were established
alongside schools that had been created by the country’s religious and eth-
nic minorities as early as the seventeenth century. Parents were faced with
the choice of sending their daughters to traditional kuttabs (Qur’anic
schools), foreign mission and other private schools, or government educa-
tional institutions. Russell remarks that “the existence of parallel systems of
education fit neatly with the British notion of a bifurcated system of educa-
tion based upon class, as well as elite Egyptian class interests” (p. 95). 

The American Presbyterian Mission, founded in 1854, established
schools to provide educational opportunities for Egyptian girls belonging to
various socioeconomic classes. The author credits American mission
schools, which “served to improve education in Egypt both quantitatively
and qualitatively” (p. 114). She notes that “between the years of 1863 and
1879 alone, 129 private schools opened in Egypt, the majority of which were
Presbyterian or Catholic” (p. 109). However, her cursory review of the
American mission is limited to three pages (113-16), which is dispropor-
tionate coverage given the substantial influence that American mission
schools had on the creation of other foreign mission schools and on the
Egyptian government’s decision to offer more educational opportunities for
Egyptian girls. For example, Christine Sproul’s unpublished dissertation
“The American College for Girls, Cairo, Egypt: Its History and Influence on
Egyptian Women: A Study of Selected Graduates” (University of Utah:
1982), is not mentioned in the author’s research. In the conclusion to chap-
ter 6, Russell states: “Over the course of the nineteenth century, the choices
for girls’ education dramatically expanded, and by 1900 they included a
range of public and private facilities offering education from kindergarten to
post-secondary” (p. 125).

Nevertheless, the author concludes that educational opportunities for
Egyptian girls were bifurcated by economic and social class distinctions.
Although elite women still struggled with gender barriers due to traditional

108 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:1



attitudes and androcentric practices, they had a wider array of educational
opportunities from which to choose, including individual home instruction
from skilled tutors. Girls of more humble origins typically had fewer educa-
tional options and confronted static understandings of gender roles.
Educational reform in Egypt was characterized by cultural identity struggles
between the British occupiers and indigenous peoples. In the late nineteenth
century, reform was often equated with Anglicizing the curriculum. Begin-
ning around 1906, the Egyptian government shifted its emphasis toward
reclaiming the importance of Arabic language instruction and from this point
on, Egyptian educators sought to nationalize the curriculum and focus on
Egyptian history, Arabic, and religion (p. 129). 

Russell’s astute analysis of women’s changing roles in modern Egypt is
a significant contribution to Islamic thought. Her volume merits widespread
classroom usage as well as additional research on the changing roles of
women in contemporary Egypt.

Jeffrey C. Burke, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Religious Studies Program

Lynchburg College, Lynchburg, Virginia

Book Reviews 109