From a Concealed Face to a Parliament Member: A Question into the History of Gender and Meaning of Feminism in Sudan

This paper aims to historicize and contextualize the life experiences of women activists in Sudan with reference to their heterogeneity and understanding of feminism in the period of 1947-1969. This era represented the organized start of women's activism in Sudan with the nationalists' quest for independence. The objective of this paper is not only to track the history of the movement but also to investigate the meaning of feminism in the context of the women's movement in Sudan within the framework of nationalism. The author concurs with Zeleza (2005) in his study of the gender biases in African historiography when he emphasizes that feminist historians are faced with two interrelated challenges which are to retrieve and to gender the history of women in Africa (208). The author argues that these women worked together with nationalist forces to gain both independence and women's rights to education, work, and suffrage. They have managed, through a long and difficult journey, to change the meaning of gender relations over time and to realize major changes in the lives of women. Drawing from and building on feminists' theorizations of nationalism will help to highlight the experiences of women during this era and support their struggles and achievements.