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How have Egyptian feminists promoted women's rights? This paper looks at the Egyptian Feminist Union (EFU) in the fight for women's right to vote in Egypt in the early twentieth century. The EFU had much in common with the international women's movement then mobilising around women's right to vote. The IWSA represented the basis for an 'international sisterhood', where the EFU's goals were in line with other feminist organisations that came together under the IWSA. Indeed, there were many similarities in the demands of Western and Eastern women, as expressed through their national associations. Nevertheless, the EFU's involvement in the International Women's Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) was criticised from within Egypt as representing a 'westernisation' of Egyptian women. The accusation of 'westernisation' misrepresents the convergence of interests between Eastern and Western women. Women's rights concerns, particularly around suffrage, were in fact being shaped by similar political, economic and social changes the world over.
