ost feelings with her beloved. The two have never before used the word ôloveö in their relationship. However, the writer does so now. The writer maintains that the world which she has known and the world in which she lives is one that has been devoted solely to the pleasure of men, ôLife in our world is made for men and nothing in it can amuse a woman other than that sort of amusement which neither amuses nor gratifies me and which only shows life in its ugliness and man in his basenessö (El Saadawi 60).
The above implication is that women are often second-class citizens in comparison to men in El SaadawiÆs culture. Sexual activity is solely for the purpose of pleasuring the male, and it quite often brings out the worst in him. In an interview in which she discusses the horrific practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), El Saadawi expresses her views that control over sexual reproduction and women in general encompasses economic control, ôPatriarchy itself is an expression of socio-economic oppression. No doubt, domination by the man is essential to FGM. To keep women monogamous, to attenuate the womanÆs sexuality, to control reproduction too, still has an economic-political functionö (22).
In the letter to her beloved, El Saadawi counters his charges that she is incapable of loving and only seeks to run away from life. She pleas with him to try to understand that she could love no one more than he, but she must maintain some sense of identity that makes her the unique individual she is. As she explains to him, ôI want to be a separate entity and at the same time I want to be an inseparable part of othersö (El Saadawi 60). This goal is common to many individuals who endure oppression and control. Typically such individuals must repress their own identity to adhere to the roles
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