As a Female Employee

47 domestic violence will be imprisoned for two years or pay a fine of 20 to 300 Egyptian pounds. However, most husbands who do domestic violence to their wives will only pay the fine without being imprisoned Sharifa Zuhur 63. Therefore, domestic violence always happens again and again throughout a womans life. Beating a wife is one example of domestic violence. In Egypt, the beating of a wife is assumed as a common thing to do by a husband. As the 1995 Egyptian Demographic and Health Survey found that majority of women believed that beating a wife deserved to be forgiven. The allowance of husband to beat his wife is also found in the novel. This can be proven through the conversation of Firdaus and Firdaus uncle and aunt. But my uncle told me that all husbands beat their wives, and my uncles wife added that her husband often beat her... it was precisely men well versed in their religion who beat their wives. The precepts of religion permitted such punishment. A virtuous woman was not supposed to complain about her husband. Her duty was perfect obedience El-Saadawi 44. The statement declares that beating a wife is an usual thing to do for a husband. Moreover, a husband who beats his wife is assumed as a good husband. As a wife, it is her obligation to obey her husband so that she cannot refuse her husband from beating her.

4.2.3 As a Female Employee

As discussed before, Egyptian women are not allowed to access higher education as men do. The prohibition of women to access a higher education decreases the womens opportunities to get a job. Though they may get a job, most of these provided jobs give them low wages Guenena and Wassef 36. Firdaus also experiences the same thing. Firdaus says that once she ever wants to get a PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 48 respectable job. All she has are only her secondary school certificate, the certificate of merit, and her sharp decisive mind. Firdaus finds it hard to get a job for a woman like her. She applies so many times at many different places until finally she gets a job El-Saadawi 73. This shows that in her society, it is hard for a woman to get a job. Though she may get a job, the salary is low and insufficient for her. The low salary of Egyptian female workers is stated in the novel. What I called home was not a house, or a flat, but a merely a small room without a toilet... For my meagre salary did not permit me to live anywhere else than in this house, situated in a narrow back street with rows of a small shops where plumbers and blacksmiths plied their trade El-Saadawi 73- 74. According to the text, Firdaus’ salary is very low that she can only rent a house which is not like a house for her. It is only a small room without a toilet which is located in a slum. In a work place, a worker may get a different treatment. Like the social stratifications in Egyptian society, a social stratification also exists in a work place. The higher level of workers is the better treatment they will have. In Firdaus office there are two different levels. The one for the important and high level workers will be unguarded while the lower level workers who are thought to be less important will be guarded by a doorkeeper El-Saadawi 74. This shows that the different treatment toward workers of a different level happens. Those who are in the higher level will pass through an unguarded door. Hence they may come and go whenever they want. On the other side, the lower level workers have to pass through the guarded door, by which there is a doorkeeper whose job is registering the arrival and departure time of the lower workers. Firdaus is one of the lower workers and therefore she has to come on go through the guarded door PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 49 El-Saadawi 74. The life of a female employee is also much pitiful. Firdaus is not respectable, only paid with a low salary, being treated unfairly and discriminated. She is even cheaper and more miserable than being a prostitute. It is portrayed on Firdaus statement below: After I had spent three years in the company, I realized that as a prostitute I had been looked upon with more respect, and been valued more highly than all the female employees, myself included. In those days I lived in a house with a private toilet. I could enter it anytime, and lock the door on myself without anybody hurrying me. My body was never hemmed in by other bodies in the bus, nor was it prey to male organs pressing up against it from in front and behind. Its price was not cheap, and could not be paid for by a mere rise in salary, an invitation to dinner, a drive along the Nile in somebodys car. Nor was it considered the price I was supposed to pay in order to gain my directors good will, or avoid the chairmans anger El- Saadawi 75. As what Firdaus says, after she has worked in the office for three years she knows that being prostitute is so much better than being a female employee. A prostitute has more respect and is highly valued rather than a female employee. A prostitute may get a higher salary rather than a female employee. Thus, a prostitute can enjoy more comfortable life and has more privacy while a female employee like her can only live miserably. A prostitute never has to ride a bus with full people in it, and becomes the object of sexual abuse unlike a female employee. A prostitutes body is not cheap, whereas a female employees body is cheap. The female employees body is cheap because she has to offer their body freely to get a higher salary, to get the directors attention and good will, or avoid the chairmans anger. From this statement it can be seen that in a work place, a woman has no freedom at all. A woman is put under man’s role and even uses their body as the price of their honor and reputation. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 50

4.2.4 As a Female Prostitute