Lord Cromer considered the seclusion of Muslim women and their lack of education a major obstacle to Egyptian self-government.As a result, British efforts to establish schools for girls were central to the empire's civilizing mission in Egypt. … A French- educated Egyptian lawyer named Qäsim Amïn published Tahrïr al-mar´a (The Liberation of Women) in 1899, a revolutionary book at the time that advocated education for women and equated women's low social status with the status of the Egyptian nation.

Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Coloni…, loc. 109