Daughters of the Nile (1982)

This beautifully photographed, revealing film about Egypt's women captures their separate and subordinate life under the Islamic code. Men and women speak about their traditions, expectations, and patterns of life. We meet articulate women who have had little schooling and whose lives are centered on childbearing and hard physical work. They acknowledge that their choices in life are limited. The Koran dictates behavior at every stage of life. Their husbands are selected by their fathers. Often, at puberty they are taken out of school. They unquestioningly accept circumcision, arranged marriages, huge families and polygamous husbands. Women after marriage are secluded and some may never set eyes on another man. By participating in this film, the women question for the first time some of the assumptions of their lives.