Evelyn Baring...

Evelyn Baring, the 1st Earl of Cromer, was the British consul-general of Egypt from 1882 to 1907, and he made frequent use of feminist arguments in his attacks against Islam, claiming that Islam degraded women while Christianity elevated them, yet in England Cromer was a founding member and a president of the Men's League for Opposing Women's Suffrage!

Prominent in his statements about Egypt was that only by abandoning the veil could Egypt reap the benefits of the introduction of Western civilization brought by the colonialists.27 Christian missionaries also focused on the role of women in Islamic societies to justify claims of the superiority of the Christian religion and the need for missionary activities in Muslim lands under the protection, of course, of colonialist military prowess. In addition to colonialist rulers and missionaries.

Western feminists also propagated the idea that Islamic precepts pertaining to women should be abandoned. Leila Ahmed states: Others besides officials and missionaries similarly promoted these ideas, individuals resident in Egypt, for example.

Well-meaning European feminists, such as Euggnie Le Brun (who took the young Huda Sha'rawi under her wing), earnestly inducted young Muslim women into the European understanding of the meaning of the veil and the need to cast it off as the essential first step in the struggle for female liberation.28 The legacy of colonialist feminism persisted through the neo- colonialist period to the present.

Western feminists continue to criticize Muslim societies with special attention given to the veil, which is still seen by feminists as the symbol of the suppression of women by Islamic patriarchy. Colonialist feminism was also accepted by members of the upper classes in Muslim societies who adopted Western modes of dress, manners, home decor, and intellectual fashions.

The first feminists from the indigenous populations of colonialized countries were those of the upper classes who were educated in Europe or European schools. Nationalist leaders in Muslim countries, such as Ataturk (in Turkey) and Reza Shah (in Iran), were the next to adopt the rhetoric of colonialist feminism as part of their programs of modernization. They were in basic agreement with to sort of values and world view held by the colonialists.

They also agreed with the colonialists that their own cultures had to be reformed to come up to the standards of European civilization.