This Tuesday, the Social Solidarity Directorate of Luxor announced that it was awarding a 64-year-old Egyptian widow the "Woman Breadwinner" award, after the single mom spent 43 years dressing as a man to earn money for her family.
Although the award was not meant to be ironic, the story is a heartwarming one.
Sisa Abu Daooh was pregnant when her husband died, leaving her with no income. And so, Abu Daooh took matters into her own hands, and began working in the streets in various careers, including basic construction, polishing shoes and agriculture. She did not want to beg.
In order to avoid being harassed, she donned men's clothing for 43 years.
Abu Daooh told Al Arabiya :
"I preferred working in hard labor like lifting bricks and cement bags and cleaning shoes to begging in the streets in order to earn a living for myself and for my daughter and her children,” she said.
“So as to protect myself from men and the harshness of their looks and being targeted by them due to traditions, I decided to be a man … and dressed in their clothes and worked alongside them in other villages where no one knows me.”