The Woman Who Became a Man for 43 Years

In rural Egypt in the early 1970s, a young widow named Sisa Abu Daooh faced an impossible choice. Her husband had passed away, leaving her alone with a baby daughter. In her conservative village in Luxor, women were not permitted to work outside the home. Without a male breadwinner, she and her daughter faced destitution.

So Sisa cut her hair, put on men's clothing, and became a man.

For the next 43 years, she lived and worked as a man. She shined shoes. She laid bricks. She farmed fields. She took whatever work was available, day after day, year after year, all to put food on the table and keep her daughter in school.

Her daughter grew up, went to university, and became a teacher — never knowing the full extent of what her mother had sacrificed. Neighbors who eventually discovered the truth kept her secret.

In 2015, Sisa's story became public when Egyptian media reported on her decades-long disguise. The reaction was not what she feared. Instead of condemnation, she was celebrated. The Egyptian government, under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, awarded her the "Ideal Mother" prize on national television during a ceremony marking Egyptian Mother's Day in March 2015.

She was 65 years old. She had spent more of her life as a man than as a woman. And the country that had made it necessary for her to hide gave her its highest honor for motherhood.