British colonial rulers framed women’s education as the core of Egypt’s path to self-government.

Evidence

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 Frencheducated 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 Colonialism_…, 109

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ article — both trace how gender norms get enlisted as civilizational yardsticks under imperial rule.