A mother from Egypt, whose husband died while she was pregnant, decided to live as a man in order to protect her small family and not have to endure a life of begging.
According to The Times of India, Sisa Abu Daooh, who lived in a society that looked down on women who went to work, had to do something creative after her husband died to protect herself and her baby.
“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,” she told the paper.
Sisa disguised herself as a man for 43 years wearing loose, full length robes and taking on ‘male’ jobs like making bricks and working in construction in order to protect her daughter from the harsh reality of poverty.
Talking about her incredible act, the 64-year-old said: “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.”
Sisa received the "woman breadwinner" award from the Social Solidarity Directorate of Luxor for working so hard for her family.
What an amazing woman.
