The chamber held 350 seats. On July 14, 1957, Rawya Ateya took one of them. She had won her race in the Cairo district of Bab El-Shaaria and the neighboring countryside, running as a member of Gamal Abdel Nasser's National Union party. Ateya was 31, a former journalist, and a veteran of the 1952 revolution who had organized nursing and first-aid services during the Suez Crisis. Her election followed a 1956 constitutional decree by President Nasser granting women the right to vote and stand for office. Sixteen women ran that year; only Ateya and another, Amina Shukri, won seats, with Shukri appointed to the upper chamber.
This event mattered because it represented a deliberate, state-sanctioned crack in a patriarchal political structure. Ateya’s victory was not the result of a prolonged grassroots suffrage movement as seen in the West, but a top-down reform from a revolutionary nationalist government seeking to modernize Egypt's image. Her presence in the Assembly was a symbol of the new republic's progressive ambitions. She used her platform to advocate for women's rights, family law reform, and social welfare, though always within the constrained framework of the single-party state.
A common oversimplification is viewing this as a simple victory for feminism. The context was more complex. The granting of suffrage was intertwined with Nasser's consolidation of power and his vision of a mobilized, modern Arab socialism. Women's political participation was encouraged as a duty to the nation, not solely as an individual right. Ateya's tenure was challenging; she faced open hostility and ridicule from some male colleagues, who reportedly threw paper balls at her during sessions.
The lasting impact was the establishment of a precedent, however fragile. Ateya served only one term, losing her seat in the 1960 election. Yet the door she walked through remained officially open. Her election provided a concrete reference point for women's political aspirations across the Arab world, demonstrating that a woman could hold legislative power. It began a slow, contested process of female parliamentary participation in the region, a process that continues to grapple with the tension between symbolic representation and genuine political authority.