Marketing the Modern Egyptian Girl: Whitewashing Soap and Clothes from the Late Nineteenth Century to 1936

This paper examines the development of advertising for soap and clothing in Egypt between the late nineteenth century and 1936, when women’s bodies evolved from non-representation to mobilized political figures to highly sexualized objects used to market commodities. In many respects Modern Egyptian Girl was no different from her sisters worldwide. She appeared in the postwar period and was associated with a variety of commodities. Depicted as white and Europeanized, her Egyptian incarnation coincided with the emergence of similar political iconography. The male elite desired to appear civilized before the world and to simultaneously marginalize its politicized New Women. Advertising facilitated this goal by turning New Women into consuming “girls” at a time when elite women were transitioning from private to public commerce.