I’m Najwa, Egypt’s best journalist.
It’s been my dream ever since I was in elementary school.
After highschool, I enrolled in the Faculty of Arts, in the Media Department at Zagazig University.
My enthusiasm started to draw attention.
And my male classmates tried to take me along with them.
“Come on, we’re traveling to Cairo today to go to a festival.”
“Come on, we’re going to some newspaper to try our luck.”
And I had but one answer: “It’s no use, where would I spend the night? I’m a girl.”

They had the space to travel and try their luck while I sat and listened.
Until I finally got an opportunity,
a paid internship from the faculty at Al-Gomhuria newspaper for a period of 10 days.
A little while before the internship began, I decided to start wearing the hijab.
My looks didn’t concern me when I was entering into journalism.
I told myself that as soon as I speak and show my personality,
I’ll get everyone’s attention.

We went to the newspaper, about forty of us, boys and girls,
but there were more boys than girls.
I had hoped to intern in the Investigations section.
But I found out that the division of the sections had no relation to our wishes,
but rather to how we looked.
My friend Abir was pretty.
She had blonde hair and she dressed beautifully.
So all of the sections wanted her.
Abir felt my pain, because she knew my dream and saw that no one was choosing me.
No one knew what lied behind the clothing that I was wearing.
At the very end, the only place that was left for me to go was the sports section.

I sat at a desk summarizing articles for 48 hours,
And looking at my boss’s socks, which were actually really nice.
I eventually got fed up, so I went to him and told him that I wanted to work.
He gave me a few more things to do,
and when he saw how enthusiastic I was about working, he told me:
“You’re a girl. You shouldn’t be working in the sports section.
Which section would you like to go to?”
“The investigations section.”
“Okay, then I’ll tell the section head to take you on.”

And just like that, I went to the investigations section.
The section head didn’t like me at first.
He told me: “Suggest a topic to work on,
And I don’t want to see you here for the next 9 days.
Come back when you’re done and turn in the article.”
So I suggested a topic and started to work on it.
I updated him by telephone, which surprised him.

After 9 days, I went to turn in the article,
and he asked me to sit next to him to write the introduction.
I sat for an hour and a half.
Every time I’d write the introduction,
he’d grab the paper, crumple it up, and throw it away,
Until I had written an introduction that he liked, then he took it.

Afterwards, the rest of the interns in the section and I went to the editor-in-chief to show him our work.
Then, the head of the investigations section told the editor-in-chief:
“If you’re going to hire one of them, I’d like for Najwa to work with us.”
The editor-in-chief got up, looked at me, then asked me, “Najwa, are you married?”
Naturally, I got really giddy and told him, “No sir, I’m not married. I’m not even in a relationship.”
“We’re sorry, he said, “but we won’t be able to hire you because you’re not married.”

I was startled, and asked him, “Why? Since I’m not married, I’ll have more time to devote to work.”
“No,” he said, “you see, the fact of the matter is that you all come to us unmarried,
Then one of you falls in love with her colleague,
She gets engaged, then we start to see her only half of the time.
Afterwards, she gets married, and we don’t see her at all.
Then she has kids and becomes an employee like the woman sitting over there,
Doing all of her work by telephone and only coming in once a week to pick up her check.”