For more than 40 years, an Egyptian woman had to dress as a man in order to find a work and provide for her family after her husband died, and has earned the praise of the president after all she has been through.
Sisa Gaber Abu Douh is 65 years old. In her hometown of Luxor, Douh has already become a local legend. On Saturday, Mother's Day in Egypt, she was named by her hometown the "Most Supportive Mother."
At a ceremony in the presidential palace on Sunday, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi honored Douh, and called her an exemplary working mother, and awarded her a cash prize of some 6,500 U.S. dollars.
Her husband died when she was six months into her pregnancy with her first child. To fend for her family, she had no choice but to dress herself as a man to find work, as women were not hired for manual labor jobs in Egypt in the 1970s. Her actions really needed lots of courage at that time.
To look like a man, she cut her hair, and dressed in loose fitting robes and a turban. Douh used to work as a shoe-shiner, farmer and construction worker.
Because man around her knew the secret, so she chose to work in small, near-by villages where no one knew her to protect herself from harassment and gossip.
"I refused to marry after the death of my husband, to take on the role of a father and mother to bring up my only daughter and to feed her in a patriarchal society," she told a talkshow with Egyptian broadcaster channel CBC.
"I've worked in many things ... I held heavy cement and concrete bags over my head ... I can accept all of that instead of begging," she said in a bitter voice.
She said if her daughter were a boy, she would have remarried.
"If you were a boy, I would have married, but you were a girl and no one could take care of you as much as I did, and I could have lost you," she added.