Mario Balotelli once said "They say abandonment is a wound that never heals. I say only that an abandoned child never forgets. Though a person that had been abandoned may seem content with life, the effects of being abandoned are long lasting " (Balotelli). Nawal El Saadawi's memoir, Woman at Point Zero, illustrates her ideology in feminism, sociology, medical sciences, and writer. Her father fought in the Egyptian Rebellion in 1919 and used his progressive ideology to demonstrate self-respect, outspokenness, and education to Nawal (Ashour, 2008). Nawal and all of her siblings received an education at the will of their parents. In 1955, she received her MD from Cairo University. She continued her education through research and social outreach, focusing on common physical and psychological problems amongst women. She also narrows her focus to possible causes including cultural oppression ranging from patriarchal superiority, classism, and imperialism (Ashour 2008). .
She was inspired to write her memoir when she began doing research in Qanatir Women's Prison. There she met Firdaus who told her the misfortunes of her life. The text, written in Firdaus's point of view, focuses on the poverty that she was born into, the social disconnection of her family, sexual abuse, being sent to boarding school, having an arranged marriage, and domestic abuse by different men in her life. Ultimately she escapes by fleeing to the Nile where she meets a wealthy prostitute and soon becomes one herself. When she is told that she is not a self-respecting woman she tries to take the straight path where she is devastated when she falls in love and finds out that the man was engaged to her boss's daughter which leads her to become a prostitute again. She is controlled by a pimp until they have a fight that ended in his death. She then has a night of affairs with an Arabian prince who has her arrested after she refused $3000, ripped it up, and slapped him.