DOCSLIB.ORG

Download Download

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Download Download Global histories a student journal Contesting Imperial Feminisms: The Life of an Early Twentieth Century Egyptian Activist Bella Ruhl DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/GHSJ.2021.412 Source: Global Histories, Vol. 7, No. 1 (May 2021), pp. 112-135. ISSN: 2366-780X Copyright © 2021 Bella Ruhl License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenseS/by/4.0/ Publisher information: ‘Global Histories: A Student Journal’ is an open-access bi-annual journal founded in 2015 by students of the M.A. program Global History at Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. ‘Global Histories’ is published by an editorial board of Global History students in association with the Freie Universität Berlin. Freie Universität Berlin Global Histories: A Student Journal Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut Koserstraße 20 14195 Berlin Contact information: For more information, please consult our website www.globalhistories.com or contact the editor at: [email protected]. Contesting Imperial Feminisms: The Life of an Early Twentieth Century Egyptian Activist by BELLA RUHL 112 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 Bella Ruhl | Contesting Imperial Feminisms 113 studies. VII - 1 - 2021 | ABOUT THE AUTHOR Bella Ruhl is a historical researcher and a student in the MA Global Histories: a student journal gender and postcolonial history, material culture, and archival material culture, gender and postcolonial history, Global History at Freie Universität Berlin. Her interests include ABSTRACT Imperial Feminisms: The Life of an Early In “Contesting the argument I make Century Egyptian Activist,” Twentieth bound to that first-wave Egyptian feminism was inextricably nationalist discourses, and was both produced whole-cloth and adapted from European models by Egyptian activists in response to changing economic and political conditions. Using rights a women’s the life and political work of Huda Sha'arawi, activist and nationalist who lived during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, I complicate the euro-centric view that feminism in Egypt was the result of western intervention and was uncritically adopted by colonized women. Instead I and her try to draw attention to the ways in which Sha'arawi comrades formulated a feminism predicated on decolonial liberation and indigenous values, while navigating the political realities of British colonialism and industrialized modernity. A microhistorical study with far-reaching implications, this rhetoric and actions, including her article analyzes Sha'arawi’s performative political unveiling, to gain a deeper understanding of the political contributions of early twentieth century Egyptian feminism. My objective is to return some agency to intersectional actors whose politics have been unjustly framed European) within the historiography as derivative of (white, feminist and (patriarchal) nationalist frameworks. s m s i I. INTRODUCTION oppressive gender-segregated n i culture of the Islamic Middle East m e F In support of her husband’s is a component of Orientalism—a l a i r declaration of retribution against system of representation that e p m the perpetrators of the September systematically depicts Eastern culture I g n 11 attacks in New York City, then- as hyper-sexualized, violent, and i t s 3 e First Lady of the United States Laura primitive. The particular gendered t n o Bush made a speech on live radio. malignment of the Arabic world C | Framing the invasion of Afghanistan established a tradition of justifying l h u as a protection of human rights, colonial interventions into the cultural R a l l she claimed that “[t]he fight against practices of Middle Eastern Muslims e 4 B terrorism is also a fight for the as a necessary humanitarian act. A rights and dignity of women.”1 The potent example lies in the fact that implication of this sentence, and the the British controller-general Lord perspective it articulates, have been Cromwell, who acted as the head analyzed in depth by Islamic feminist colonial agent in late nineteenth scholars in the intervening years. The century Egypt, “opposed feminism most notable example was an article in...England, [yet] espoused in published by the anthropologist and the colonial context a rhetoric of theorist Lila Abu-Lughod in 2002, feminism that attacked Egyptian men where she posed the question, for upholding practices that degraded “Do Muslim Women Really Need their women.”5 The effects of this Saving?”2 In her sharply articulated particular mobilization have had a analysis, Abu-Lughod situated Bush’s lasting negative impact on the social seemingly humanitarian rhetoric perception of women’s activism within a long history of feminist within the Middle East. As historian discourse mobilized towards imperial and theorist Leila Ahmed explains, domination in the Middle East. the use of feminism by colonizers to The idea that it is in the best enforce hegemonic cultural norms interest of Arab women to be rescued and undermine indigenous social by a white savior from the reputedly structures “has...imparted to feminism in non-Western societies the taint of having served as an instrument of 6 1 Laura Bush, “Radio Address by colonial domination.” Mrs. Bush,” The White House Radio Address Archives, November 17, 2001, https://georgewbush- 3 Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New whitehouse.archives.gov/news/ York: Pantheon Books, 1978). releases/2001/11/20011117.html. 4 Abu-Lughod, “Do Muslim Women 2 Lila Abu-Lughod, “Do Muslim Women Need Saving?,” 785. Really Need Saving? Anthropological 5 Fadwa El Guindi, “Veiling Resistance,” Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Fashion Theory 3, no. 1 (1999): 67, Its Others,” American Anthropologist DOI: 10.2752/136270499779165626. 104, no. 3 (September 2002), https:// 6 Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in www.jstor.org/stable/3567256. Islam (New Haven, CT: Yale University 114 Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 B e l l Historically, it was not only framed women in terms of nationalist a R u white Westerners who engaged motherhood, rather than as equals to h l | with discourses that framed men. C o Eastern “backwardness” in gender Today a radical effort is n t e relations and societal organization being made among Middle Eastern s t i n in contrast to the “progressive” feminists to formulate an indigenous g I West. Middle Easterners with a stake articulation of women’s rights and m p e r in the hegemonic colonial project protections, grounded not in the i a l participated in this endeavour post-Enlightenment ideologies of F e m as well. The upper middle class Western Europe, but in the particular i n i s Egyptian social reformer Qasim cultural traditions and beliefs of the m Amin, for example, wrote a book southern and eastern Mediterranean s in 1899 entitled The Liberation and surrounding regions. Islamic of Women (Tahrir al mara’a) that Feminism, which seeks to translate, sparked controversy in Egypt over interrogate, and reinterpret the veiling practices and segregation. holy Islamic texts apart from the The book criticized Egyptian familial influence of patriarchal norms, is structures and, in particular, the one such intellectual initiative. Leila system of segregation as contributing Ahmed and other scholars of Middle to its economic “backwardness” Eastern women’s history, such as in comparison to Europe. In his Fatima Mernessi, have identified effort to Europeanize Arab culture, historical periods in which women Amin framed the veil as “a huge enjoyed relative autonomy and legal barrier between women and their protection.8 While there is no doubt elevation, and consequently a that patriarchy has played just as barrier between the nation and its dominant a role in social formation advancement.”7 Instead of seeking and the regulation of reproduction in women’s liberation for the sake the Middle East as in Europe, there of equality and opportunity for is an effort underway to define the women, he drew upon imperialist deconstruction or transformation modernization discourses, which classified civilizations according to a racialized hierarchy and a linear 8 For two examples, see Fatima model of development. Grounded Mernissi, The Forgotten Queens in the epistemologically violent of Islam, trans. Mary Jo Lakeland discourses of scientific rationality, (Minneapolis, MN: University of the earliest calls for women’s rights Minnesota Press, 1993); and Huda were fundamentally misogynistic and Lutfi, “Manners and Customs of Fourteenth-Century Cairene Women: Female Anarchy versus Male Sharʹi Order in Muslim Prescriptive Press, 1992), 167. Treatises,” in Women in Middle 7 Qasim Amin, Tahrir Al Mara’a. Eastern History, ed. Nikki Keddie and (1899) 45, cited in Guindi, “Veiling Beth Baron (New Haven, CT: Yale Resistance”, 61. University Press, 1991), 99-121. Global Histories: a student journal | VII - 1 - 2021 115 s m s i of these systems as a response feminist activism, strategies, and n i to actual locations, situations, and principles were one resource to m e F historical contexts, rather than as a which Middle Eastern women’s l a i r legacy of colonial intervention. rights activists looked for inspiration, e p m In the early twentieth century, they were also nonetheless I g n however, this approach was in its “committed to constructing an i t s e infancy. It was not until the 1980s that indigenous movement that would t n 11 o postcolonial theory and second-wave be both modern and authentic.” C | feminism combined to produce the Rapidly changing social and l h u discursive resources foundational economic conditions throughout the R a l l to its ascendancy. That is not to say nineteenth and twentieth centuries e B that all aspects of Middle Eastern autonomously raised questions and women’s rights activism before produced solutions rooted in local the late twentieth century were beliefs and values. intrinsically foreign, colonialist, and In order to gain a better formulated with little regard to the understanding of the ways in which actualities of women’s lives.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Egyptian Islamic and Secular Feminists in Their Own Context Assim Alkhawaja University of San Francisco, [email protected]
    The University of San Francisco USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center Doctoral Dissertations Theses, Dissertations, Capstones and Projects 2015 Complexity of Women's Liberation in the Era of Westernization: Egyptian Islamic and Secular Feminists in Their Own Context Assim Alkhawaja University of San Francisco, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.usfca.edu/diss Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Near and Middle Eastern Studies Commons Recommended Citation Alkhawaja, Assim, "Complexity of Women's Liberation in the Era of Westernization: Egyptian Islamic and Secular Feminists in Their Own Context" (2015). Doctoral Dissertations. 287. https://repository.usfca.edu/diss/287 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, Capstones and Projects at USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The University of San Francisco COMPLEXITY OF WOMEN‘S LIBERATION IN THE ERA OF WESTERNIZATION: EGYPTIAN ISLAMIC AND SECULAR FEMINISTS IN THEIR OWN CONTEXT A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the School of Education International & Multicultural Education Department In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Education By Assim Alkhawaja San Francisco May 2015 THE UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO Dissertation Abstract Complexity Of Women‘s Liberation in the Era of Westernization: Egyptian Islamic And Secular Feminists In Their Own Context Informed by postcolonial/Islamic feminist theory, this qualitative study explores how Egyptian feminists navigate the political and social influence of the West.
    [Show full text]
  • Islamic Law and Feminism: the Story of a Relationship† Ziba Mir-Hosseini*
    32 Islamic Law and Feminism: The Story of a Relationship† Ziba Mir-Hosseini* I am honoured to have been asked to deliver the 2003 Professor Noel Coulson Memorial lecture.1 I was not Professor Coulson’s student, but like so many students of Islamic law, I am very much indebted to his scholarship and insights. In particular, I have found his book, Conflicts and Tensions in Islamic Jurisprudence, an inspiration. Published in 1969, the book contains the texts of six lectures delivered at the newly founded Center for Middle Eastern Studies in the University of Chicago. In these lectures he examined the principal currents of Islamic legal theory through a series of conflicting concepts: six polarities, or areas of tension in Islamic law, namely those between: revelation and reason; unity and diversity; authority and liberty; idealism and realism; law and morality; and finally, stability and change. In this lecture, I shall explore another set of tensions and conflicts in Islamic jurisprudence that was not explored by Professor Coulson – that is, the one stemming from the conflict between, on the one hand, the patriarchal ethos embedded in “orthodox” interpretations of Islamic law, and on the other, Muslim women’s demand for gender justice and equality. This is an area of tension that has come much more into focus since Professor Coulson’s day, in particular since the late 1970s, when Islamist groups came to power in some Muslim countries and started to enforce Islamic law as the law of the land. These developments gave a new lease of life to the tired old debate over the “status” or “position” of women in Islam.
    [Show full text]
  • Reviews Leila Ahmed. Women and Gender in Islam
    Reviews Leila Ahmed. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. Pp. viii + 296. ISBN 0- 300-04942-0. Reviewed by Valene J. Hoffman-Ladd. This book responds to a genuine need in the fields of Middle Eastern, women's, and Islamic studies for a comprehensive treatment of the sensitive and often controversial subject of women and gender m Islam. Until recently, there have been no book-length works m the English language dealing with Muslim women from a lustorical perspective. Those works that have come to fill that gap have either been collections of essays gUikk1 Keddie and Beth Baron, eds., Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries In Sex and Gender [New Haven: Yale Umversity Press, 1991]) or works dealing with a very limited topic (Judith E. Tucker, Women in Nineteenth-Century Egypt [Cambndge: Cambndge Umversity Press, 1985 ]). Other works dealing with gender issues have usually been heavily weighted with theoretical or apologetic biases that yielded either mcomplete or distorted perspectives on women in Island It is therefore a great pleasure to note that this book is histoncally precise, meticulously wntten, comprehensive m its objectives, nch m details, and unusually well-balanced. The book draws from a broad range of sources-scriptural, legalistic, mystical, historical, anthropological, and literary-m its analysis of the status of women in Islam from the time of Muhammad to the present. Ahmed begms with an inventory of female status and subjugation in pre- Islamic societies of the Middle East and the Mediterranean, a project that is virtually necessitated by the nature of the polemics that surround the issue of I Of these, the best and most ongmal is FatimaMemissi's Beyond the Veil:Male-Female DynamicsIn MuslimSociety (Cambndge, MA: SchenkmanPublishing Co., 1975; revised ed.
    [Show full text]
  • Islamic Feminism, a Public Lecture By
    SUDANWORKINGPAPER Islamic Feminism, a public lecture by Liv Tønnessen, Regional Institute of Gender, Rights, Peace & Diversity, Ahfad University for Women, Sudan SWP 2014: 1 Islamic Feminism Public lecture by Liv Tønnessen, Ahfad University for Women, Sudan SVP 2014 : 1 CMI SWP ISLAMIC FEMINISM 2014: 1 In the words of Pakistani-American Asma Barlas, “I came to the realization that women and men are equal as a result not of reading feminist texts, but of reading the Quran.”1 This position has come to be known as Islamic feminism. The term has been heatedly debated and both feminists and Muslims have rejected it as two fundamentally incompatible ideas. Secular feminists reject it because they argue religion generally and Islam in particular is oppressive to women2 and many Muslim women reject it because they feel ‘feminism’ is a secular invention imposed on them from outside, from the West. Islamic feminism is indeed highly contested, but it has also been widely embraced by both activists and scholars. As Margot Badran’s article from 2002 asks, What's in a name? What's behind a name? What is Islamic feminism?3 I will in a humble way attempt to address these questions in this talk. Let me first start by saying that this is a research paper on Islamic feminism. I am not a Muslim, but I find myself fascinated and genuinely interested in the question of women and Islam. I do not under any circumstances start my engagement with the topic from a position which neither reduces Islam to be monolithic and anti-women nor a position which states that secularism is the only route to women’s empowerment.
    [Show full text]
  • The Pennsylvania State University the Graduate School College of The
    The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts EXISTENTIALIST ROOTS OF FEMINIST ETHICS A Dissertation in Philosophy by Deniz Durmus Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2015 The dissertation of Deniz Durmus was reviewed and approved* by the following: Shannon Sullivan Professor of Philosophy Women's Studies, and African American Studies, Department Head, Dissertation Advisor, Co-Chair Committee Sarah Clark Miller Associate Professor of Philosophy, Associate Director of Rock Ethics Institute, Co-Chair Committee John Christman Professor of Philosophy, Women’s Studies Robert Bernasconi Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy, African American Studies Christine Clark Evans Professor of French and Francophone Studies, Women’s Studies Amy Allen Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy, Head of Philosophy Department *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. ii ABSTRACT My dissertation “Existentialist Roots of Feminist Ethics” is an account of existentialist feminist ethics written from the perspective of ambiguous nature of interconnectedness of human freedoms. It explores existentialist tenets in feminist ethics and care ethics and reclaims existentialism as a resourceful theory in addressing global ethical issues. My dissertation moves beyond the once prevalent paradigm that feminist ethics should be devoid of any traditional ethical theories and it shows that an existential phenomenological ethics can complement feminist ethics in a productive way. The first chapter, introduces and discusses an existentialist notion of freedom based on Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre’s writings. In order to establish that human beings are metaphysically free, I explain notions of in-itself, for-itself, transcendence, immanence, facticity, and bad faith which are the basic notions of an existentialist notion of freedom.
    [Show full text]
  • Encounter with American Feminism: a Muslim Woman's View of Two Conferences
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Women's Studies Quarterly Archives and Special Collections 1980 Encounter with American Feminism: A Muslim Woman's View of Two Conferences Leila Ahmed How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/wsq/440 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] feminism is inseparable from other movements for social justice, so hastily wipe out the centuries of history that had forged the in America and elsewhere. However, they might disagree about Black woman's collective experience. One evening, a play about the necessity of banning AID as a Convention exhibitor, or as a Calamity Jane, who was a racist even according to the play's source of travel money that might bring Third World women to author, proved a torment for many in the audience. America to the NWSA or that might send NWSA representatives A fourth and final purpose of Bloomington was to offer abroad. Ultimately, the Third World Caucus offered a resolution women a place in which to cultivate common ground. An NWSA that suggested that AID involvement with NWSA violated that meeting initiates and deepens conversations, friendships, and section of the NWSA Constitution that pledged the romances. It lets a woman who might be thought to be impolitic, organization's support of the well-being of Third World women. impolite, and freakish in her home community see human The resolut1on also asked NWSA to study AID and to suspend images similar to her own.
    [Show full text]
  • The "Tunisian" Spring: Women's Rights in Tunisia and Broader Implications for Feminism in North Africa and the Middle East John Hursh Mcgill University
    University of Baltimore Law Review Volume 46 | Issue 2 Article 5 2017 The "Tunisian" Spring: Women's Rights in Tunisia and Broader Implications for Feminism in North Africa and the Middle East John Hursh McGill University Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/ublr Part of the International Law Commons, Law and Gender Commons, and the Law and Politics Commons Recommended Citation Hursh, John (2017) "The "Tunisian" Spring: Women's Rights in Tunisia and Broader Implications for Feminism in North Africa and the Middle East," University of Baltimore Law Review: Vol. 46 : Iss. 2 , Article 5. Available at: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/ublr/vol46/iss2/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Baltimore Law Review by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@University of Baltimore School of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE “TUNISIAN” SPRING: WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN TUNISIA AND BROADER IMPLICATIONS FOR FEMINISM IN NORTH AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST John Hursh* I. INTRODUCTION More than six years have passed since the tumultuous weeks that comprised the key moments of the Arab Spring.1 Although initially greeted with great optimism, most results of these remarkable events ultimately have been discouraging.2 In Egypt, a “democratic coup * LL.M., McGill University Faculty of Law; J.D., Indiana University Maurer School of Law. I would like to thank the University of Baltimore School of Law and the Center on Applied Feminism for inviting me to its outstanding Feminist Legal Theory Conference in 2016.
    [Show full text]
  • Nation-Building and Childhood in Early Twentieth Century Egypt1
    chapter 3 Nation-Building and Childhood in Early Twentieth Century Egypt1 Heidi Morrison Introduction In her autobiography, the Egyptian activist and writer Latifa Zayyat (1923–1996) recalls standing on the balcony of her home at 11 years of age and seeing the police shoot down 24 demonstrators. This was in 1934, when the Prime Minister, who served the King and the British Occupation, shut down all trains so that the leader of the majority Wafq party would not be able to tour the provinces. A procession of cars and thousands of people swarmed the streets. The municipality of the province ordered the digging of a series of trenches to prevent the demonstration from advancing. As Zayyat stood on the balcony, she counted the fallen bodies, observing guts exploding and deep red blood flowing like a waterfall. She noted one man raped by the policemen, while hearing her mother in the house cry.2 Writing many years later, Zayyat reflects on how she felt as a child watching the demonstration: I find no refuge from the sense of powerlessness, of distress, or oppres- sion that shakes me as the police shoot down twenty-four demonstrators that day, as I scream at my inability to do anything, to go down into the street and stop the bullets flying from the black guns.3 Although Zayyat saw herself as a helpless child in this moment of intense his- toric change, her life, and that of peers, was in reality at the heart of the Egyptian nationalist movement at the turn of the twentieth century.
    [Show full text]
  • Islamic Feminism: Unveiling the Western Stigma
    Buffalo Women's Law Journal Volume 11 Article 7 9-1-2002 Islamic Feminism: Unveiling the Western Stigma Shazia N. Nagamia Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/bwlj Part of the Law and Gender Commons, and the Religion Law Commons Recommended Citation Nagamia, Shazia N. (2002) "Islamic Feminism: Unveiling the Western Stigma," Buffalo Women's Law Journal: Vol. 11 , Article 7. Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/bwlj/vol11/iss1/7 This International Watch is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Buffalo Women's Law Journal by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ISLAMIC FEMINISM: UNVEILING THE WESTERN STIGMA BY SHAZIA N. NAGAMIA Any discussion of the Muslim woman provokes responses urging liberation. The picture of a Muslim woman is directly linked despite our goals to live harmoniously in our idealistic notion of the pluralistic and diverse society we have resisted the acceptance of the mystical, mysterious, and often misunderstood religion of Islam as it enters the realm of modernity and western secularization. The single most contentious issue is the oppression of women that is associated with Islam.' Our post 9/11 society has forced a necessary re-examination of Islam. The picture is dismal. Through our western lens we see an oppressed, weakened woman, stripped of her "equal rights", forced to "veil" her sexuality, and mandated as inferior by the tenets of Islamic principle.
    [Show full text]
  • Weekend Workshop March 4-5, 2017 Lesson Plan: First Feminists of Egypt: the Early Twentieth Century
    “Women and Islam” Weekend Workshop March 4-5, 2017 Lesson Plan: First Feminists of Egypt: The Early Twentieth Century LESSON TITLE: FIRST FEMINISTS OF EGYPT: THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY AUTHOR: Joan Brodsky Schur GRADE LEVEL: Grade 10 Adaptable for Grades 7 to 12 OVERVIEW OF LESSON: This lesson provides a document-based study of Egyptian Muslim feminists in the early 20th century. It enables students to assess the movement’s goals within the context of Egyptian society and through the voices of its leaders. Students assess their goals in relation to the British imperialist Lord Cromer. Based on this lesson, students will be able to compare Egypt’s women’s movement to others they may learn about in the United States, Europe, or elsewhere in the world. SUBJECT AREA: History, Social Studies, Sociology COUNTRY/REGIONAL Egypt. The Modern Middle East. FOCUS: TIME REQUIRED: Four 50 minute classes, with three homework assignments. To shorten: Combine Activities 3 and 4. Optional assessment assignments for homework. MATERIALS REQUIRED: • Handouts A B C D: Whole class in print or online. • Documents 1 through 7. Specific documents to assigned students in print, or available online to all. • Timeline for all students • Graphic organizer 1 and 2 for all students • Agendas I and 2 to all students • Graphic organizer 3 for those completing the assessment option: compare feminist movements. BACKGROUND: While most students in the United States learn about the founding mothers of American feminism, few will learn about the founding mothers of feminisms elsewhere in the world. Egypt’s women’s movement deserves special attention, as it gathered cohesion and momentum in the early decades of the twentieth century.
    [Show full text]
  • The Image of Veil in Leila Ahmed's Women and Gender in Islam
    Tarih Kültür ve Sanat Ara ştırmaları Dergisi (ISSN: 2147-0626) Journal of History Culture and Art Research Vol. 2, No. 2, June 2013 Revue des Recherches en Histoire Culture et Art Copyright © Karabuk University http://kutaksam.karabuk.edu.tr/index.php اث ار وا وا Özel Sayı/Special Issue (English Studies) DOI: 10.7596/taksad.v2i2.234 The Image of Veil in Leila Ahmed’s Women and Gender in Islam Samet GÜVEN * Abstract Most of the time suppressed and disempowered throughout man’s history, the gender of woman has undergone a dissipating process where such an overpowering oscillation between two genders occurs. In spite of the fact that this bias creates a generalization, the position of the ‘womanhood’ wasn’t always under subjugation. As a matter of fact, this essay intends to throw light upon women’s ‘past, present and future’ by relying on mainly Leila Ahmed’s flagship works into by drawing a map showing how the veil plays a critical role in the representation of women. Key Words: the veil, hijab, post-colonialism, feminism, Frantz Fanon, Edward Said * Karabuk University 88 Introduction Leila Ahmed’s Women and Gender in Islam concentrates on the progression of women gender from the Ancient Sumerian History to nowadays. Ahmed enables her readers to have a short journey from ancient times to the present from the point of a woman. To give a general look on the issue of ‘woman’ and her position, Ahmed disembarks her discourse from the ‘pre-Islamic’ Mesopotamia, by this way the ancient mores and traditions can be traced back to their origins where they coalescence into ancient societies.
    [Show full text]
  • Voicing the Voiceless: Feminism and Contemporary Arab Muslim Women's Autobiographies
    VOICING THE VOICELESS: FEMINISM AND CONTEMPORARY ARAB MUSLIM WOMEN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHIES Taghreed Mahmoud Abu Sarhan A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 2011 Committee: Ellen Berry, Advisor Vibha Bhalla Graduate Faculty Representative Radhika Gajjala Erin Labbie iii ABSTRACT Ellen Berry, Advisor Arab Muslim women have been portrayed by the West in general and Western Feminism in particular as oppressed, weak, submissive, and passive. A few critics, Nawar al-Hassan Golley, is an example, clarify that Arab Muslim women are not weak and passive as they are seen by the Western Feminism viewed through the lens of their own culture and historical background. Using Transnational Feminist theory, my study examines four autobiographies: Harem Years By Huda Sha’arawi, A Mountainous Journey a Poet’s Autobiography by Fadwa Tuqan, A Daughter of Isis by Nawal El Saadawi, and Dreams of Trespass, Tales of a Harem Girlhood by Fatima Mernissi. This study promises to add to the extant literature that examine Arab Muslim women’s status by viewing Arab women’s autobiographies as real life stories to introduce examples of Arab Muslim women figures who have effected positive and significant changes for themselves and their societies. Moreover, this study seeks to demonstrate, through the study of select Arab Muslim women’s autobiographies, that Arab Muslim women are educated, have feminist consciousnesses, and national figures with their own clear reading of their own religion and culture, more telling than that of the reading of outsiders.
    [Show full text]