Opening the gates : a century of Arab feminist writing
Margot Badran (Editor), miriam cooke (Editor)
This collection of stories, speeches, essays, poems and memoirs bears fierce testimony to a tradition of brave Arab feminist writing in the face of subjugation by a Muslim patriarchy. Palestinian Fadwa Tuqan's father demanded that she compose political poetry yet kept her secluded from the outside world. Zainaba (last name omitted), a nurse from Mauritania, West Africa, who herself underwent female circumcision, or clitoridectomy, says, "It is not a sin if it is not done, but it is better if it is," and exhorts a group of midwives to modify the disfigurement ("A woman with no clitoris is like a mud wall, a piece of cardboard, without spark, without goals, without desire. ... It must not be all cut off!") and to use antiseptics. And Egyptian Alifa Rifaat, who wrote in the secrecy of her bathroom until her husband's death, offers stories about a girl undergoing a clitoridectomy and about a bride who fears her husband will discover she isn't a virgin so she inserts powdered glass inside herself to draw blood on her wedding night. Egyptians Ihsan Assal's and Andree Chedid's fiction depicts, respectively, a husband who incarcerates his "recalcitrant" young wife with the permission of the courts and a 60-year-old woman who plots the murder of her husband. An editorial by Egyptian Amina Said laments the return of the veil. Badran translated and edited Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist, 1879-1924 ; Cooke is the author of War's Other Voices: Women Writers in the Lebanese Civil War
Aufsatzsammlung
xxxvi, 412 pages ; 24 cm
9780253311214, 9780253205773, 9781853810312, 0253311217, 0253205778, 1853810312
21903487
Growing up to be a woman writer in Lebanon / Etel Adnan
Warda al-Turk / Warda al-Yaziji
Who are you, Claire Gebeyli? / Nadia Tueni
Difficult journey, mountainous journey / Fadwa Tuqan
Farewell, bethrothal, wedding (c. 1945) / Huda Shaarawi
Amina / Shirley Saad
The protected one / Samira Azzam
Seventy years later / Ulfa Idelbi
Lecture on clitoridectomy to the midwives of Touil / Zainaba
Who'll be the man? ; Honour / Alifa Rifaat
I saw her and that's enough ; In a contemporary house / Khairiya Saqqaf
Hasan's wives / Wadida Wassef
People / Nadia Guendouz
Women, nationalism and religion in the Algerian struggle / Marie-Aimée Helie-Lucas
The eyes in the mirror / Daisy al-Amir
The silk bands / Noha Radwan. The results of circumstances in words and deeds ; Family reform / Aisha al-Taimuriya
Bad deeds of men : injustice / Bahithat al-Badiya
Our constitution : we the liberated women / Ghada Samman
September birds / Emily Nasrallah
A girl called apple / Hanan al-Shaikh
The house of obedience / Ihsan Assal
The excised / Evelyne Accad
House of arrest / Andrée Chedid
Personal papers / May Muzaffar
My mother / Fadhma Amrouche
Rima / Samar Attar
Eyes / Nawal al-Saadawi
The dawn of the Arabic Women's Press / Hind Nawfal
Fair and equal treatment / Zainab Fawwaz
A lecture in the club of the Umma Party / Bahithat al-Badiya
Warda al-Yaziji / May Ziyada
The elopement and the impossible joy / Qut al-Qulub
The effects of books and novels and morals ; The differences between men and women / Nabawiya Musa. Unveiling and veiling ; The young woman and the shaikhs / Nazira Zain al-Din
Double standard / Saiza Nabarawi
The voice of happiness / Zoubeida Bittari
The gate of heaven is open / Farida Benlyazid
Two faces, one woman / Nuha Samara
From Tumbling on the snow / Huda Naamani
Who's cleverer, man or woman? / Fatima Mernissi
My life / Chaibia
Eight eyes / Sufi Abdallah
Pan-Arab feminism / Huda Shaarawi
Arab women's intellectual heritage / Zahiya Dughan
We Egyptian women / Inji Aflatun
Islam and the constitutional rights of women / Duriya Shafiq
Feast of unveiling ; Why Reverend Shaikh? / Amina Said
Challenges facing young women in the twentieth century / Nahid Toubia
Legal rights of the Egyptian women / Group of Egyptian Women. An unveiled voice / Amatalrauf al-Sharki
Introduction to Nawal al-Saadawi's Ferdaous / Assia Djebar
Reflections of a feminist / Nawal al-Saadawi
"Published by arrangement with Virago Press, London"--Title page verso