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Arab Feminism

For centuries, women had low status in Arab culture. Starting in

the second half of the nineteenth century, Western influence and

processes of modernization led to a change in the status of

women, and feminist ideas began to germinate. Women started

going out of their homes to study and became increasingly aware

of their liberation, both their own and that of others around them.

Thus the nineteenth century saw the birth of a feminist discourse

among Arab women on such topics as education, work, marriage,

suffrage, and breaking out of their isolation. The feminist discourse

continued to develop—at first, theoretically and literarily. Women

met and talked about their situation and their status and wrote

philosophy and literature about them. Then the discourse

developed in practical terms: Women became national and

feminist activists and founded associations that promoted women’s

rights. Women may have won the struggle for education in the

Arab world, but in other areas their progress is still impeded by

conservative elements, and the process of achieving equal rights

between the sexes is still incomplete.

In recent years, the study of Arab feminism has developed. The

studies examine the ways in which women cope with power

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structures that dictate the frameworks of their lives, how they

behave in light of these structures, and how they reshape the limits

of their liberty. Scholars like Layla Ahmed, Miriam Kook, Denise

Candiotti, Beth Baron, Iman Alkachi, Butheina Shaaban, Fatima

Mernissi, Layla Abu Lughod, Valentine Moghdem, Margot Badran,

and Nawal El Saadawi started delving into the issues and theories

concerning women’s writing in general and women’s writing in

Arabic in particular. In Hebrew, one can find studies and articles by

scholars like Mira Tzuref, Ofra Benjo, and Camilla Bader-Aref.

There are also translations of feminist philosophy into Hebrew—

for example, the translation of Nawal El Saadawi’s book Behind

the Veil.

The Arab Feminism Research Initiative, comprising Arab and

Jewish scholars of Arabic literature and culture who met for two

years at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, sought to discuss Arabic

philosophy, culture, and literature from the end of the nineteenth

century to our day and to understand the main ideas in Arab

feminist thought. The aim was to examine the main writers and

thinkers and the important phenomena representing the

foundations of Arab feminist thought in this period. Because the

group included participants from various disciplines, each

participant presented a text or a phenomenon representing a

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particular aspect of Arab feminism related to her area of expertise

and which she and the other participants considered important and

representative. Each presentation provided the basis for a through

critical discussion by the group. The discussions focused on three

main areas: feminist philosophy, feminism in the media, and

.feminist literature and culture

Feminist philosophy

Dr. Tal Meler, whose field is gender studies, led the discussion of

feminist philosophy, considering the outlines of Western feminist

discourse and of Arab feminism and the similarities and differences

between the two types of discourse. We learned about the main

arguments of contemporary feminist literature regarding “women in

the Middle East” or “women in Muslim society.” The lecture

included a brief survey of the prominent voices in the feminist

discourse, such as Margot Badran, Denise Candiotti, Nawal El

.Saadawi, and Fatima Mernissi

Dr. Janan Faraj Falah led the discussion of the philosophical

writing of the well-known theoretician Nazira Zain al-Din, her

personal commentary on the Quran—especially in relation to the

granting of rights to women—and the influence of writing on her

life. In another meeting, Lena Wahaba presented the book One

Hundred Years of the Arabic Novel, by the pioneering feminist

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scholar Butheina Shaaban. This book was the basis of the

statement that Arab women writers (as opposed to Arab men

.writers) were the true pioneers of women’s writing in Arabic

Another important scholar we discussed was Fatima Mernissi.

Salwa Alinat led the discussion in which she presented her work

on Mernissi, a feminist scholar from Morocco, who studied, among

other topics, the situation of Muslim women in North Africa and in

the Middle East. We discussed the special discourse that Mernissi

introduced, linking Islam, history, modernism, colonialism, and

gender. We discussed the way in which Mernissi portrays the

contemporary Muslim woman, her views on the Islamic culture that

she is studying, and whether she sees herself as part of it or as

.standing outside it

Feminism in the media

Dr. Inbal Tal introduced us to the world of women in the Islamic

movement in Israel, through study of the women’s monthly A-

Sharqa, published by the northern faction of the Islamic movement

in Israel since July 2001. We discussed the content of this monthly,

the women’s voice in it, and its influence on the movement’s

.activities

Dr. Mary Totry discussed with us the struggle of the civil society

organizations in Egypt against sexual harassment. We watched a

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movie that documents the phenomenon of sexual harassment in

Egypt, and after the movie Dr. Totry analyzed the orientation and

discourse of the campaigns against such harassment. We

discussed such questions as whether there has been a change in

the orientation and the discourse of the women activists and of the

civil society organizations combating sexual harassment since the

January 25 revolution in Egypt and whether the revolution has

.empowered women or weakened them

Feminist literature and culture

We also considered Arabic literature. Dina Abid discussed the

novel of the well-known Palestinian writer Layla Halabi, who lives

in the United States. In this context we discussed the social and

cultural status of Palestinian women in the United States and how,

through their writing, they achieve female empowerment and a

higher status in a society that is foreign to them, on the one hand,

.and patriarchal, on the other

Another meeting was devoted to the writer Amana Al-Janidi, a

young contemporary feminist writer in the West Bank. Dr. Dorit

Gottesfeld pointed out a woman writer’s subversion of the

accepted literary norms of the West Bank. We saw how Al-Janidi

introduces the national-political reality of life in the West Bank into

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the fantasy world that she creates, weaving clearly feminist values

.into her work

Dr. Hila Peled took us to the other, male, side and spoke about the

writings of the Iraqi author Aib Taama Parman, who wrote the first

modern literary novel in Iraq. We talked about the image of women

and issues pertaining to women in his work, as part of the author’s

attempt to convey a social and political message and to reflect the

national-political reality in Iraq in the second half of the twentieth

.century

Finally, Adi Katz, who comes from the world of art, spoke about

gender and nationality in the work of Manar Zuabi, a Palestinian-

Israel artist. We discussed Zuabi’s work in terms of the iconology

and iconography by analyzing the gender aspect and the dualism

in her work, in which the 'weight' of the Palestinian feminist

discourse is equated to the weight of the Palestinian national

.struggle

The group also met for two years with three Arabic women writers:

Raja Bakria, Misoun Asadi, and Ruya Barbara. These meetings

included discussions with the writers about their works, which the

.group members read, and a question-and-answer period

To summarize, this initiative provided the participants with an

opportunity and the ability to hold interdisciplinary discussions and

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thus to become familiar with insights and materials that were new

to them. These certainly will be expressed in the participants’

future research. This undertaking also created relationships, both

professional and personal, between the participants. Evidence of

this is their intention to continue meeting in the same type of

framework, outside the Institute. And perhaps most important are

the excellent conditions that the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute

provided, the constant cooperation, and the willingness to help

.solve any problem

Participants, in alphabetical order

Dina Abid: Doctoral candidate at Bar-Ilan University and lecturer at

al-Qasemi College of Education. Her doctoral thesis focuses on

.the works of Palestinian women writers who have emigrated

Effie Aharon: Doctoral candidate in the Gender Studies Program at

Bar-Ilan University. Her doctoral thesis deals with themes that

characterize the fiction written by women in Western countries who

.are children of immigrants from Eastern countries

Salwa Alinat: Doctoral candidate in the Middle Eastern Studies

Department of Bar-Ilan University and lecturer in the Sapir

Academic College and the Open University. Her thesis is on the

construction of religious identity among Muslim women activists in

.the Islamic movement in Israel, from the 1980s to 2013

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Dr. Janan Faraj-Falah: Head of the Gender Studies Department in

the Arab Academic College for Education, Haifa, and researcher at

the Jewish-Arab Center at the University of Haifa. She has

published many articles on language education, comparative

(Hebrew and Arabic) medieval poetry, and the status of women.

.Her book The Druze Woman was published in 2005

Dr. Dorit Gottesfeld: Lecturer in the Arabic department of Bar-Ilan

University. Her research focuses on contemporary women’s writing

in Arabic. Her book on Palestinian women’s fiction appeared

.recently

Adi Katz: Has a master’s degree in the history of art from Tel Aviv

University. Her thesis deals with gender and national aspects of

.the work of Manar Zuabi

Dr. Tel Meler: Lecturer in the Safed Academic College and the

Jezreel Valley Academic College. Her areas of expertise: sociology

of the family, gender and Islamic feminism, Palestinian society in

.Israel, and particularly, Palestinian-Israeli women

Dr. Hila Peled-Shapira: Researcher in Arabic literature at Bar-Ilan

University. Her research focuses on the link between poetics and

ideology, and the psychological, linguistic, and metaphoric aspects

of Iraqi Communist literature. She has published studies on the

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perception of time and the urban aspects of the poetry of exiled

.poets, and rhetorical means and gender aspects of Iraqi novels

Dr. Inbal Tal: Lecturer in the Communications Department at the

Jezreel Valley Academic College. Among her areas of expertise:

Islamic feminism, Islamic radicalism in the Palestinian sphere, and

neo-media in the Arab world. Her article “Women’s Activism in the

Islamic Movement in Israel: Influences and Characteristics”

appeared recently in the book The Muslim Brotherhood: Religious

Vision in a Changing Reality, edited by Meir Hatina and Uri

.Cooperschmidt (Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2012)

Dr. Mary Totry: Head of the Civics Department at Oranim Academic

College and lecturer at the University of Haifa. Among her areas of

expertise: women in the Arab world, communications in the Arab

.world, and the Arab minority in Israel

Lena Wahaba: Doctoral candidate at Tel Aviv University. Her

.doctoral thesis is on Syrian women’s fiction

Keywords: Arabic literature, women writers, feminism