[Discussion] ook review: Contribution of Gender Perspectives to Intellectual Formations

[gpultar@cstgroup.org]

Ferial J. Ghazoul, ed. Gender and Knowledge: Contribution of Gender Perspectives
to Intellectual Formations. Alif--Journal of Comparative Poetics Series. Cairo:
The American University in Cairo Press, 2000. 500 pp. Abstracts, notes on
contributors. $19.95 (paper), ISBN 9-7742-4521-0.
Reviewed by: Nesreen Allam, The American University in Cairo.
Published by: H-Gender-MidEast (May, 2005)
Gender and Knowledge

The impact of gender on knowledge of society and culture, its effects on
history, religion, politics, and literature, and its effect on the formation of
the self, are some of the issues discussed in the nineteenth issue of Alif, the
refereed journal published by the American University in Cairo, with
multidisciplinary articles in English and Arabic.

The religious discourse on gender and on the position of women is dealt with in
several articles in the issue. Perhaps one of the most outstanding articles
about the religious discourse on the woman question in the volume is by the
prominent scholar Professor Nasr Hamid Abu-Zeid (Leiden University). The article
is in Arabic and is titled "Qadiyat al-Mar'ah Bayna Sindan al-Hadatha wa
Mitraqat al-Taqalid" ("The 'Woman Question' Between the Hammer of Modernity and
the Anvil of Tradition"). Professor Abu-Zeid argues that "the woman question" in
the contemporary Arab world is inseparable from the social and political
setting. He argues that discourse on the question of women in Egypt nowadays is
similar to the type of discourse that prevailed at the beginning of the Egyptian
Renaissance in the nineteenth century, and he attributes this setback to the
existential crisis of the Arab world that reached its climax with the defeat of
1967 (Arabic section, p. 29). The continuous defeats in the political arena, and
the incapacity to face the real adversary, namely dictatorship and American and
Zionist hegemony, led people to rally around an Islamist discourse, which in
turn, not only kindled public anger against western imperialism, but also
against western civilization and culture as a whole. Thus, the call for the
emancipation of women was condemned as an insidious call from the West that
seeks to undermine the Arab and Islamic culture (p. 31). Abu-Zeid also argues
that the current situation of women in the Islamic world as a whole, and in
Egypt in particular, is to a great extent due to the general public's incapacity
to distinguish between Shari'a (Islamic law) on the one hand, and Fiqh
(jurisprudence), which is the endeavor of religious scholars to interpret the
Shari'a, on the other hand (p.33). Abu-Zeid contends that the interpretation of
the Shari'a in many instances reflects the social traditions in many Islamic
societies, such as the grave restrictions imposed upon a woman's right to
divorce, and on her right to include certain conditions in the marriage contract
(p. 36). Abu-Zeid also points out that equality between men and women is a major
concern of the Holy Quran (p. 42), and that the Quranic verses which seem to be
dismissive or derisive of women are understood as such because they are
discussed without reference to their context.

In his article "Qisat al-Khalq wal 'Isyan fil Qur'an" ("The Story of Creation
and Disobedience in the Quran"), Mohamed Mahmoud, Professor of Comparative
Religion at Tufts University, vindicates Eve from the charge of having been the
cause for Adam's fall from Grace, a charge that has always been used to condemn
women on the basis of their being a source of temptation and sin. The article
demonstrates, through a close reading of the story of creation in the different
suras (chapters) of the Quran, that Eve is totally absent from the story of
creation and disobedience, while Satan is central in the unfolding of the
narrative and the prime mover of its events (Arabic section, pp. 66-88). The
careful examination of the Quran points out that it is Satan who disobeys God
and lures both Adam and Eve out of Heaven.

The issue also includes an interview with Hoda Elsadda, Professor of English
Literature at Cairo University, founding member of the Women and Memory Forum,
and co-editor of Hagar, a journal on women's issues. In the interview, Elsadda
argues that the project she undertook as the co-editor of Hagar was to write
from a gender-sensitive perspective. She points out that in her view, writing,
at a symbolic level, signifies the shattering of the silence imposed upon women
and their world (Arabic section, p. 229). She argues that writing entails
participation in working towards a better world, and thus helping to change
history and society. Elsadda draws an interesting analogy between
representations of colonized nations and marginalized groups on the one hand,
and representations of women on the other (p. 210). She argues that Edward
Said's seminal book, Orientalism, was the starting point in her interest in
women's issues. She notes that Orientalism made her realize the striking
resemblance between the language used to represent women and the roles that
society expects them to play, and the language used to represent colonized
nations and marginalized groups (p. 211). Elsadda also points out that her
approach to women's issues is focusing on Arab cultural history from a
gender-conscious perspective, and that what motivated her to espouse this
approach was her joining a group of women who were trying to introduce a
modified version of the marriage contract (p. 212). The questionnaire that aimed
at finding out people's reactions to the suggested modifications revealed to her
the prevalent misconceptions that made people view these modifications as alien
to their heritage. It was then that Elsadda resolved to deconstruct hegemonic
discourses in the Arab culture (p. 212). It was this resolve to study Arab
cultural history from a gender-conscious perspective that prompted Elsadda to be
a founding member of the Women and Memory Forum, the aim of which is to support
research in Arab cultural history and to encourage cultural publications.
Elsadda expressed her conviction that research that responds to real needs and
attempts to answer genuine questions will enhance the movement for social
change.

The renowned Egyptian Islamist writer and thinker Aisha Abdel-Rahman blames the
spread of western education, introduced in Egypt by western missionary schools,
for what she considers the swerving of the women's movement in Egypt from its
original track, and calls for a national and Islamic education and approach to
women's upbringing and education (English section, p. 197). Concentrating
primarily on Egypt, Abdel-Rahman argues in "Islam and the New Woman"--which
first appeared in Arabic and was translated into English by Anthony
Calderbank--that although women took great strides in different areas of
professional life since the end of their seclusion in the harem, the same calls
for the improvement of the situation of women that were heard in the days of the
harem are still being heard today (p. 197). Abdel-Rahman attributes what she
calls the "distorted vision of women's rights" (p. 197) to the great disparity
between the types of education offered in foreign and missionary schools in
Egypt in the early twentieth century and the education offered in national
schools and to "cultural colonialism and intellectual invasion implanted firmly
in the consciousness and mentality of the East" (p. 200).

The polarization in the Arab and Islamic arena concerning the woman question
between the Islamist discourse and the secular discourse (which can be inferred
from Abdel Rahman's article), is discussed at length by Heba Raouf Ezzat,
Assistant Lecturer of political science at Cairo University, in her article
"al-Mar'ah wal Ijtihad: Nahwa Khatabin Islamiyin Gadid" (Women and Ijtihad:
Towards a New Islamic Discourse). Though Ezzat points out the drawbacks and
pitfalls of each of the two approaches (Arabic section, pp. 97-99), she comes to
the conclusion that over the past few decades the Islamists' discourse on the
woman question showed significant signs of development, revision and
regeneration, unlike the secularist discourse (pp. 100-101). She cites the
writings of Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali and Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi as examples
of the development of the Islamist discourse on gender and on the rights of
women (pp. 101-112). In the concluding section of her article, Ezzat calls for a
new discourse that reconciles the secular and Islamist discourses and bridges
the gap between Islamic Shari'a law and modern social science in order to
enhance the status of women (pp. 113-115).

If Ezzat ultimately seeks to deconstruct the binary opposition between secular
and Islamist discourses, Muhammad Birairi, Professor of classical and modern
Arabic literature at the American University in Cairo, seeks to deconstruct the
masculine/feminine and male/female binary oppositions. In his article "Ta'nith
al-Mudhakkar wa Tadhkir al-Mu'annath" ("Feminizing the Masculine/Masculinizing
the Feminine"), Birairi discusses works in classical Arabic literature that
deconstruct the masculine/feminine binary opposition. Birairi distinguishes
between two modes of literary expression in classical Arabic poetry (Arabic
section, p. 122). The first is when the poet adopts and embodies in his poetry
the values of the social institution. The second is when the poet transcends the
dictates of the social establishment. Birairi argues that the former mode can be
seen in propagandist poetry (al-mawdua'at al-shi'riyah dhat al-tab'a al-Da'a'i),
such as panegyrics and lampoons (fakhr and hijaa), while the latter can be seen
in the poetry that has a symbolic dimension, such as love poetry and wine poetry
(p. 122). Birairi cites examples from classical Arabic poetry that point out
that hijaa, or lampoons and satirical poetry, is the poetic genre in which the
poet is most dominated by the values of the social establishment, and that it is
the type of poetry in which the masculine/feminine binary is most evident. In
this binary opposition the positive values such as honor, valor, and loyalty are
associated with the masculine, while negative attributes such as treachery and
unfaithfulness are associated with the feminine (p. 123). However, in the
classical Arabic poetry that is symbolic, woman acquires a highly metaphysical
value. She becomes the source of light, warmth, and guidance (p. 125). There are
also poetic motifs in which the feminine is endowed with the positive attributes
usually associated with the masculine, most notably the description of the
she-camel in classical Arabic poetry. The she-camel, as described by the
classical Arabic poets, is usually characterized by stamina, speed, and the
heroic capacity to surmount obstacles (pp. 126-127). On the other hand, some
classical Arabic texts problematize the masculine/feminine opposition by
feminizing what is supposed to be masculine and vice versa. A striking example
of such instances is the poem by the al-Shanfara in which he praises the poet
Ta'abbata Sharran through comparing him to a mother taking care of her children
(pp. 128-130). It is Birairi's contention that the dismantling of the binary
opposition between the masculine and the feminine and the binary opposition
between the self and the other is closely related to the spirit of tolerance and
acceptance that does not deny the fact that difference exists, but negates the
binary vision that turns one side of the opposition into the embodiment of
goodness, while condemning the other side as an incarnation of evil (p. 136).

Another binary opposition that Shereen Abou El Naga, lecturer in the Department
of English Language and Literature at Cairo University, seeks to deconstruct is
that between the private and the public and the inside and the outside. In her
article "Tarh Nasawi Li Mafhum al-Bayt fi Hikayat Zahrah wa Sahib al-Bayt" ("The
Concept of Home in The Story of Zahra and The Owner of the House: A Feminist
Reading") Abou El Naga seeks to dismantle the boundaries between the private and
the public. Through the examination of The Story of Zahra, a novel by the
Lebanese writer Hanan Al Sheikh and The Owner of the House, a novel by the
Egyptian writer and scholar Latifa Al-Zayyat, Abou El Naga examines the concept
of "home," the domain described by the patriarchal society as a woman's private
space and enclosure. Abu Al Naga argues that in a patriarchal society, the
concept of home has certain connotations all of which seek to define woman's
identity and to firmly establish her exclusion from the public sphere (Arabic
section, p. 171). Among these connotations are taking care of the children,
chastity, being obedient to the husband and the total negation of woman's
individual self (p. 171). According to this concept, the home becomes a woman's
cocoon in which she lives totally separated from the public world of
decision-making (p. 171). Abu Al Naga argues that Zahra and Samia, the
protagonists of the two novels (written by women), underwent severe crises that
forced them to reconsider the concept of home. They managed to dismantle the
barriers that separate the private from the public.

Alif's issue on gender and knowledge also includes an article by Olfat Kamal
Al-Rouby, Professor of Arabic criticism and rhetoric at Cairo University, titled
"Mayy Ziyadah wal Naqd al-Nisa'i" (Mai Ziyada and Feminist Criticism) in which
she discusses the critical writings of Mai Ziyada (1886-1941), who was renowned
for hosting a literary salon that was attended by prominent Egyptian men of
letters. The issue also contains a testimony by Jehan el-Bayoumi, a medical
doctor, whose "Women and Health Here and There: A Medical Testimony" discusses
issues concerning women and health; another testimony by the writer Sherif
Hatata on his own experience with masculinity; an Arabic translation of Julia
Kristeva's "Woman's Time"; and a translation of Virginia Woolf's essay "Women
and Fiction."

The issue is a valuable contribution to gender studies that combines varied
views and analytical approaches. Though comparative concerns are evident, the
focus is on Arab-Islamic culture.




Citation: Nesreen Allam. "Review of Ferial J. Ghazoul, ed, Gender and Knowledge:
Contribution of Gender Perspectives to Intellectual Formations,"
H-Gender-MidEast, H-Net Reviews, May, 2005. URL:
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=135331123088485.