Debates on the Place and Role of Women

By now it should be obvious how many of the Nahda currents conflicted. A large portion of the conflict derives from the reality of the world; ideology is naturally an abstraction from the world and ideas like nationalism and socialism, for instance, naturally cut directly across each other in confused non-patterns they defy real integration. Such solid efforts to develop a civilisation so steeped in multifarious sectarian cleavages rationally nevertheless command admiration.

I discussed the feminist project within Islam in an earlier post. Now I'm going to consider how it fit into this confused but courageous Nahda context. There may be a little overlap so I apologise for that. That is, in part, a result of the confusion between ideology and reality that I've just mentioned.

Arab tradition and modernism interacted in relation to this issue from the early Nahda period. The questions raised concerned the relevance to the Arab world of a feminist discourse, a feminist vision and a feminist consciousness. The words used for feminism were nisa‘i and nisa‘iyya (from nisa‘ for women), nasawi and nasawiyya (from niswa for women) and unthawi and unthawiyya (from untha for female). An Egyptian writer, Malak Hifni Nasif (1886 - 1918), was apparently the first to use an Arabic word to connote feminism in her writing. She also went by the pen-name Bahithat al-Badiya (Seeker of the Desert) and was involved in the publication of Al-Nisa‘iyyat, a 1909 collection of writings advocating improved education, work opportunities and expanded freedoms for women, generally using the base of the originating texts and traditions of Islam. By 1923, an ‘Egyptian Feminist Union’ used the word nisa‘i for feminist in its title.

There is actually literary evidence of discussion of women’s rights and roles in what may be viewed as a feminist way by women from the 1860s but Arab men also sought to discuss this issue and perhaps to hijack the debate, whether consciously or not. Qasim Amin, an Egyptian man, published his The Liberation of Women in 1899 and The New Woman in 1900 and Tahir al-Haddad, a Tunisian man, published his Our Woman in Islamic Law and Society in 1929. Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke’s Opening the Gates: a Century of Arab Feminist Writing, published in 1990 explores these issues. Dr Badran suggests there that these early men had been exposed to European societies in which women were more visible and that this led to their favouring of feminism for the Arab world. She also suggests that the Arab women who embraced feminism generally initially belonged to the upper classes of the Arab world inspired by the volatility of the Nahda period to embrace change.

These early Muslim women, especially, discussed customs and traditions of Muslim societies that allegedly oppressed women to determine if they were, in fact, depriving women of Islamic ‘rights’. They decided that religion had, in fact, been used wrongly to justify some such customs and traditions and that it was therefore in the interests of women and ultimately their families and society that women were more fully taught their Islamic ‘rights’.

Foremost among these was Nazira Zain al-Din. She gave a ‘feminist’ reinterpretation of the Qur’an and Hadith in the 1920s in “Veiling and Unveiling (as-Sufur wal-Hijab)” and determined that the veil was an insult to both men and women. It was initially controversial but the essence of her argument was that Islamic texts intrinsically provided for the human rights of women. She has simply been ignored (along with her arguments) by the subsequent writings of later traditionist Muslim scholars although she engaged directly in serious intellectual debates with contemporary ulema during her lifetime (though probably not earlier or later than this).

‘Feminist’ men focused on the contribution of the 'ignorance' and 'backwardness' of women to the ignorance and backwardness of Arab society generally. They saw the veiling and seclusion of the middle and upper classes as social inhibitors of the women’s education that would be required to overcome the backwardness of Arab society as a whole. The Iraqi poet Jamil al-Zahawi was imprisoned in 1911 for advocating unveiling. Arab men thus spoke for women on the education of girls, polygamy, rights and duties and equality in gender relations, seclusion and veiling, independence and guardianship issues and the emancipation of women through education, work and, ultimately, their participation in public life.

Women’s groups espousing ‘feminist’ ideas existed from the 1920s as branches of nationalist and independence thought and movements. They advocated unveiling and emancipation for women for nationalist among other reasons and a radical social restructuring for feminist purposes. Arab women’s journals were established in Cairo and Alexandria.

The Egyptian Feminist Union was founded in the 1920s by Huda Shaarawi as a participant in the nationalist movement. The Arab Feminist Union of the 1940s was supported by Palestinian women and there were also feminist movements in Sudan in the 1950s and in Algeria in revolutionary times. While in the Arabian Peninsula there have been less advances, in Kuwait, especially, where there are now many education and work opportunities for women, 'feminists' are now able to organise and express unpopular views. Besides local national movements, in the 1980s Nawal as-Sa’dawi founded an international Pan-Arab feminist group, the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association (AWSA). The group expressly opposed conservative forces that sought to limit the public roles of women and rescind progressive family laws that enhanced women’s rights.

Arab women themselves thus contributed more to the debate from later in the Nahda period especially when women’s issues and modernism were overtaken in debates precipitated by political crises in the Arab world in the mid to late 20th Century. A Syrian minister and academic, Dr Bouthaina Shaaban (b. 1953) addressed this topic recently in a public lecture entitled The True Role of Arab Women.

Some of the female Muslim ‘feminists’ such as Aisha ‘Abd al-Rahman (Bint ash-Shati), Zaynab al-Ghazali and Duriya Shafiq were still conservative. ‘Abd al-Rahman was a pioneering female Islamic scholar who focused upon study of the women of Islam and who once explained the extent of her conservatism by commenting “I am conservative to a degree that crosses no woman’s mind”. Ghazali was an activist who expressed the view that “the Muslim woman must study Islam so she will know that it is Islam that has given all her rights”. Shafiq also discussed Islam’s contribution to the rights of women. Her views can be found in her essay “Islam and the Constitutional Rights of Woman” in Badran and Cooke’s Opening the Gates: a Century of Arab Feminist Writing.

Some feminists, such as as-Sa’dawi, were Marxist. She discusses gender relations in their social, economic and political contexts from a Marxist perspective.

Feminist scholars of today include the redoubtable Fatima Mernissi. She generally adopts a sociological approach and has propounded a fitna (seduction) theory of Islam that suggests that Islam’s worldview has it that women are not bad per se but that male-female relations are problematic per se.

As in the West, the Arab thinkers discussed precisely what feminism is. Unlike in the West, however, the Arab thinkers also considered whether it ought to, in fact, be considered a Western cultural imperialist tool and therefore not appropriate for the Arab world. Thus it is a political and cultural as well as a social subject that invokes a polarised debate. There is still no generally agreed Arabic word for feminism and the idea of the liberation of women does not yet resonate with the cultural zeitgeist. The additional argument employed against consideration of ‘women’s issues’ generally is that more pressing issues currently confront the Arab. Even women such as Liana Badr (b. 1950), a prominent Palestinian writer, have written such things as “however deeply I empathise with the women’s issue I can’t give it priority in a society which is rife with social and political problems”.

Many Arab women do suggest, however, that, as a significant human rights issue, ‘the women’s issue’ deserves immediate attention regardless of what other issues confront the Arab world and further argue that dealing with ‘their issue’ is actually productive in relation to the other concerns of the Arab world. They argue that required socio-political changes for progress must therefore include changes in the status and role of women. This issue thus rates highly in the current peace and democracy debates as a relevant progress and human rights/justice issue. Others, of course, still counter from the mid Nahda ‘play book’ that the issue plays into Western imperialist hands by weakening Arab culture in various ways and by providing a distraction from other, more urgent, issues. Support from the US and other Western ‘powers’ for the women’s issue rather thus plays into the hands of these naysayers, as it turns out. However, proponents of the rights of women counter back that the very pressure of the Western imperialists itself which is not denied may be the very patriarchal model readily adopted by Arab men in the Arab world to further oppress women. This oppression, they claim, is helping to produce the sense of hopelessness throughout the Arab world that inhibits progress.

The status of women can be seen from three different graded main 'progressive' perspectives. The traditionalist would tend to see the major role of the woman to be motherhood. Reformists would promote further educational opportunities and social advancement and liberation without recommending a major public or political role for women or major legislative reform. The final grade (that of liberal progressives) would also propose major legislative reform. Qasim Amin can be seen as having instituted this trend in 1900 that has been followed by various progressive political groupings such as the Arab Ba’th Party and Nasser’s party.

In Egypt, there have historically been three divisions of 'feminists'. The first group may be regarded as Islamists and would tend to reject the label feminist as too limiting and Western imperialist. They are aware of forms of oppression that are occurring today and seek redress of their grievances by means of resort to Islamic principles of argument. They tend to see the Western model of feminism as itself perhaps even the greater form of oppression because it seeks to promote a sense of equality with men that they would argue can not exist and because, as a Western ideology, feminism is not authentic in Egyptian or Muslim cultures. In these claims they appear to agree with conservative traditionalists.

Muslim feminists, on the other hand, see the modern feminist claim for full equality as islamically valid and see UN texts concerning human rights and equality as contributing helpfully to the feminist equality discourse. They tend to agree with secularists that reform to family law is necessary but stipulate that the reform should conform to modern Islamic Shariah norms. They thus also agree with the Islamist feminist position that reforms are possible by means of the mutually valued tradition of Islamic Ijtihad (legal ‘progress’ by means of Islamic legal reasoning).

The third group is the aforementioned category of secularists. They saw and see reform of family laws as necessary but believe in grounding their discourse outside any religious bounds. They place it squarely within the international human rights discourse. They respect the right to the exercise of religion as a private matter but see it as inimical with the emancipation of women that they value.

The idea of women under the “male gaze” has been explored by various feminists. The thought has been that in Arab culture, woman has been considered a mere body and object of male attention. Attention is drawn to the ‘extremes’ of Westernised fashion and conservative traditional Islamic dress as it relates to the male perception of women (especially by Khalida Sa’id in 1982).

The theory of “Neopatriarchy” in the Arab world and its link with various earlier and ongoing patriarchal forms was dealt with, of course, by Hisham Sharabi in his work, Neopatriarchy: a Theory of Distorted Change in Arab Society. Sharabi suggests that this patriarchy is evident in the family, the society and the state and affects divisions of labour, relative education levels and social and economic relationships. He agrees that women are generally oppressed in these relationships and sees the struggle to end this as social, political and representational (the patriarch and power/authority should be separated). At the same time, a process of liberation of women should occur. Halim Barakat has also had a special interest in the sociology of patriarchy. Sharabi notes that the patriarchy is especially active at the extended family level, relative equality having been obtained at the nuclear family level by means of a reduction in the inequality of local economic relations. At the state level, he argues that full equality requires a fuller liberalisation of the national economic system. He also argues for emphasis on the nuclear family and notes that full emancipation from the domination over women and families of male patriarchs requires further advances in education and further opportunities for economic independence.

Activism by women and women’s groups began to be more vocal after the 1970s. I’ve mentioned above some of the activists and groups. Islamic fundamentalism also resurged in a similar period (inspired by the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran).

Artists that have explored the relationship of women and their causes with Islam include Naguib Mahfuz with The Cairo Trilogy, Hanan ash-Shaykh with Hikayat Zahra (the Story of Zahra) and Nizar Qabbani with his poetry.

The making of The Cairo Trilogy into a series of films is possibly instructive in examining the relationship of the representation of women and their issues in recent years and the resurgence of fundamentalism, as suggested by Dr Nijmeh Hajjar of the University of Sydney. While the novels were written in the 1950s, the films were produced in the 1960s and 70s. The books show the modernising Cairo of the first part of the 20th Century in all of its diversity and vibrancy whereas the films blunt a large part of this. This appears to be in response to a change in the dominant zeitgeists that occurred between the 1950s and 1970s. In the books, women and men were both allowed to be and were present in public spaces yet not in the films; men also socially dominated virtually all spaces in the novels but ‘good’ women had even become physically non-existent in most spaces in the films.

The books depict the public space as sexualised under the gaze of the dominant male. The public face of woman was thus the alma-prostitute (the public ‘dancer’). Respectable women were expected to have very good reasons for being in public spaces and their movements were strictly regulated. They were closely questioned by authorities and others on the rare occasions that they were ‘seen’ in public. The Trilogy specifically links each rare occasion of women of the households that are the subject of the Trilogy leaving the private sphere with a disaster.

The women, too, are dominated in their homes, having no opinions of their own, being marginal, powerless, oppressed and subordinate. The mother has no say in the education and future of her sons and is unable to mediate between the sons and their father. Daughters fear even the name of their father. They don’t attend a school, are preoccupied with marriage and bicker and gossip at home among themselves.

The patriarch is depicted as the absolute monarch and authority of the family. This depiction itself is a traditional model for the Arab family. Respect for and absolute unquestioning obedience to the rules set down by the patriarch is compulsory. The rationale for this is that he is the sole bread-winner and thus provider. The wife and daughters are an annex of the patriarch and his dependents. The home is the feudal private property of the patriarch and his sacred space. His deputies in his absence would be other men who would take over his reins of power.

Further, in the Trilogy, while women engage in political activism in public, this is not depicted as altering the gendered, masculine, sexualised and eroticised quality of the public space or the powerlessness in the private space. Women thus chanted for freedom that would nevertheless not interrupt the power-monopoly of men or the domination of the male gaze in modern Cairo.

Simona Sharoni, an Israeli Jew now living in the US, has written about the ethnography of the Arab women’s movement in Israel-Palestine in Gender and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: the Politics of Women’s Resistance in the mid 1990s. The focus is, of course, on the resistance, but the work considers the roles played by women and feminists in the region in some detail. Sharoni also formed the related Women in Black movements that now exist in many countries including in Australia. They are essentially peace groups that consider war an aspect of the domination of women by men. This book also gives examples of what I’ve mentioned in an earlier post; that women’s groups have sought a reward from their men (unsuccessfully in this case) for services rendered in the liberation struggle against an occupier, in this case Israel.

Sharoni notes that Israeli women, having not had the advantage of this 'bargaining chip', are still typically restricted to fulfilling only the traditional roles of giving birth and motherhood. Abortion is frequently regarded as a form of treason. These attitudes may have origins as recent as the 1950s and were probably produced in part by the virtual state of war that has existed since the late 1940s with much of the Arab world.

The author also notes the efforts of Palestinian and Israeli women’s groups to work together (for example at Brussels in 1988). She possibly attempts to draw a long bow, however, when she credits women for the at-the-time-of-her-writing fairly popular Oslo accords, which she in turn blames for undermining the Palestinian bargaining chip I mentioned above by producing relative peace. Her arguments here may be a little limited by her relatively limited understanding of the issues on the Arab side.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind (or it might be Out of Mind, Out of Sight) is one recent work whose author I can't recall that discusses the visual representation and realities of women’s lives in Lebanon and various easily accessible fatawa websites also give attention to women’s rights issues thus giving an insight into the intensity of the current discussion within Islam of women’s rights. The novel Zahra by Hanan ash-Shaykh mentioned above appears to be a hopeful feminist critique of often grim times and circumstances for women. Work is also ongoing into the sexist (or otherwise) nature of the Arabic language itself.