In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Abstracts and Doœjments Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing. Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke, eds. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990,412 pages. This is the first coUection of Arab women's feminist writings induding poems, tales, excerpts from novels, short stories, essays, journalistic articles, and speeches, as weU as interviews. The voices are those of Arab women who both did and did not caU themselves ferninists. Their discourses address universal issues such as education and work, rights concerning marriage, and suffrage, at the same time they confront more Arab gender-related problems. They come from countries that experienced European colonial rule and/or Western imperiafist hegemony. Because of that, their feminist voices often ran the risk of being discredited as antinationalist or antireUgious. The selections are organized "within a deliberately fluid classificatory framework that opens a new way of thinking about women's writings." The division of the book into the rubrics "Awareness," "Rejection," and "Activism" is one that shows a progression in feminist consdousness. "Awareness" indudes the Lebanese Etel Adnan's essay "Growing Up to Be a Woman Writer in Lebanon" (1986), the Syrian Warda al-Yaziji's epistolary poem "Warda al-Turk" (1867), the Lebanese Nadia Tuéni's "Who Are You, Claire GebeyU?" (1968), the Palestinian Fadwa Tuqan's excerpt from her autobiography Difficult Journey—Mountainous Journey (1984), the Egyptian Huda Shaarawi's excerpt from her memoirs Farewell, Betrothal, Wedding (c. 1945), the Lebanese Shirley Saad's short story "Amina" (1985), the Palestinian Sarnira Azzam's short story "The Protected One" (1967), the Syrian Ulfa Idelbi's short story "Seventy Years Later" (1970), the Mauritanian Zainaba's "Lecture on CUtoridectomy to the Midwives of TouU" (1987), The Egyptian Alifa Rifaaf s short stories "Who'U Be the Man?" (1978) and "Honour" (1981), the Saudi Arabian Khairiya Saquaf's short stories "I Saw Her and Thaf s Enough" (1981) and "In a Contemporary House" (1981), the Egyptian Wadida Wassef's short story "Hasan's Wives" (1970), the Algerian Nadia Guendou^s poem "People" (1963), the Algerian Marie-Aimée HeUe-Lucas's essay "Women, Nationalism and ReUgjon in the Algerian Struggle" (1987), the Iraqi Daisy al-Amir's short story "The Eyes in the Mirror" (1981), and the Egyptian Noha Radwan's short story "The SUk Bands" (1988). "Rejection" indudes the Egyptian Aisha al-Taimuriya's excerpt from her novel The Results of Circumstances in Words and Deeds (1887-88) and artide 'Tamily Reform" (1909), the Egyptian Bahithat al-Badiya's excerpt © 1991 Journal of Women's History, Vol. 3 No. ι (Spring) 138 Journal of Women's History Spring from her real-fife account Bad Deeds of Men: Injustice (1909), the Syrian Ghada Samman's artide "Our Constitution—We the Liberated Women," the Lebanese Hanan al-Shaikh's short story "A Girl CaUed Apple" (1981), the Egyptian Ihsan Assal's short story "The House of Obedience" (1962), the Lebanese Evdyne Accad's excerpt from her novel The Excised (1982), the Egyptian Andrée Chedid's short story "Personal Papers" (1973), the Algerian Fadhma Amrouche's excerpt from her memoirs "My Mother" (1946), the Syrian Samar Attar's "Rima" (1988), a chapter from her novel, and the Egyptian Nawal al-Saadawi's "Eyes," based on the Ufe story of one of her patients. "Activism" indudes the Lebanese Hind Nawfal's "The Dawn of the Arabic Women's Press" (1892), an introduction to the first issue of a journal, the Lebanese Zainab Fawwaz's artide "Fair and Equal Treatment" (1891), the Egyptian Bahithat al-Badiya's lecture "A Lecture in the Club of the Umma Party" (1909), the Palestinian/Lebanese Mayy Ziyada's lecture "Warda al-Yaziji" (1924), the Egyptian Qut al-Qulub's two chapters "The Elopement" and "The Impossible Joy," from her novd Ramza (1958), the Egyptian Nabawiya Musa's selections "The Effects of Books and Novels and Morals" and "The Differences between Men and Women," from her book Woman and Work (1920), the Lebanese Nazira Zain al-Din's excerpts from two of her books, Unveiling and Veiling (1928) and The Young Woman and the Shaikhs (1928), the Egyptian Saiza Nabarawi's artide "Double Standard" (1925), the Algerian Zoubdda Bittari's excerpt "The...

pdf

Share