Singing at the Digital Well: Blogs as Cyberfeminist Sites of Resistance

There is a Pushtun proverb that says that women rebel with suicide or song. Proverbs like this serve to reinforce a male-defined value system. While suicide is a tragic choice for women, poetry or song are positive strategies women employ to resist the control of their bodies and to connect with other women. In this research, I analyzed an English-language blog produced by a woman living in Iraq during the Second Gulf War (2003-present). Relying on Rosi Braidotti's (1994) concept of the nomadic subject, I discuss the ways in which this blogger subverted traditional poetry and song to rebel against unequal value systems of the fundamentalist Muslim culture in Iraq. Using variations of the soulful musical poetry of the classic Iraqi sihr halal, or "lawful magic," this blogger sings songs of resistance to disrupt the patriarchal power structures that control her life. Using themes that center around private life though addressed to a public audience, blogs, like this one, act as the new meeting place, or well, with women guarding the information, passing on culture, and creating a new version of the magical words.