الحركة النسائية والتطور في الشرق الأوسط

by Lila Abu-Lughod, ليلى أبو لغد

ترجمة كتاب Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East للكاتبة الأمريكية من أصل فلسطيني ليلى أبو لغد

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, History, Gender, Islam, Middle East, Anthropology

Unknown Binding

First published November 30, 1997

About the author

Lila Abu-Lughod was born to Palestinian academic Ibrahim Abu-Lughod and American sociologist Janet Abu-Lughod in 1952. She obtained her PhD from Harvard University in 1984. She is is an American with Palestinian and Jewish ancestry who is professor of Anthropology and Women's and Gender Studies at Columbia University in New York City. A specialist of the Arab world, her seven books, most based on long term ethnographic research, cover topics from sentiment and poetry to nationalism and media, from gender politics to the politics of memory

Reviews

[أميرة · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of essays gives a quick overview of how women in Egypt, Turkey and Iran (but mostly Egypt) experienced the modernization project in the late 19th and 20th century. Most contributors demonstrated how both nationalist and colonial efforts to emancipate and discipline women were not terribly dissimilar. The main goal was to bring women's lives which were hidden from the state's gaze under its tight control. My favorite paper was Khaled Fahmy's Women, Medicine and Power in Nineteenth-Century Egypt because he highlighted how the hakimas (nurses) were not passive subjects in this modernizing process. They used the opportunities available in Mehmed Ali's expansion project to resist the policing of their bodies and sexualities. My least favorite was Abu Lughod's Feminism and Islamism in Egypt. She lumped all Islamists together in the same category and depended heavily on the Egyptian censored media, which she previously thoroughly examined in her Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television in Egypt.

[Brian Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of essays on social change over the past century. I especially enjoyed Afsaneh Najmabadi's “Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran” and Zoreh T. Sullivan's “Eluding the Feminist, Overthrowing the Modern? Transformation in Twentieth-Century Iran.”

[العنّود · Rating 5 out of 5]

كتاب ممتاز كل فصل يرصد تطورات الحراك النسائي وتعاطيه مع الكونيالية و صناعة الأمة عبر تسيس الأمومة، في مصر و ايران وتركيا.
يقدم المصلحين الشرق اوسطين -على ثقافاتهم-التحديثات بعبائه الجذور والعودة للتقاليد، بعبارة اخرى يحاولون تأصيل التحديثات في سياق الدولة المعاصرة اليوم . في مصر تكون مشاريع الدفاع عن حقوق المرأة باسم "الاسلام الصحيح" قبل تأثير الاستعمار الأوروبي وحكم الترك، وفي ايران العودة لنصوص تربوية كتبت في القرن التاسع عشر عن التربية الصحيحة والأمومة، اما في تركيا ففي فترة العثمانيين الشباب الذين حاولوا ادماج الاسلام في الافكار الليبرالية الأوروبية كان تعليم المرأة هو السبيل لإنقاذ الدولة وبعدهم القوميين الأتراك قدموا اكمال المرأة لتعليمها العالي وعملها بأنه مفتاح التضامن القومي. والحقيقة بأنهنّ استخدمن كوادر بديلة عن الرجال الموتى في الحروب السابقة.
- وعن مشروع قاسم أمين: " ابن كرومر والكولونيالية" كما تتهمه ليلى أحمد ، فاساس مشروعه الاصلاحي ربطه بين وضع المرأة وتتقدم الأمة من التخلف -بديلاً عن اتهام الغرب للأسلام -وتشجيعه لشكل الاسرة البرجوازية لتنشئة "رجال المستقبل و أمهاته" ، و النموذج المطروح هو مصدر آخر للقهر وتوغل السلطة ويفتح الطريق لأشكال جديدة من الاستغلال للنساء.
اما عن وصم النسوية باستيراد الثقافة الغربية، تقول ليلى أبو لغد بأن: "العناصر التي لا تنتطبق إلا على أقلية صغيرة يمكن أن يركز عليها وتعتبر غربية، وبالتالي تشوه من أجل خدمة المصالح الذاتية، في حين ان الأمور التي يتقبلها عدد كبير من الناس وواسعة الانتشار بالذات بين الطبقة الوسطى والشريحة الأدني منها، فهي أمور من الصعب أن نجدها تحمل وصمة "صنع في الغرب" ".

[Mariam · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason that it didn't get 5 stars was because the title is a bit misleading, "Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East" but the only countries mentioned were Iran, Turkey and Egypt (it's in North Africa not realistically in the ME). Could've just written "Feminism and Modernity in Iran, Turkey and Egypt".

[Fred Dameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This work is actually seven different thesis on Feminism and it's history in the Middle East. First lets talk about the cover and why it was chosen.

The reason for choosing this piece of art from the 1920's for the cover has everything to do with what the veil or hijab is to women in the Mid-East, specifically Egypt, Iran, and Turkey. These three nations have led the way for women rights in the region and the veil or hijab is actually a way for women to fight back against being westernized. This fight against being westernized but using modern European teachings is at the base of the struggle the West has today with the Mid-East. Wearing a hijab, veil, full chador or no covering is an outward statement by the women of the Mid-East against the sexualization that the West has cast them in. And THAT is what this work is about. A history of this fight to be modern but not fall prey to the West's imagine of an Arab women. And while were here lets get away from the use of the word "Arab". If you are talking about Iran, it's Iranian or Persian. If the area is Turkey or the steppe East of the Caspian sea, then your talking about Turks, until you hit the Chinese border. AT least as the original occupiers of the land. If you are West of the Sinai Peninsular up to the middle of the Libyan portion of the Sahara and north of the junction of the Blue and White Nile your talking about Egyptians. West of that area is Moorish and the Stan's have become the home land to Kazaks and Uzbeks. The only place in what we in the West call Arab that is Arab is the Saudi peninsula including, Oman, Yemen, Qatar, The Emirates, Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Israel/Palestine. So, lets stop calling every where in the Mid-East Arab.

Back to "Remaking Women".

This work goes through the history of Feminism in Egypt, Turkey and Iran. Starting with the creation of women as trained midwifes in Egypt in the 1830's. Again these mid wives although trained to be modern day nurse practioners were at the bottom the medical ladder but way above the villagers that they were treating on the social scale. This led to many problems for these women, but read the essay. The work continues up to the 79 revolution in Iran and the forced veiling of the female populace. The big take away is that when the Shah fell women and the veil was actually a strike against the Shah and his modernization programs. The Khomeini revolution took the veil and turned it into a piece of clothing to lead to control. A thing that modern Iranian women are now and have since the Revolution taken back. The chador is now only worn when the extreme Rt. is in power in Tehran and then the further from Tehran the less it is enforced. But I digress. Persian, Egyptian and Turkish women wanted to wear the chador as a way to fight back against the modernization forced on their nations by the West, in Persia and Egypt, and Ataturk and the young Turks in Turkey.

Originally the westernization of these countries lifted women up from being brood mares for their husbands and gave them control of the household. This house hold control has now been used to keep women subjugated to men and slowly women are fighting back. As I have observed before these women don't want a western solution for their freedom they want a Persian, Egyptian, or Turkish solution. These women do NOT want to be sexualized as the west has done. We see the Mid-East as the world of the harem and the Belly Dancer. The West in modernizing the Mid -East have not taken that idea away. They have added to it with Yves Saint Lauran, Gucci, and the rest of the haute-couture houses of the West. We the West have sexualized the women of the Mid-East for 200+ years as part of our civilizing efforts of the "Arab" barbarian. We continue to sexualize the Women of the Mid-East and Near East. (A digression here to other works and some reality for the reader.)

Problems the West has started for women and the family since we over through the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan. First, getting rid of both these oppressive governments was a good thing. The post war world needed much better thought than the Bush administration gave it. When they did think about it they used the worst template, Vietnam, that was available. We put governments that were in our back pocket and by extension Exxon/Mobil's back pocket. Just as we did in Vietnam. If we, the U.S., had used Enduring Freedom, the current operation in the Balkans, the result today would be much better. For example instead of going off and killing the next village in the Balkans to continue the 600 year old blood feud the people of the Balkans are going to the NATO security forces and demanding the guilty be arrested and tried. This increase in calling a cop from 1996/7 till today is up by 60 to 67 percent depending on which set of numbers you like, NATO Vs former Warsaw Pact forces Vs U.N. numbers. The point is they are calling a cop instead of the blood feud. And with the major issues of murder and theft coming under control of the government's of the Balkans forces are now looking at human trafficking and the use, importation and sale of drugs into the Balkan's and starting to get these plagues on their societies controlled.

In Afghanistan and Iraq today both countries have large issues with prostitution, and drug production, sale, transportation, and use. Prostitution has gone from Zero in Kabul to at least 50+ whore houses. In Iraq any location that was NOT occupied by ISIS has at least one Whore House and in the capital, Bagdad, again 50+ in the Westernized sections of the city. Drug use and production in Afghanistan was zero before the U.S. invaded now most of the Heroin used in the U.S. today was grown in Afghanistan and the growers are protected by the CIA. Just as the Heroin growers in S.E. Asia were supported and backed by the CIA, even to the point of a Hollywood blockbuster with Mel Gibson called Air America. All true. And in Iraq the issue of drug use, while denied by Bagdad, is on the rise. Not just as a conduit to move drugs into Europe but also for production and growth of the Poppy. Both countries although repressive regimes had little or none prostitution and drug use. We, The West need to do better. Digression done.

Women don't want to be sexualized. They want to be able to run their homes but also go out into the world and work. Work not just as nurses or teachers but as lawyers, doctors, engineers, and if they choose homemakers. The choice is up to the women of each country. In Iran women are in the Parliament and recently one was appointed as a advisor to the Religious Council to provide input on women's issues. They are lawyers and judges. Women are involved in their communities. To be blunt the nations that the U.S. demonizes, Iran and Egypt, in many ways are further advanced in women's rights and respect than the U.S. is today. I say this as here in America women are slut shamed, still have to work twice as hard to get half as far in the corporate world, we still don't believe a women who is raped that she was raped, we still have men treat women as second class citizens, we still don't believe that spousal abuse is happening. In Iran men still beat their wives but if she does go the police he is prosecuted and jailed. Abuse is contrary to the words of the Prophet. Rape is contrary to the word of Allah and is prosecuted much more severally than in the U.S.. Drug use and production is also contrary to the Quran and is punished accordingly. Drug use and prostitution are two of the main sins that the West normalized in the Mid-East. Women of the Mid-East aren't sexual play toys. They have minds that can run a country, run a petro chemical works, run schools, or run a home and in the countries talked about they are trying and moving forward with these items. The Mid-Eastern women does not need Western interference and plans. What they need is education in the modern methods of birth control and family planning. They need their economies not ruined by the West with sanctions. They need their men to have useful work and hope that their children will have useful work.

Remaking Women is a history of women in the Mid-East finding their way to true emancipation from the patriarchy and moving towards full citizenship in their respective countries.

[Zohra Star · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far its fantastic!

[Arda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lila Abu-Lughod is a critical thinker and eye-opening. My notes here are mostly from her contribution in journal articles, namely from "Dialects of women’s empowerment":

Abu Lughod (2009, p.88) speaks about the harsh way that the “less educated women, who had not even heard about human rights” are referred to, which is a reminder of how the women who are “taught about advocacy, leadership, women’s rights” are often more powerful than the supposedly “empowered” women would care to admit. To have a genuine discussion about matters, it is time to admit that the women taking on leadership positions are often battling their own battles. As someone who had been presented with the opportunity to speak about the conflict in my country due perhaps to my ability to articulate the issues in the English language and discourse, I am careful about being in self-denial and forgetting that prior to entering the United States I had been asked to take my pants down for security-check purposes. Being part of “high-level delegations” does not make me forget that countless empowered women still need permission from their fathers, brothers, or husbands to attend such meetings. Women who are in such positions might want to believe that the marginalized are those undergoing domestic violence and rape, but they forget the reality check. Particularly women from conflict who do get the change to voice their issues may feel important while away, but if they are to be honest with themselves they would know that some places are just lighter than others – and some are heavy.

Abu Lughod (2009, p.90): “One can also see the ahistoricism in this chapter of the report, which strangely attributes contemporary family dynamics and control over women to a timeless Arab origin and then follows with the story of the introduction of Islam. Most sophisticated social analysts who write about gender and family look instead to transformations over the centuries, especially in the 20th century, to consider the rise and fall of empires, the impact of colonialism or capitalist agriculture and industrialization, the gender- ing of nationalism, the requirements of state-building projects, and the entailments of globalization.”

She mentions the importance of family structures in the Arab world and wonders whether it’s a good thing to take it out. Issue of homelessness, family ties – good things about it. She talks about the importance of family and the strong ties. While she acknowledges that family structures are problematic, she wonders whether individualization is the answer. Abu Lughod (2009, p.90): “Theorizing about the dark side of the lib- eral value of individualism under capitalism from Engels on to Zaretsky, or about the rise of disciplinary society, as described by Foucault, Donzelot, or Balibar, suggests that we be more cautious in our optimism.”

Also she mentions the trouble of dealing with problems from a reductionist way that has a set way of thinking about how all societies must function. In turn they reduce Arab women’s issues to honor killings and female genital mutilation, distracting from the bigger issues?

[kayleigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

Read for my Women, Gender, and Sexuality in Middle Eastern History class, not going to review.

[Mun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful articles on the effect of modernity on the Arab World

[Z.]

[I was going to check this out again on hoopla to finish reading, but it's not available anymore, so that's indefinitely on hold.]

[Hiva · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got really conflicted feelings about this one. Maybe my expectations were for something else...
Anyway, not going to be using it on my future research