Khadija Magardie
A DAUGHTER OF ISIS by Nawal El Saadawi (David Philip/Zed)
Islamic feminism is a virtual candy jar of typologies, incorporating pragmatists, radicals, secular feminists and even “neo- Islamists”. With the backdrop of Islamic laws and traditions, the different camps have one common concern – the empowerment of women within a rethought Islam.
What may be defined “Islamic” with respect to ideas about women remains complicated by cultural clich,s like female circumcision and so-called “honour killings”. This has provided a useful bashing tool in the quest to banish anything to do with Islam to the harem of misogyny and patriarchy.
Renowned Egyptian feminist writer Nawal el Saadawi, author of powerful texts like such as The Hidden Face of Eve and Woman at Point Zero, has made this her virtual trademark. The latest offering of the radical Saadawi, the Germaine Greer of Islamic feminism, is disappointing – all the more because it is an autobiography.
What one supposes will be the story of her life is in fact a long, overdrawn tirade – against the faith that is part and parcel of the lives of the very women on whose behalf Saadawi claims to speak.
And in the process, she falls into the typical trap of advocating an elitist position that is often a far cry from the realities and even aspirations of the majority. She is condescending and even arrogant.
Saadawi devotes entire chapters to describing how she managed, through sheer cunning, determination and strength of will, to evade the destiny of her mother and aunts – namely an early marriage and a bleak life of child-rearing.
The book describes a cycle of forced genital mutilations, an endless queue of wife-beating husbands, child marriages, and life in Saadawi’s detested kitchen. Her phrase “I hated the kitchen” forms the thesis for the entire book. This is the story of her miraculous attempts to evade it. “The kitchen was the place where I knew the humiliation of being female.”
This may indeed be an illustration of the reality of a society where religious and cultural dictates pre-determine the position of women, but the picture Saadawi paints of a grim life of suitors, marriage and babies underlies her seemingly class- based contempt for the rest of Egypt’s women.
In many places, she expresses her mortification at the thought of becoming like “other women”. It has always been this aspect of Saadawi that has failed her in getting significant support from Egyptian women at grassroots level.
She leaves out entire chunks of her life, particularly her arrest and detention by the Nasser government for her campaigning for women’s rights in Egypt. Though delightful in its descriptions of rural life, and often poignant when referring to Saadawi’s bevy of relatives, the book gives absolutely no insight as to the writer’s years of activism. As a description of the factors that shaped her later thinking, then the book is a let-down.