How far and in what ways is the Arab female body oppressed by Western laws and power within Woman at Point Zero and Silence is a Sense?

Pinkney, Elizabeth

doi:10.24384/2A6D-D683

Conference Poster

How far and in what ways is the Arab female body oppressed by Western laws and power within Woman at Point Zero and Silence is a Sense?

Abstract

This project addresses the contested space that is the Arab female body and provides a reading of Arab women that enables them to be heard. The texts I engage with allow me to provide a critical analysis of the Arab female body: Silence is a Sense by Leyla AlAmmar (2021) and Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi (1972). Both take place in different times and spaces, one in the UK in the 2010s and the other in Egypt between 1930-1960, highlighting the relationship between the Arab female body and the West in differing ways. The project itself is separated into three parts: ‘Silence’, ‘Resistance’ and ‘Power and the Law’. These sections align with my thesis statement as a means to convey the forces that oppress the Arab female body. I consulted a variety of secondary sources to develop this project, such as Tangled in Terror by Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, A Decolonial Feminism by Françoise Vergès and El Saadawi’s non-fiction work The Hidden Face of Eve. Reading these texts alongside a variety of articles allowed me to explore and expose the impact of Western colonialism in enacting a harsh treatment of Arab women within the West as well as violence to which they are subjected by their own nations, relating this to the way they are perceived today. This project opens up a much-needed discussion about the stereotyping of Arab women as oppressed, examining where this narrative comes from and encouraging us to re-evaluate our perceptions.