Re-configurations of gender in the cultural experience of Arab women

This thesis engages with the concept of gender as a learned performance in order to locate subversive action, or “performative moments” in the cultural production of Arab women. The relationship between contemporary western feminism and Arab feminism is examined to show that enabling mediation is possible and can be fruitful for both parties. I advocate the viewpoint that we can locate performative situations in local contexts and intervene at the theoretical level in order to render these situations useful in a widely encompassing understanding of feminism. Also, it is my contention that gender theory is the most useful standpoint from which to examine the possible direction of today’s feminisms. In other words, only through closely examining how persons understand and perceive themselves as gendered beings can there then follow a committed and fruitful feminist direction, whether on the political or the personal level.

The first chapter centres on the event of Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot’s clinic in late nineteenth century Paris. I explore the phenomenon of hysterics housed at the clinic and question their confinement and diagnoses that were based on their supposed excessive femininity. This examination reveals that it is possible to induce gender requirements in the interest of an official discourse or figure of authority. This reveals the underlying unnaturalness of the oppositional dual status of gender and discloses gender as a fiction that requires repetitive performances in order to survive. Chapter two exposes how medical discourse can enslave perceptions of one’s gender, especially in the absence of other enabling discourses. I look at the early novels of Egyptian novelist Nawal El Saadawi that centre on the experiences of women physicians who try to come to terms with the ways in which they are invoked as women and what is expected of them through this invocation. The third chapter examines the possibilities of music to create a feminine space where it becomes possible to experience emotions not acknowledged in official discourse. The music of Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum is considered for its regenerative qualities insofar as it seeks to provide for an imaginary domain where a physical reality can be experienced. Finally, chapter four endeavours to reveal how catastrophic events such as war can instigate a deliberation on how gender categories are constraining and debilitating. The context of war provides for a space where women can evaluate and recreate their experiences.