الفهرس 
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Abstract
This thesis sets out to investigate a corpus of post-orientalist studies, presented by both Western and Arab/Muslim women scholars. It focuses on their examination of the question of gender in their readings and critiques of Orientalism as a discourse. The thesis aims to show how Western feminist scholars have seen gender as an important variable in the Orientalist discourse. It also shows how Arab/Muslim critics have regarded representations of sexual difference as being inextricably linked to representations of racial and cultural differences, and how they have reacted to the different Western representations of Oriental women, their lives, and their roles. Thus, this thesis attempts to uncover both Western and Arab/Muslim women scholars’ attempts to challenge the traditional Orientalist stereotypes of the Oriental women. The ultimate aim of the thesis is to examine the possibility of the existence of a multi-cultural feminist discourse, defending women’s rights all over the world and calling for a global “sisterhood” among women of different nationalities, ethnicities, and religions.
Regarding the methodology of the thesis, it draws on gender and feminist studies as well as postcolonial studies, in its attempt to highlight and criticize the traditional Orientalist stereotypes of the Orient and Arab/Muslim women. The methodological approach of the thesis is an eclectic blend of cultural studies and literary criticism. Such an approach helps analyse various texts belonging to such diverse disciplines as literary criticism, sociology, history, and anthropology.
This thesis is divided into an introduction, three chapters, and a conclusion. The introduction deals with the concept of “Orientalism” in the traditional colonial discourse. It also shows that Said’s concept of Orientalism has stimulated many feminist Western and Arab/Muslim studies, which deal with the question of gender in the Orientalist discourse, and which attempt to examine and challenge the stereotypes of the Arab/Muslim women through analysing many Orientalist writings as travel writings and harem literature.
Chapter one, entitled “Deconstructing and Reproducing the Orientalist Discourse: Western Women’s Readings of Orientalism,” focuses on Western women scholars’ readings and critiques of the Orientalist discourse. It attempts to investigate the views of such scholars as Reina Lewis, Lisa Lowe, Billie Melman, Sara Mills, Mary Louise Pratt and Shiley Foster presented in their works which deal with the Orient in general, and with the Arab/Muslim woman in particular. Most of these scholars have criticized Said’s relegation of the question of gender in analysing the Orientalist discourse.
Some of these scholars have focused on women’s travel writings, such as Melman, who has acknowledged the multiplicity and heterogeneity of women’s attitudes presented by their travel writings. She displays the specificity of the female Orientalist gaze, and suggests a counter-discourse or a gender-specific discourse based on women’s representations and perceptions of the Orient and Oriental women. Similarly, Mills has argued for the importance of gender to the study of the colonial discourse. She has provided an analysis of the discourses of some women travel writings, suggesting that some women’s texts construct counter-hegemonic voices within the colonial discourse.
Besides, Pratt has attempted to present a dialectic and historicized approach to travel writing and to spotlight the interactive dimension of colonial encounters. She has also emphasized the heterogeneity of travel writings and its interaction with other kinds of expression. She has also illustrated the different forms of women travel writings and some contradictions within their discourses. In addition, this study shows, through investigating the work of Shirley Foster, that women travel writers have provided different representations of the harem. They have produced diverse representations of the Oriental women that can be either independent or subversive of the dominant male Orientalist discourse. For Foster, while the harem was regarded as a “forbidden territory” for male Orientalists, Western women’s actual access to the harem have allowed them to provide alternative representations of the harem.
There have been also many other Western women critics, such as Lewis and Lowe, who have focused on different Western female representations of Muslim women. Lewis challenges masculinist assumptions concerning the homogeneity and stability of the Orientalist gaze. In investigating the specificity of the female Orientalist gaze, she shows that some women writers and artists have articulated alternative representations of racial and cultural differences. For her, the Orientalist discourse is a flexible and heterogeneous one, which functions through contradictions and allows for a diversity of women’s voices. Similarly, Lowe insists on “heterogeneity” as a critical method, which represents a strategy for resisting and combating the dominance and tropes of the Orientalist discourse. Through discussing disparate Orientalist situations, she has come to see that Orientalism is a profoundly heterogeneous and multivocal tradition, which is composed of non-equivalent and diverse instances.
Hence, it has become evident that Western women writers have been able to provide a counter-hegemonic viewpoint of the Orientalist discourse. Although women writers and travelers have been influenced by the structures of class and race, which are main components of the colonial discourse, their gender positioning and their actual visit to the harem have enabled some of them to challenge the prevalent social and textual codes, and the Orientalist stereotypes of the Orient and Oriental women. However, the female Orientalist discourse has been regarded as a flexible and heterogeneous one which functions through contradictions. Hence, by including gender as a category in the debate on Orientalism, many Western women scholars have emphasized the heterogeneity of women’s attitudes and viewpoints presented in their travel writings and harem literature.
The second chapter, entitled “Arab/Muslim Women’s Critiques of Orientalism,” attempts to highlight Arab/Muslim women’s endeavours to examine the gender and sexuality of the Orientalist discourse, and to deconstruct the Orientalist tropes and stereotypes of Eastern women. It investigates the views of such women scholars as Rana Kabbani, Mohja Kahf, Meyda Yeğenoğlu, Leila Ahmed, and Lila Abu-Lughod. It also points out how these Arab/Muslim women critics have reacted to Western feminists’ representations of Oriental women and their roles in Islamic societies.
A significant reading of the Orientalist discourse is that of Kabbani, who has evaluated Western perceptions of Islamic culture with particular reference to erotic stereotypes in literature and painting. In doing so, she has tried to uncover the erotic myths and fantasies which the West has developed about the East over the ages, showing how racial and sexual stereotypes have become vital to colonialist designs. Also, Kahf shows that the Muslim woman has been represented differently in Western literature across different historical periods. The evolving images of the Muslim woman in literary texts reflect changes in power relations between the East and the West and transformations in the gender dynamics within Western culture.
Another critique of Orientalism is provided by Yeğenoğlu, who has argued that representations of cultural difference are inseparably linked to representations of sexual difference. For her, the Orientalist discourse is mainly structured upon unconscious fantasies, sexual imageries and desires. She regards the veil as being one of the prototypical Orientalist fantasies, and spotlights the persistent Western fascination with the veiled Oriental woman. She criticizes both the traditional masculinist assumptions of Orientalism and Western feminist discourses which seek to unveil the Muslim woman in the name of progress.
This study shows that many Arab/Muslim women scholars have examined the Western narrative of the victimized and oppressed Muslim women. In so doing, they have refuted many ethnographic images of Islam and Muslim women. For instance, Leila Ahmed criticizes the Americans’ claim that Islam is backward, uncivilized and irrational, and that Arab women are terribly oppressed and degraded. Ahmed has criticized Western feminists for their docility towards the received ideas about the inferiority of Muslim women. Besides, Ahmed discusses Western feminists’ view that Islamic culture cannot be taken as a framework for feminist movements, and that Muslim women’s advancement should be grounded in the adoption of Western culture. Hence, Ahmed has emphasized the need for an autonomous Arab/Muslim feminism, through which Muslim women can achieve egalitarian gender relations within their own tradition and religion.
Moreover, Lila Abu-Lughod has pointed out that while many women scholars have investigated and challenged the misrepresentations of the Eastern women, there have been also many attempts to study how Middle Eastern women represent themselves and gender relations within their own societies. However, in doing so, there exists the risk of validating “Western liberal values” in proving the “agency” of Middle Eastern feminists. Hence, through investigating diverse critiques and readings of Orientalism, Arab/Muslim women scholars and feminists inevitably confront entangled political engagements and dilemmas of being caught between the binaries of the Orientalist discourse, while attempting to provide critiques of the colonial and patriarchal structures within Islamic societies.
Chapter three, “A Critique of Women’s Post-orientalism,” attempts to provide different critiques presented by diverse women critics, whether Western or Arab/Muslim. It highlights some contradictions within the discourses of Western feminists as well as challenges faced by Arab/Muslim feminists. This chapter shows that although the female post-orientalist project, which seeks to combat the ‘Orientalist dogmas’, might seem promising, the chapter uncovers some contradictions within its discourse. It investigates the critiques provided by such women critics as charlotte Weber, Joyce Zonana, Carine Bourget, Fatima Mernissi, Denise deCaires Narain, Lila Abu-Lughod, and Leila Rupp. This chapter also explores the viability of transcending cultural differences among women belonging to different cultures so as to work together for achieving shared objectives within international women’s movements.
Through presenting the arguments of these diverse Western and Arab/Muslim women, it has become evident that many Western feminists have been engaged in both reproducing and challenging the Orientalist stereotypes of Arab/Muslim women. Weber shows that in examining the interactions between Western and Middle Eastern women within the first wave of international women’s movement, there emerge challenges to the possibility of achieving solidarity across different boundaries. The influence of the Orientalist legacy has been evident in Western feminists’ belief in Western superiority and in their representations of such aspects as the harem and the veil as being inherently oppressive. Likewise, Zonana shows that such influence of the Orientalist legacy is manifested also in the concept of “feminist orientalism,” used by feminist writers as a threat against Western men that they should not behave in an “Eastern” way. Therefore, the Orientalist legacy has been obviously employed in service of Western feminism. Hence, Western feminists’ belief in the superiority of European culture has turned out to be stronger than their belief in “global sisterhood.”
The thesis has also attempted to highlight an obvious challenge faced by Arab/Muslim feminists, which is that they are caught between the project of representing, mostly to the West, Arab/Muslim women as active agents, and advocating women’s rights within their own societies through criticizing the local patriarchal structures. Carine Bourget, for example, has provided a critique of Mernissi’s memoir, Dreams of Trespass. For her, Mernissi’s Dreams oscillates between reproducing some Orientalist stereotypes of women in harems and resisting others. Thus, Mernissi’s book can be regarded as incorporating many contradictions, reflecting the tension between Orientalism and the viewpoints of Arab/Muslim feminism.
Since there have been many accusations against Western feminists’ theorizations about Muslim women that they reinforce the Orientalist stereotypes of the oppressed Muslim woman, many women scholars, like Denise Narain, have argued for focusing on the structures which connect women across the world, instead of highlighting the differences which separate them. Narain sees that women scholars should search for ways through which women all over the world can transcend differences and constitute affiliations within their own critical enterprises.
Also, Abu-Lughod has argued that since our lives are products of histories of interactions and exchanges, there should be an acceptance of and respect for cultural differences among women belonging to different cultures. Instead of focusing on the issues which may divide the world artificially into imaginative separate spheres, scholars have to investigate issues promoting “global interconnections.” For Abu-Lughod, the world needs an egalitarian discourse of solidarity and alliance instead of the “rhetoric of salvation” which implies Western superiority.
Similarly, Leila Rupp examines the viability of forging bonds among women of the world and of constituting an international feminist “collective identity.” For her, the concept of global “sisterhood” can be achieved through their conflict over the best way to realize equality and global understanding. In spite of the dynamics of power relations within international women’s movements, the feminist “collective identity,” which is constructed within such movements, may enable women belonging to diverse nations to cooperate for achieving common objectives, and consequently sustains the possibility of the existence of a “feminist internationalism.”
The conclusion sums up the findings of the thesis, showing that in displaying and analyzing a host of Western and Arab/Muslim gendered readings of Orientalism, it has become evident that in order to achieve global “sisterhood” or “feminist internationalism” and in order for the female post-orientalist project to exist, it is necessary for Western feminists to abandon the Orientalist binaries implicit in their discourses and their obsession with the religious and cultural aspects of Arab/Muslim women’s lives, and to avoid the “rhetoric of salvation” which implies Western superiority. On the other hand, while attempting to forge bonds with women belonging to different cultures within transnational women’s movements, Arab/Muslim women scholars and feminists should maintain their own cultural affiliations and critical projects within their own tradition and religion, and to beware of being caught between the same binaries of Orientalism in their attempts to provide critiques of the social practices and patriarchal structures within their own societies.