Login
Login

Notes on Arab Women's Literature .. !!

Notes on Arab Women's Literature .. !!

Widad Taha 

If this universe is one structure, formed of opposites deep in difference, as well as parallel and finite systems, then the relationship of man to woman falls within this general existential framework and is formed within the relationships verned by harmony and difference, as well as the process of infinite transformation. Therefore, talking about feminist literature first is an exaggerated talk in portraying the world of women as a world separate from life and from a relationship with men,

That relationship that is undering transformation and development and extending deep into the roots of human consciousness, and on the basis of which each of them builds their view of themselves and of the other human being.


From here then a woman's view of life and existence is exactly what verns their relationship with it and with herself and with the man, and from my point of view then the consecration of feminist literature or the consecration of a literary genre based on gender, is an exaggerated  emptying between the two elements of human existence that complement each other on the one hand, and it is also a masculine triumph of nature for women as it is a glorification of the feminine self in contrast to the self of the man whom the woman accuses of excluding her, and subsequently it is the very practice of the man's action throughout history, meaning it is what I referred to at the beginning of my talk as the identification with the different and I do not say it is a clash with it because it involves a great deal of the feeling of injustice by the woman, a feeling from within me that I reject and fly away from to a more spacious sky. 

Literature, all literature and any literature is the summary of the e, its experiences, concerns, dreams, complexes, and hopes about life and fate. 

So how can a woman if she writes literature be far from these meanings and need a feminist umbrella to protect her ? And how if the literature written by the woman does not express human beings can it be called literature? A woman must free herself from her subjectivity first and let us hold the man accountable if he excludes her literature intentionally and out of disparagement at that time.

I do not know if the amount of what a woman writes is a reason for it being away from the man's criticism, but the mere fact that the critic is a man, or else there will be no criticism of the woman's literature, is evidence of the woman's involvement in this exclusion because she did not write literary criticism, or did not write enough of it, in which the woman or others focused on existential topics that arouse her interest, and even if the man in the third millennium deliberately excludes us as women from criticism so that he continues to occupy the first rank humanly, he deprives himself of the pleasure of discovering us and deprives subsequent generations of understanding societies and lives hidden between the lines drawn by the pens of the soul dwelling within us. As for if what women write is, in his opinion, unworthy of criticism, let him give us models and let them work from them. And if the subject is becoming exaggerated as a type of gaining rights by raising the voice, then I see that water carves rock even though it is soft. Therefore, a woman does not have to fight a man so that he criticizes what she writes. Let her write literature and let history change its course toward the threshold of her pen.

And on a personal level, I did not seek out a critic to write about me. What was written about my novels was by men who read what I wrote and admired it, and they wrote with free and fair pens. Is it enough? As a writer, the ink of the sea will not be enough ink for me to feel that my voice was heard, so how will I see that a few articles here and there are enough? Do I hope to get more constructive criticism? Of course, but I come back and say that I have to present what touches human beings and their issues and expresses them so that it receives the attention of critics. This does not mean that what I wrote is far from that, but it means that I am realistic and a dreamer at the same time. I am in my beginnings. There may be factors other than the man's critical activity toward what the woman writes, which is the most influential in his writing that we write with. Perhaps much of what the woman wrote is salted with the man's view of her and of life, and perhaps our freedom from the inferiority of what we present, and our honest search for human models suitable for literary works that contribute to forming visions and change, is what makes feminist literature a literature that receives criticism.
Pandora changed the direction of history, and sent the evils of her box, so she deserved that she knew everything. The literary woman can create radical shifts by giving her box of secrets to the human being.


Notes on Arab Women's Literature .. !!
Ehsan Logo