An Arab Feminist’s Indirect Perpetuation of Western Stereotypes about Muslim Women: Nawal El Saadawi’s Woman at Point Zero

Abstract

The article analyses Nawal El Saadawi’s Islamic feminism in Woman at Point Zero. It investigates whether the novel shows features of Islamic feminism or another version of Western feminism. Albeit El Saadawi is called an Islamic feminist, the analysis of her novel from an Islamic feminist perspective shows non-Islamic feminist practices in terms of disdaining daughters, female circumcision, molestation, preventing women from education, forced marriages, beating wives and prostitution. Consequently, El Saadawi’s novel is not an Islamic feminist work. Rather, it unconsciously bolsters Western stereotypes about Muslim women who are regarded as oppressed by both men and Islam. Hence, calling El Saadawi an Islamic feminist misguides her audience, especially international readers to believe that every single practice in the novel is relevant to Islamic feminism and Islam. Yet, the presented practices are cultural ones. Therefore, El Saadawi’s novel represents Arab feminism that is greatly influenced by Western feminism.

Keywords

• arab feminism
• islamic feminism
• non-islamic practices
• western feminism
• western stereotypes