Feminism; a discourse, a movement, a thought – subjective to the interpretation of its recipient. One which has more often than not taken a “universal” understanding, one that quickly glosses over differences and skews opinions towards believing the old fable that in the beginning, woman was a monolith. Mere carriers, a biological justification for misogynist sentiments. 

Feminist discourse in the reality of a shrewdly neo-liberal framework of existence has been increasingly prone towards universality, towards an implicit condemnation of both other forms of feminism and inclusion. More often than not, women of colour look to firstly deconstruct their Western understandings of gender and sexuality, one that akin to gender by virtue of an ominous imperial legacy, has almost been socialised with the acquittances of their beings and bodies. Mainstream feminism, more often than not, has often dismissed acknowledging Western Europe’s colonial relation to the rest of the world. Black and brown women scholars come to deconstruct this history borne bias of which academia and state agendas seem to perpetuate temporally and spatially. Whether it’s the case of (un)veiling Muslim women in Europe or within the lack of differentiation among some feminist discourses when it arrives at the racial axis of feminist thought. Systemic underminings of these experiences carry with them the legacy of colonial understandings of the so-called “Third World” and its subjects, whose violence persists and is legitimised both in language, culture and media. 

This list serves to provide a drop of insight into the ocean of feminist thought, a mixture of nonfiction works unresolved to a particular structure, seeking to perhaps foster a wider understanding of women from the region and beyond via transcultural and intercultural texts.

• Arab Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide, 1873-1999  (2008) by Radwa Ashour et al. 

Published in 2004, Arab Women Writers examines the work of pioneering female literary figures of ‘A’isha al-Taymuriya, Warda al-Yaziji, Zaynab Fawwaz and other nineteenth-century pioneers in Egypt and the Levant and carries this history into the development of Arab women’s literature through the end of the twentieth century. It guides us thoroughly and intimately through the lives of these women through nine reflective essays which address the evolution of these women’s writings and experiences, from Morocco to Iraq and Syria to Yemen, addressing fiction, poetry, drama and autobiographical writing. The second part of the book consists of  meticulously curated bibliography on these womens’ works and lives. 

Arab Women Writers is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in literature and women’s studies. One that works towards redeeming a more complete understanding on the history of women writers in the region, a history that has hitherto been assumed to be a predominantly male realm of production. 

• I Killed Scheherazade (2010) by Joumana Haddad 

The book I Killed Scheherazade: Confessions of an Angry Arab Woman takes on the format of a political pamphlet in which Haddad explores the profound liberating impact literature has had on the formation of her identity. Candid, provocative and descriptive Haddad guides us through her own experiences as an Arab woman subject to the ever so common “liberation” connotation thrown at any woman who appears to be outside of the framework of what a “traditional” Arab woman should represent. In the foreword by Etel Adnan, Adnan opens “ The latest news is that Scheraharze is dead, assassinated! Was it an act of passion or of reason? Probably both. Hadad has just killed the heroine from The Arabian Nights. And never has a crime been so joyous – and moral.” 

• Memoirs of an Early Arab Feminist: The Life and Activism of Anbara Salam Khalidi

(2013) by Anbara Salam Khalidi 

Memoirs of an Early Arab Feminist is the first English translation of legendary Arab feminist Anbara Salam Khalidi’s memoirs. This book brings to life a previous age of social turbulence and women’s activism via one unique life, at a time when the ramifications of the Arab Spring’s revolution and counterrevolution hang large over “Middle Eastern” politics. Historians from the region have long praised these memoirs as a vital source for the social history of Beirut and the Arab world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a rare insight into what used to characterize a landscape now disrupted and confused by years of political conflict. 

• Off-limits: New Writings on Fear and Sin (2020) by Nawal El Saadawi 

Off Limits is a compilation of El Saadawi’s most recent reminiscences and thoughts on the position of women in Egyptian and wider Islamic culture. El Saadawi explains the inextricability of imperialism from patriarchy as well as the overlaps of the “East” and “West” in the discussion of women’s liberation. A collection of essays that guide us into this profoundly resilient intellectual’s thoughts on women, society, religion and the construction of national identity.

• The Rise of Femonationalism: In The Name Of Women’s Rights (2017) by Sara R. Farris 

Sara R. Farris investigates the demands for women’s rights made by an unusual group of right-wing nationalist political parties, neoliberals, feminist thinkers and policymakers. Farris characterises this exploitation and co-opting of feminist ideas by anti-Islam and xenophobic movements as “femonationalism”, focusing on its implementation in contemporary France, Italy and the Netherlands. She demonstrates how these institutions utilise gender equality to legitimise racist language and actions, reinforcing the image of the extremist Muslim male and the oppressed Muslim female. In the Name of Women’s Rights explores the connections between racism and feminism, as well as the ways in which non-Western women are exploited for political and economic gain. Farris questions the extent of the oppositional validity within the traditional feminist discourse and what systemic biases they are at odds with. 

• Women, Culture and Politics (1990) by Angela Y. Davis 

An essential collection of speeches and writings by Davis written in the late 1980s’ during the Reagan administration. An administration whose implementation of neoliberal reforms reverted the world into an oddly friendly form of South-North exploitation, further heightening the wealth gap between the rich and the poor and further obliterating potential pathways for revolution and solidarity between the global north and south. Davis’s speeches provide the opposite of an ahistorical, sanatized retelling of this formative moment in American history, which inevitably produced Bush’s “Manifest density” agenda, commencing an age of dangerous polarization, instability and injustice nourished by the ideology’s implicit “Clash of Civilisations” rhetoric. 

Davis centres the essays on gender, racial and economic issues, giving insight on the ideas of transnational solidarity and cooperation between subjects of oppression. Her chapter “Women in Egypt ” was published after her visit to Egypt in the early 1970s, Davis reflects on her experiences meeting Egyptian feminists and expands on the formation of new transnational connections of solidarity between the global north and south at a pivotal moment of global feminist organising.