The first of its kind, a conference entitled, “Arab Feminisms: A Critical Perspective” – organized by the Lebanese Association of Women Researchers, Bahithat – took place over three days this week at the American University of Beirut (AUB). The packed conference room was a vibrant mosaic of mostly women of different nations, colors, ages, dress, occupations, politics, and religions. Over just three days, nearly 50 speakers took the floor to speak and exchange ideas on women’s issues, encompassing philosophy, arts, modernity, Islam, sex, secularism, globalization, colonialism and war.

NOW spoke to three of the speakers at the conference – Prof. Hatoon Ajwad Al Fassi from Saudi Arabia and Prof. Omaima Abou-Bakr and Prof. Hoda Al-Saadi from Egypt – to talk about the everyday discriminations against women in their respective countries and how feminism developed in response.

A striking woman with her poised demeanor and uniquely propped-up headscarf that she sewed herself with silver decorations, Al Fassi spoke on whether a Saudi feminism exists or not. Al Fassi is a specialist in women’s history in pre-Islamic Arabia, as well as Islamic history, including contemporary women’s history. Her books, the most recent of which is entitled Women in Pre-Islamic Arabia, have been published in both Arabic and English. She teaches at the King Saud University and has written opinion pieces for various newspapers since 1993. She has a weekly column on women’s issues in the Saudi daily, Al Riyadh.

Omaima Abou-Bakr and Hoda Al-Saadi are good friends whose brands of feminism or “womanism” differ – Abou-Bakr is an Islamic feminist, while Al-Saadi calls herself, “a historian interested in women’s issues,” rather than a feminist – but 10 years ago they founded Women and Memory, a non-governmental organization in Egypt, which, as Abou-Bakr puts it, aims to “produce alternative forms of knowledge, [that is], cultural, [and historical] knowledge about women.” Abou-Bakr teaches English language and literature at Cairo University, while Al-Saadi teaches at the Arab and Islamic Civilization department at the American University in Cairo (AUC). They talked to NOW about a woman’s right to pass on her nationality, which Egyptian women obtained in 2003, worsening sexual harassment in Egypt, and the difference between Islamic and secular (or Arab) feminism.

Interviewing Hatoon Ajwad Al Fassi

 Can you explain briefly what you talked about in your presentation – about how feminism in Saudi Arabia – or the non-existence of it, as you question – developed over the last decades, and what kinds of historical contexts shaped the feminism in question?

Al Fassi: I don’t think there is a political movement called feminism in Saudi Arabia, there isn’t such a thing. My definition of [a feminist] is someone who has an awareness of her being as a woman, who has rights. I consider this as a feminist consciousness. That is a kind of feminism if you like. This happens on different levels: a level that is very leftist, very liberal that has extreme demands and others that are to the right – Muslims or Islamists who have extreme demands from our point of view…

 So when it comes to practical issues, extreme Islamist feminists think that personal status laws are untouchable because they have to do with the Islamic faith?

Al Fassi: Yes… Or they would say that these laws are the right ones in Islam and that nobody should question them. But the question is their application. And this is something that we agree on… But they go into more details that we disagree with, such as [the fact] that they believe that women should not go to work unless they are very needy, that the priority should be to stay at home and that the man should always provide for the woman.

 Please tell us about the 60s, 70s, 80s, when it comes to Saudi feminism.

Al Fassi: I would say that there were different [women’s] movements in the short history of Saudi Arabia that started before regular education. Back then, it was kind of elitist. Regular education started in 1960. Before that, it was elitist, [and education was only available for] the people who could send their daughters abroad and so on. There was a consciousness that was gradually developing until the 70s when we had women graduates coming from abroad with new specializations who had a feminist point of view in sociology and politics.

In the 60s we had education… available to women, and they could actually express themselves, and newspapers started to give some space for women to write. The space developed and some publications started to appear, poetry and different things written by women, at the beginning with pseudonyms and aliases and then with their full names…

 Were women allowed to drive back then?

Al Fassi: No. But they drive actually in the desert where there are no people. And women drive also in compounds, closed American compounds. In the 70s, growing money and technology [due to the oil boom] have made it possible to make education really segregated [by sex, although there was wider access].

 And then in the 80s that was topped with the Islamic movement?

Al Fassi: Yes. The Islamic movements [started to gain ground] with the invasion of the Holy Mosque, and it brought extremism into the picture and enforced its agenda on the scene… But the 90s brought pluralities. We had the Gulf War, and then we had women who drove in 1990. [During the war], [the state] encouraged us to enroll in first aid courses, and that was the best they could do!

 So you said in the 90s women were allowed to drive?

Al Fassi: No, they were not allowed, but they forced themselves into driving as a way of participating. It was a marker of history because it showed that women wanted to have a say, and that initiated a very peaceful expression of demand, of the need to participate in the war. The stories we started to hear in Kuwait were really frightening, about men who burned down houses and attacked the women and so on…

There was an activism going on amongst women and amongst men too. The war had many contradictions happening: Americans coming in, the mufti issuing a fatwa to [allow] aid from infidels [i.e., Americans]. There was a big protest against the Americans because they were coming into the country. There was a big debate going on in that period. Everything was changed, and women were seen as evil human beings who were aiming to [make society go astray] and import Western decadence and so on, because they drove.

 Because the infidels came in, the state felt that they had to protect their women even more?

Al Fassi: Not really. How we interpret is that the state gave women as scapegoats to society [at a time the state was being blamed] for allowing foreign troops into the country…

 So after 2000, do you think that things got worse?

Al Fassi: After 2000, we started to hear about reform. Reform is the language of the new millennium. It became more intense after 9/11. We welcomed the new opening because you have to bear in mind the globalization at that time… In ’95, satellites were introduced in the country, so from having only two TV channels that were compulsory by the state, we had a lot more access. And in ’99, we had internet. So that’s another phase of opening up of space and to break censorship, because [before] we were really isolated from the world.

 How are things now? Is there an organized movement?

Al Fassi: You can’t say organized, but there are different women’s groups that are working informally in networking, in trying to build things up, to strategize. Personally, I have established a group of women writers who are columnists. We organize our campaigns. For example, when we had an incident of child marriage, we wrote extensively on it, [as well as on] the issue of the rape of the woman of Qatif.

 I heard about the forced divorce of a married couple by brothers. How is that possible, because according to the Sharia, a woman’s legal guardian once she gets married is her husband? How can your father or your brother dissolve it, how is that logical?

Al Fassi: Under the force of tradition, they legalized it. They invented things from within the fiqh [jurisprudence] and old books to make this possible.

 And you criticize this? 

Al Fassi: Yes, yes! Personally I was on TV debating with an Islamist [who agreed with the decision]. But unfortunately it didn’t work, with all the effort. The woman who was separated is still living in a shelter. It’s been three years now, and it hasn’t been solved yet.

Interviewing Omaima Abou-Bakr and Hoda Al-Saadi from Egypt

 In Egypt, women can pass on their nationality to their children, even if the father is not Egyptian. How did women gain this right? What can the Lebanese women, who are still barred from passing on their nationality, learn from the Egyptian experience?

Omaima Abou-Bakr: It was a long struggle. I remember that. Maybe not our own particular organization [Women and Memory], but there were other local NGOs that were specialized in law and legal rights. So they lobbied for [the right to nationality] for the longest time. [As an organization, we were also campaigners]. Whenever we were able to participate in a conference, write a petition, do press conferences, meet with ministers, media campaigns… [Women gained their right to pass on their nationality in] 2003… But they made an exception for Egyptian women married to Palestinian men. These women cannot pass on their nationality… [The key to success is] persistent campaigning [as well as] the work of several NGOs together – not just one or two – [applying] continuous pressure and campaigning in the media. 

 There were many articles in the press about the worsening sexual harassment on the streets of Cairo, regardless of whether or not a woman is veiled. What are the reasons for such harassment and what should be done about this issue?

Hoda Al-Saadi: It has been getting worse in the last three years.

Abou-Bakr: It’s of course partly cultural. Women have been fighting forever against the objectification of women. I think [the last three years, it has become worse] because of the state of lawlessness in the country. Everything is deteriorating. There is no security in the streets. So from traffic to stealing or pick-pocketing, [sexual harassment] is a part of this lawlessness in the streets. And [this reflects] the absence of the state.

I remember when I was a young girl, in the 60s, there was a very strict law not just for physical sexual harassment, but even for verbal sexual harassment. If a man would bother you verbally, “Hi you cutie, ya helweh, ya gamileh,” and you feel he has gotten close, there was a law saying that he would be arrested, and [his head] would be shaved [completely]. At the time, this wasn’t the fashion, and it was very cruel to [do this] to a young man. This was the time when it was fashionable to have long hair like the Beatles… And this was the punishment… And for the longest period of time, [the shaved young man] would be ashamed… Maybe it’s silly, but it was a punishment, and it was implemented…

[Now], women’s groups and women’s NGOs are now focusing on this issue… They’re making studies to prove [false] what people are saying: ‘Oh, look at the way she is dressed in the streets.’ They always try to blame the woman [for sexual harassment]. The study done by [Egyptian women rights activist] Nihad Abu al-Qumsan [showed that it does not matter what you are wearing to get harassed]. You could be walking with your child and you’re a mother [and still be harassed]. 

 What is the difference between Islamic feminism and Arab feminism? What is the trend in Egypt?

Al-Saadi: Islamic feminism tends to focus on Islamic heritage. You look at the Islamic heritage and try to find what’s in there to bring women’s consciousness. Arab feminism is different. It looks at the entire Arab heritage. The Christian heritage, everything. Arab consciousness… And mainly in Islamic [feminism], we tend to focus on hadith and the history of Islam from the early Islamic period. And this you don’t do for Arab feminism… Not too many people in Egypt are working on Islamic feminism. Many people have tried to reinterpret history. But they don’t tend to be Islamic feminists… Actually, [these women] are against [the label] “feminist.” They call themselves activists, Muslim women interested in women’s issues, things of this sort. Not feminists.

 Do you call yourself a feminist?

Al-Saadi: I never thought of myself as a feminist or not. I’m a historian interested in women’s issues. This is how I define myself. But after I started working on this paper [for the Arab Feminism conference], I became interested in feminism.

 What is the difference?

Al-Saadi: If you’re distinctly interested in women’s issue and digging in to history trying to find solutions for the problems of women in society today, you’re not [necessarily] using the term, feminism. Feminism is more about woman’s consciousness. [Many women refuse to call themselves “feminists” because] they see it as a Western term because it’s a Western production imposed on the region. This is how they see it.

 Dr. Abou-Bakr, how does your feminism differ from mainstream feminism? Dr. Al-Saadi was saying that you are one of the last Islamic feminists in your country.

Abou-Bakr: On two things. First thing is what Hoda [Al-Saadi] was mentioning about. The methodology or the means toward it… We look at Islamic resources, whether texts, laws, history or jurisprudence. And you’re trying to reinterpret it to reach a perspective that’s more egalitarian [for women]… On another more personal level, it is to look at Islamic principles as a frame of reference, more so than for instance, international standards or UN agreements. That’s ok and fine… But what would be a major source of reference for me personally and professionally is Islamic principles, because as Muslims, we feel that all these good values – democracy, human rights, women’s rights – are not monopolized by the West. You can find them in all religious traditions. So you take an Islamic perspective on it.

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