Response: Fatema Mernissi's Scheherezade Goes West
Great book, and I highly recommend it.
Amazingly, even though I was aware of the tales of the Arabian Nights and its background, I had no idea how very steeped in a unique feminist ideology it could be, having read a filtered, children’s version of it when I was a child. One would think that since I grew up in an Oriental environment, I would be aware of some of the discrepancies, but perhaps the publishers of the books I read were negligent and since they were children’s stories, very little could be analyzed and we were to take it at face value. Then again, stories from the West abounded, mixed up with the literature of our own culture.
Schezerade (as we read her) was about as important as Enid Blyton and local stories - all of which were fantastical tales meant to be read for amusement and the occasional unsubtle homily. Perhaps because we were children, and adults do not often study these stories, that we missed the subtleties of the stories we read. In an urban setting such as my own, the oral tradition of telling stories is almost non-existant and left to gossiping and retelling tales of youth.
Of course, in my urban setting, children were usually left at home to their own devices with the nanny and the television.
Mernissi’s discussion of the harem and the practice of polygamy made me think of my own experience with the idea of polygamy, and I was reminded of a classmate who asked me as a trick question, “How many mothers do I have?” to which I answered, somewhat confused, “One.” He said, “No. I have two.”
I wonder now, what were the dynamics of that household within a township where the nuclear family (with added grandparents) was the norm? How was Didik capable of saying with perfect equanamity that he had two mothers instead of saying that his father had married twice?
Moving on further towards the end of the book, Fatima Mernissi discussed the representation of women in images, and spoke of Nur-Jahan being portrayed as being in the same picture as her husband. She then brought up the fact that in most Mid-East countries, the queens are not represented in portraits and are still secluded. This was a very alien idea to me.
In Malaysia, where there are portraits of the rulers of the country, there will usually be three: one of the current Prime Minister, one of the current King, and one of his Queen. The Queen has her own picture, posed against the same background as the King. She is expected to participate in public events involving charity, even if she doesn’t have a say in politics. (She might, but considering that the King doesn’t have a say in politics himself, why would she?) The same goes for the Prime Minister’s wife. Perhaps due to the colonialism and general Malay culture which doesn’t isolate women, the practice of the harem which forbids women from public space is not acceptable.
But in the end, Malaysian Muslim women still suffer from inequalities that non-Muslim do not suffer from, and the men, Muslim or not, share the same anxieties.
Amazingly, even though I was aware of the tales of the Arabian Nights and its background, I had no idea how very steeped in a unique feminist ideology it could be, having read a filtered, children’s version of it when I was a child. One would think that since I grew up in an Oriental environment, I would be aware of some of the discrepancies, but perhaps the publishers of the books I read were negligent and since they were children’s stories, very little could be analyzed and we were to take it at face value. Then again, stories from the West abounded, mixed up with the literature of our own culture.
Schezerade (as we read her) was about as important as Enid Blyton and local stories - all of which were fantastical tales meant to be read for amusement and the occasional unsubtle homily. Perhaps because we were children, and adults do not often study these stories, that we missed the subtleties of the stories we read. In an urban setting such as my own, the oral tradition of telling stories is almost non-existant and left to gossiping and retelling tales of youth.
Of course, in my urban setting, children were usually left at home to their own devices with the nanny and the television.
Mernissi’s discussion of the harem and the practice of polygamy made me think of my own experience with the idea of polygamy, and I was reminded of a classmate who asked me as a trick question, “How many mothers do I have?” to which I answered, somewhat confused, “One.” He said, “No. I have two.”
I wonder now, what were the dynamics of that household within a township where the nuclear family (with added grandparents) was the norm? How was Didik capable of saying with perfect equanamity that he had two mothers instead of saying that his father had married twice?
Moving on further towards the end of the book, Fatima Mernissi discussed the representation of women in images, and spoke of Nur-Jahan being portrayed as being in the same picture as her husband. She then brought up the fact that in most Mid-East countries, the queens are not represented in portraits and are still secluded. This was a very alien idea to me.
In Malaysia, where there are portraits of the rulers of the country, there will usually be three: one of the current Prime Minister, one of the current King, and one of his Queen. The Queen has her own picture, posed against the same background as the King. She is expected to participate in public events involving charity, even if she doesn’t have a say in politics. (She might, but considering that the King doesn’t have a say in politics himself, why would she?) The same goes for the Prime Minister’s wife. Perhaps due to the colonialism and general Malay culture which doesn’t isolate women, the practice of the harem which forbids women from public space is not acceptable.
But in the end, Malaysian Muslim women still suffer from inequalities that non-Muslim do not suffer from, and the men, Muslim or not, share the same anxieties.