Re-thinking Arab Female Gender Identity in Etaf Rum’s A Woman Is No Man
Abstract
This paper explores the theme of Arab female gender identity in A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum, a contemporary Palestinian American author whose thought line is still in progress. It investigates the author’s call to re-think and redefine this identity by breaking the walls of silence and liberating females from male-dominated patriarchal practices. She launches a critique against the reductionist view that sees women in terms of their bodies and marginalizes their brains. She considers this reductionist act pure objectification. Gender fairness, according to her, requires taking into account their intellectual abilities. The key question this study addresses is how Arab females’ gender identities are established, maintained and transformed in terms of physical appearance, thinking modes, behavior patterns, gender roles, family responsibilities and life styles. This study is theoretically inscribed within the feminist framework. The feminist ideas of Simone De Beauvoir, Judith Butler, Denis Diderot and Helene Cixous have been of great relevance to the analysis of the novel. In terms of methodology of analysis, this paper is primarily based on a close examination of the text, taking into account the author’s socio-cultural, ethnic and historical background and the geo-political, cultural and economic transformations of the world where she lives.
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