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Jean Said Makdisi's Teta, mother and me: An Arab woman's memoir chronicles the lives of three generations of women, her grandmother, her mother and herself. The stories of three women are blended in one narrative about the historical transformations that took place in the Arab world as a consequence of an encounter between east and west. The story of the three women is the story of the plight of a Palestinian family living through tumultuous times: it is a story of high expectations, painful disillusionments and stoic struggles for survival amidst the raging conflicts and colonial interventions that beset the Arab world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The memoir is also a conscious attempt to revisit and re-inscribe the implications of a crucial cross-cultural encounter, between the east and west through missionary schools, on the lives of women in the Arab world. A historical record narrated from a feminist postcolonial lens Teta, mother and me is a valuable contribution to contemporary public...

Cyberspace as a forum for expression, mobilization, dissent and the organization of alternative social and political networks has been a distinct feature of the new global order since the 1990s. Cyberspace as a forum for alternative expression is also making inroads in the Arabic literary establishment. In 2008, Dar al-Shorouq, an established privately-owned Egyptian publishing house, published three collections of short stories by three women bloggers, Ghada 'Abd al-'Aal, Rihab Bassam and Ghada Mohamed Mahmoud. In this article, I argue that cyberspace, particularly the noted proliferation of literary blogs and blogging among Arab youth, has created new literary public spheres, or 'competing counterpublics', that are breaking the monopoly of mainstream literary spaces and changing tastes. I also argue that cyberspace has been particularly conducive to the participation of women in the literary field, and pose questions about the implications of the emergence of cyber counterpublics on the Arab literary establishment and the canon of Arabic literature.

The emergence of the New Woman in Egypt as a central trope in the nationalist narrative of nation-building and modernity has been the subject of scholarly interest for more than a decade, yet there has been little research on her logical counterpart: the New Man. Although representations of the New Man have always been a subtext in representations of the New Woman, the manifestations and implications of these constructed imaginings within the Egyptian nationalist narrative have yet to be explored. In this article I consider constructions of the New Man through what men say about women, about themselves, and about their conception of ideal manhood. I argue that overt discussions of masculinity ran parallel to discussions of femininity. They might not have dominated the cultural scene like the debates on “the woman question,” but they are revealing of the complexities of gender politics. I focus particularly on literary narratives published in the first four decades of the twentieth century.

The first years of the 21st century in Egypt saw a marked movement by women activists and groups in Egypt to lobby for appointing women judges. The debate around the issue included arguments about women's "natural" roles, about their lesser abilities, and about the necessity of maintaining their place in the home to safeguard Arab cultural identity. In general, these debates posited domesticity as a marker of Arab identity and cultural specificity. I argue that domesticity is a modernist ideology that was transfigured into a representation of an essential Arab cultural identity which needed to be guarded and preserved. I also emphasize that discourses on domesticity were not the only existing discourses propagated in the nineteenth century. Zeinab Fawwaz's journey through history in search for women's participation in the public sphere can be interpreted as a clear challenge to the modernist binary opposition between a backward past and a modern, enlightened present. At the same time, it constituted a subversive narrative to the dominant narrative on domesticity. Similarly, Aisha Taymur's project did not dismiss tradition but sought to engage with it on its own premises in an attempt to argue for women's right.

Do constitutions safeguard the rights of women? What is the importance of constitutions in the context of defending women’s rights? These questions are often raised within the framework of gender studies and organizations calling for women’s rights. Why is this the case? There are three considerations to bear in mind. First, there is the critique aimed at liberal feminism, on the grounds of the latter’s excessive focus on reforming and amending laws to secure women’s rights, while ignoring, to a large extent, the prevalent authoritative system and social norms which can obstruct the implementation of just laws that are beneficial to society. This can lead to unanticipated results that may not necessarily be in the interest of women and may not achieve the expected goal.