Gender, Modernity, and Liberty – Middle Eastern and Western Women’s Writings A Critical Sourcebook by Reina Lewis and Nancy Micklewright, eds. (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006. 259 pages.)

Abstract

This book presents a dialogue between western and Middle Eastern women
that is often presumed never to have happened. It supplies us with a collection
of extracts fromOttoman, Egyptian, British, andAmericanwriters, each
accompanied with a biography and literary introduction of its writer. The
book covers 100 years, beginning with 1837, and focuses on writings by
women from Istanbul and Cairo, key locations for the flowering of Middle
Eastern feminism. As mentioned in the “Introduction,” the articulation of
women’s views was particularly advanced in these two cities.
The historical background of this period, as well as its effects upon
women in both the Ottoman Empire (toward the establishment of the Turkish
Republic) and Egypt (marked by Arab nationalism and the country’s
move toward independence) is well explained in the editors’ introduction
and photo essay, which displays the collection’s main theme. In a nutshell,
this period witnessed the emergence of organized feminism in both theWest
and the East and, at the same time, marked the start of a significant growth
in the number of European visitors to both cities due to the increased availability
of regular steamship travel.
Based upon the information provided, it seems that Middle Eastern
women followed the conditions and campaigns of western women with great
interest, even though they proffered a cogent critique of western liberation’s
limitations and adopted only select western feminist ideas. The writers’ very
“staunch” feminism was strongly based on opinionated materials that are
subversive even in our times. For example, Lady Anne Brassey (1839-87) is
quoted as writing: “Turkey would never take its proper place till…the softening
and purifying influence of women was allowed to be felt” (p. 128).
Prior to that, she asserts: “It is a great mistake of the Turks to think that they ...