| Publication |
2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
I would like to open with the question: "history" or "her story?" This is the question that has been debated since the 20th century among different groups of women in developed societies. Those women have really moved along the continuum from "history" into "her story," though they are in different stages and are still moving. Yet, women in "developing societies" are not there yet. I would like to preface this with a note on the function of English grammar here. There is nothing developing in "developing" societies. The "ing" is a grammatical technique to perpetuate our static condition. Women in developing societies are still asking the question of whether to write the self, the subject that precedes writing history and which should be the narrative voice. They are still asking the question of why politics, ethnicity, religion, economy, and technology are hindering the writing of the self that ought to be writing history and any narrative of the self and society.
The complexity of holding multiple identities, of being a woman who is Arab, Muslim, a member of a minority and Israeli, must be emphasized. This complexity is a dynamic of clashing variables and it is also the status quo. The clashing variables can be described as follows: Arab contradicts Israeli, Israeli contradicts Muslim, Muslim contradicts women, women are being marginalized by Arabs, Arabs marginalize Israel, Israel marginalizes everybody else and the rest of the world marginalizes all of the above. These clashing variables are going nowhere as they love to clash, which is why they are the status quo. Where does this leave the multi-layered identity of women? In an arena of tension between her own two ambivalent attitudes.
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