The Notion of Space in Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) and Huda Shaarawi’s Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist (1879-1924)
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Date
2020
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Publisher
Université Mouloud Mammeri Tizi Ouzou
Abstract
This research is a comparative study between A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) by
the English feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft and Harem Years: the Memoirs of an
Egyptian Feminist (1879-1924) by the Egyptian feminist writer Huda Shaarawi. The purpose
of our dissertation is to study how the two writers read the notion of space (public and private
spheres). To explore this issue, we have used Jürgen Habermas’s The Structural
Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (1962)
as a frame theory. This theory will be supplied by a secondary one advanced by Chandra
Talpad Mohanty in her essay Under Western Eyes (1986). We have come to the conclusion
that the two writers share the same objectives and preoccupations. They fought to bring
women from private sphere into the public one through education and politics. They also
stress the importance of education in the private space. Besides, they used their writings as a
means to gain access and visibility in the public sphere. The work has also revealed that Huda
Shaarawi, like many other Muslim feminists, indiscriminately espouse Western feminist
rhetoric despite the huge differences between the Western and Muslim cultures
Description
30cm ; 64p.
Keywords
Marry Wollstonecraft, Huda Shaarawi, Western women, Muslim Women, Public and Private Spheres, Education, politics.
Citation
Comparative Literature