Introduction and Background:
Dr. Nadine Naber is a professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, as well as Global Asian Studies, at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Dr. Naber previously co-founded the department of Arab and Muslim American Studies at the University of Michigan. She focuses on the intersections of critical race theory, gender studies, and international politics.
Overview:
Dr. Naber’s talk, “Arab Feminism is Not an Oxymoron”, goes into detail about the history of feminist movements in the context of Arab countries and culture. She begins by referencing the 2011 Egyptian revolution, which protested increasing police brutality, infringement of civil liberties, and called for an end of then President Mubarak’s presidency. An instrumental part of this movement centered around the advocacy of Egyptian women. Egyptian women were at the front lines of the revolution, calling for change, working to keep social media updated (a crucial task), and demanding equal representation in government positions.
This is in contrast to rhetoric surrounding lives and treatment of Arab women. Dr. Naber goes on to discuss how in both America and Europe, Arab women are consistently viewed as oppressed, disenfranchised, and lacking any freedoms. In this sense, Arab feminism seems a contradictory statement. If the stereotypical discussion surrounding Arab nations insists that Arab women are oppressed, then the notion of being both Arab and a feminist would be an oxymoron.
Throughout her talk, Dr. Naber works to highlight both the harmful fallacies surrounding the stereotypes of Arab culture, as well as discuss the ways in which Arab women around the world are working as activists, leaders, and revolutionaries. There is no one way to be Arab, there is no one way to be a woman, and there is no one, definitive way to exist as an Arab woman. Dr. Naber’s discussion is intersectional and multifaceted, breaking down biases and subverting the ways in which most people have been socialized to think of Arab culture and Arab women in particular.
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