Reconciling Arabo-Islamic culture and feminist consciousness in North African women's writing: Silence and voice in the short stories of Alifa Rifaat and Assia Djebar

This article sets out to explore the theme of silence and voice in selected short stories by two North African women writers, Alifa Rifaat and Assia Djebar. In their representations of women's lives in Egypt and Algeria, respectively, both Rifaat and Djebar present different strategies employed by women to counter gender oppression. Although the female characters portrayed by both writers encounter diverse, and sometimes opposing, circumstances, they tend to share a common plight – the need to break free from the constricting fetters of patriarchy. A comparative reading of selected stories reveals that Rifaat's characters resort to silence as a means of self-preservation, while Djebar's characters, on the other hand, use techniques ranging from writing to outright protest to show their rejection of gender-based segregation. In spite of this difference in approach, it can be said that both Rifaat and Djebar have made a great contribution to feminist literary creativity in North Africa. Keywords: Alifa Rifaat, Assia Djebar, Islam, women, short story, feminism Tydskrif vir Letterkunde Vol. 45 (1) 2008: pp. 19-4

Commodifying the Female Body: Xenophobic Violence in South Africa

The competition for scarce resources within a multi-ethnic community often results in conflicts between ‘indigenous’ peoples and ‘foreign’ migrants, or, to use Francis Nyamnjoh’s expression, between ‘insiders and outsiders’ (Nyamnjoh 2006). Such conflicts are manifested in various ways, ranging from verbal abuse to physical assault. This expression of hostility, in both word and deed, towards immigrants is what has been termed xenophobia. In May 2008, xenophobic violence against African immigrants broke out in the South African township of Alexandra, and thereafter the violence spread to most parts of the country. Several reasons were put forward in the media in an attempt to explain the cause of the violence, inclusive of which was the claim that foreigners were taking ‘our jobs and our women’. Using this statement as a starting point, this article looks at ways in which conceptualisations of masculinities within a racialized South African public sphere are played out in the xenophobic attacks directed towards immigrants in Alexandra. It looks at cyberspace as a ‘public sphere’ and interrogates the gender implications of using this medium to frame xenophobic violence within the context of contesting masculinities

African feminisms

What does feminism mean and comprise in Africa? Is there a distinctly African variant, and if yes, what makes it so? These questions have been debated vigorously in the last 40 years by African women scholars who variously seek to defend and advance the broad project of feminism in Africa, if not always by this name. The chapter offers a critical review of the different theories and models of “African feminisms” that have been put forward. While there is a consensus that African feminisms must be attuned and responsive to the conditions of African women’s lives, a central point of contention concerns the nature and status therein of “culture” and “tradition” and what some deem essential and irreducible African difference. The chapter argues against even weakly essentialist theoretical accounts of African feminisms, above all because these presume an authentic African female subject of concern and thus exclude others who do not fit the mold. A view of Africa as the contextual rather than essential ground of African feminisms allows instead for the emergence of a feminist politics for all African women in their immense diversity