Malak Hifni Nasifと女性解放

抄録

Malak Hifni Nasif (1886-1918), also known by the pen name Bahithat al-Badiya "the Researcher of the Desert", was an Egyptian Muslim feminist. With the middle-class family background and education in girls' schools, she chose teaching for her career until she married, when she quit the job and started to write and speak out on women's problems. It is a well-known fact that Malak was the person who submitted to the Egyptian Congress a list of ten suggestions for improving the position of Muslim women. Her essays and speeches were collected in the book an-Nisa'iyat "Women's Issues", which was a depiction of the middle- and upper-class women's social life in Egypt. The book took up women's issues like veiling, education, polygamy, careers and social seclusion. Some of the views Malak expressed in the book were: 1. that women should not abandon wearing veils because, in her opinion, the time was not ripe yet for such a revolutionary act, and that women needed more education for the change, 2. that compulsory preparatory school education was a must for all girls, and that some women should be given medical or teacher training, 3. that polygamy, of which she herself was a victim, should be abolished, that it was humiliating not only to women but also to their children, and hence eventually to society, 4. that those who were engaged should at least be allowed to see each other prior to their marriage, 5. that women should be allowed to pursue their career if they so desired, and 6. that women should adopt the middle course between the strict social confinement in Egypt and the permissiveness in the West. Although Malak's approach to women's liberation was modeled on Muhammad 'Abduh's Islamic reformism, with the added influence of Qasim Amin, she tackled the problems from the uniquely feminine point of view, rejecting men's then-current conception of women's emancipation. This meant that she was concerned more with the psychological as well as physical aspects of the problems caused by men's maltreatment of women rather than with the more superficial aspects of their looks and appearances as "new women". An advocate of social changes for women, Malak nevertheless held a rather conservative view regarding class distinction and traditional men-defined sex roles and women's virtues. Furthermore political matters, in her opinion, were to be left entirely to men's control. Given the man-dominated Egyptian society of her time, this conservativeness may have been part of her tactics in dealing with a society that was still psychologically unprepared for rapid social change. Unlike Qasim Amin's radical approach, Malak's conservatism allowed her a more smooth middle course that was consonant with the social conventions of her time. In this way she succeeded in winning support from the modernists while avoiding direct confrontation with the shaikhs. In other words, rather than attempt a complete emancipation, what Malak actually did was improve the conditions women were forced to live in in her society. She was a realistic feminist.