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Nuova DWF. Donna Woman Femme
Quaderni di studi internazionali sulla donna
Roma, Coines Edizioni, then Editrice coop. UTOPIA, 1976-1985
Islam. Between two worlds, 1982, n. 22
EDITORIAL, pp. 3-6
KANDIYOTI Deniz
Islam and national politics: the case of Turkey, pp. 7-22
MAHER Vanessa
Labour, consumption and authority in the family community
in Morocco, pp. 23-41
SCARCIA AMORETTI Biancamaria
In front of the palestinian problem: a methodological question,
pp. 43-56
NASHAT Guity
Women in Post-Revolutionary Iran, pp. 57-78
BOZZO Anna
Algeria: a legal emancipation, pp. 79-89
SOURIAU Christiane
The Libyan experiment, pp. 91-108
PERA DIONISI Bianca (edited by)
From Egypt: a dialogue with Siza Nabarawi, pp. 109-121
CAMPASSI Gabriella (edited by)
From Egypt: passages from Nawal al Sa'dawi wrìtings,
pp. 119-128
SARACINO Maria Antonietta
Sexual mutilations in Somaliland: women tell their stories,
pp. 129-145
Debate [About us and beyond…],pp. 147-153
This issue was originally conceived as the analysis of a specific religious phenomenon; but due to a series of political events it has been decided, on the one hand to offer a survey of those Islamic countries which variously present themselves as significant examples of a change in international relations, on the other hand to underline women's role avoiding superficial analyses.
The problem also emerged - as it already had in many international conferences - of the lack of a common language regarding women's identity and the strategies to adopt in order to overcome oppression; hence the need to privilege a shared code, concentrating on information about women's juridical condition. For the same reason, contributors have been chosen who are somehow involved in two cultures, thus becoming a bridge "between two worlds".
KANDIYOTI Deniz, Islam and national politics: the case of Turkey, pp.
7-22
It deals with the relevance and applicability of concepts generated by Western feminists to other cultural contexts through the case of modem Turkey. In a preliminary analysis of Turkish women's condition, the role of the State in considered preminent as a major source of discontinuity in relation to tradition, whereas the nature of cultural controls over female sexuality and women's life cycles, operated above all by the family, represents the major source of continuity in the experience of women in Muslim countries.
The definition of these peculiar cultural controls is relevant to an understanding of the cultural and social context in which Muslim and Turkish women act. Therefore that definition is relevant also to the problem of the possible development of a feminist consciousness in the specific situation of the Muslim countries.
The inadequacy of radical or marxist feminist theories becomes clear, insofar they choose to stress the universal aspects of women's oppression or they use abstract concepts to determine culturally-defined-sexed subjectivity.
MAHER Vanessa, Labour, consumption and authority in the family community
in Morocco, pp. 23-41
The case here considered is the Moroccan one, and especially that of its rural society. From the anthropological point of view Islam is not seen as a determining factor of this society and of women's position within it.
Even though the analysis is very well documented, it is most interesting for its theoretical aspect. In the first place the impact of development models on women's condition must be underlined, thus setting the issue of women in an international picture, beside the regional and local ones.
On the other hand the actual and structural relationship must be examined, among others, between what is considered woman's traditional role (marriage, maternity, etc.) and her possible economic role in specific situations and contexts, such as the family community.
SCARCIA AMORETTI Biancamaria, In front of the palestinian problem: a methodological
question, pp. 43-56
The Israeli-palestinian problem is seen from the point of view of the role that women play objectively in the situation. Demographical factors are considered fundamental in the definition of the problem itself. But their definition is not to be assumed according to the traditional categories of political analysis, but through a new approach determined by the feminist engagement of the author.
It follows a critical survey of the ways in which the West speaks and represents the Third World's peoples, with particular reference to peoples participating in the struggle for national independence.
In this perspective the Palestinian people are taken as a paradigmatic example of inadequacy of usual analysis, as a peculiar expression of subjective autodefinition as a people and a revolutionary movement and as a case in which the objective difficulties dues to their subordination and their oppression in the international and regional context are of a particular relevance.
NASHAT Guity, Women in Post-Revolutionary Iran, pp. 57-78
So far as women are concerned, the Iranian revolution seems to have been a sobering experience. The situation during the Pahlavi regime - always shown externally as favourable to women was, on the contrary, not at all satisfactory. The revolution has given the chance to women to participate and to act.
Beginning with this experience, a certain number of Iranian women have therefore understood that they must share the decisional process concerning laws and conditions that affect them, in order to achieve real equality and full dignity as human beings. Even if women's struggle in Iran presents many similarities with the women's struggle for liberation throughout the world, there is a particularity: the unique feature of the Islamic Republic regarding the forceful use of religious ideology.
This is often used as a pretext in order to repress Iranian women and bring them back, after the revolutionary moment, to their traditional roles, as the analysis of the statements of the new Iranian regime's greatest authorities demonstrate.
BOZZO Anna, Algeria: a legal emancipation, pp. 79-89
The case of Algeria is quite peculiar. After the revolution which gave the independence to the country and in which the women have been constantly engaged, we assist to a kind of regression for what concerns women's condition.
Not only the women didn't obtain what was promised to them after the liberation, but there is a progressive will of bringing them back home to their traditional roles and of not recognising to them certain elementary rights. Islam and the fidelity to its tradition are the reasons which often are taken for motivating the actual impasse.
The difficulty to arrive to the promulgation of a Family Code is one of the most striking examples of the atmosphere regarding women in Algeria. Algerian women, at least a part of them, seem decided to impose their own point of view, even if there is sometimes a return to tradition in acritical terms among them, specially in the new generations.
SOURIAU Christiane, The Libyan experiment, pp. 91-108
The condition of Libyan women is seen in a kind of parallelism, before the Gaddafi's regime and during it. The results in many fields, as education and work, are very impressive. But what is peculiar in Libyan society is still sex-segregation; in according to that, theme is a strict role's division in duties, values, etc.
This determines a particular type of society, on which the new model of development related to petrol economy is superposed. In these conditions ideology seems to be a way out to avoid the gap between traditional and modern life. In this sense women's participation to political life is active and interesting, but not yet satisfactory.
The Third Universal Theory of Geddafi's Green Book will be tested on the feminine question for all that concerns direct democracy, and real equality, as for everything which regards the aspirations of maintaining what is called "women's natural trend with life", i.e. marriage and maternity.
PERA DIONISI Bianca (edited by), From Egypt: a dialogue with Siza Nabarawi,
pp. 109-121
With Hoda Sha'rawi, Siza Nabarawi was a central figure of the first organised women's movement in Egypt at the beginning of the Twenties. In this dialogue with Pera Dionisi, Nabarawi remembers the struggles and objectives of the movement both at his beginnings and later on, also giving an insight into her personal life.
CAMPASSI Gabriella (edited by), From Egypt: passages from Nawal al Sa'dawi
writings, pp. 119-128
Nawal al-Sa'dawi, in her own definition a socialist feminist, became politically engaged in the Fifties, and was confirmed in her choice by her work as a gynaecologist in rural areas - an activity which did not prevent or contradict her literary work as essayist. Passages from her writing are published, focusing in a subjective way on her story as a Muslim woman fighting against some oppressive traditions, such as infibulation.
SARACINO Maria Antonietta, Sexual mutilations in Somaliland: women tell their
stories, pp. 129-145
A report on a research carried out through a series of conversations with educated Somali women, as a contribution to the analysis of the problem of female circumcision. Somaliland is taken as an exemplary case, being the only country (with the Muslim part of Sudan) where this practice in its extreme form (infibulation) involves almost the whole female population. Besides the women's accounts, there are data on the extension of the practice and information on the possible types of action.
Debate [About us and beyond…], pp. 147-153
Different sectors of the editorial board exchange
letters in a moment of crisis of the review's project and of its editing group.
Annarita Buttafuoco and Maricla Tagliaferri underline
the need to reflect on the review's format and its meaning in the present situation
of the women's movement, on its fluctuating between being a scientific journal
and a militant magazine, on its scarcely reactive public, on the failed turnover
both of its editors and of its buyers. The project's stalemate and the growing
hardship of the organization burden are at the same time cause and effect of
a break in the relationships between editors which hinders reflection and reduces
everything to a question of personal relations. In front of all this the writers
propose to find other references for the quarterly's future.
Rosanna De Longis, Donata Lodi and Gabriella
Turnaturi declare they cannot and will not continue to be part of the editorial
board, considering the existing contradictions with the quarterly's direction
and property.
Biancamaria Amoretti Scarcia, Tilde Capomazza,
Gemma Luzzi, Maria Teresa Morreale, Dora Stiefelmeier point out that "the
quarterly's property" is made up of the group of women who founded the
review in 1976 pouring on it ideas, work and energy; some years later they have
entrusted the new board with the review's heritage, "without expecting
profits, without demanding financial control, without intervening in any way
on the review's political line". Involved in the editorial board's crisis
which threatened the review's continuity, the quarterly's property met the editors
and emphasized its will to grant the above mentioned continuity. It also began
a series of encounters with women willing to express a new project, collectively
reconsidering the review's political function and the production structure necessary
to secure its existence.