Opening the Gates An Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing. Revised and updated edition!

Praise for the first edition:
"An impressive collection of more than 50 pieces?essays, poems, folktales, short stories, memoirs, film scripts, lectures/speeches?by Arab women challenging the widely accepted view of Middle Eastern women as submissive non-thinkers to whom feminism is a foreign concept." ?Booklist
"Anyone interested in good writing should read [Opening the Gates]. Here are first-class stories with the energy and freshness we expect from a beginning." ?Doris Lessing, The Independent
The second edition of this highly successful anthology of essays, poems, folktales, short stories, memoirs, and speeches by Arab women includes a generous selection of texts produced since publication of the first edition in 1990. Themes that figure in the new work include sexuality and the body, war and violence, relationships, breaking through glass ceilings, cyber networking, migration, and the expanded use of Islamic discourse by Arab women. The new selections expand upon the themes of awareness, rejection, and activism that marked the multiple forms of Arab women's feminist expression over the course of the late 19th and 20th centuries.
Preface, Acknowledgements, Introduction, Etel Adnan: Lebanese
Growing Up to Be a Woman Writer in Lebanon (1986)
Warda al-Yaziji: Syrian, Warda al-Turk (1867)
Nadia Tueni: Lebanese Who Are You, Claire Gebeyli? (1968)
Fadwa Tuqan: Palestinian, Difficult Journey-Mountainous Journey (1984)
Huda Shaarawi: Egyptian Farewell, Bethrothal, Wedding
Shirley Saad: Lebanese, Amina (1985)
Samira Azzam: PalestinianThe Protected One (1967)
Ulfa Idelbi: Syrian Seventy Years Later(1970)
Zainaba: Mauritanian Lecture on Clitoridectomy to the Midwives of Touil(1987)
Alifa Rifaat: Egyptian Who'll Be the Man? (1978)
Honour (1981)
Khairiya Saqqaf: Saudi Arabian I Saw Her and That's Enough (1981)
In a Contemporary House (1981)
Wadida Wassef: Egyptian Hasan's Wives (1970)
Nadia Guendouz: Algerian People (1963)
Marie-Aimee Helie-Lucas: Algerian Women, Nationalism and Religion in the Algerian Struggle (1987)
Daisy al-Amir: Iraqi The Eyes in the Mirror(1981)
Noha Radwan: Egyptian The Silk Bands (1988)

REJECTION

Aisha al-Taimuriya: Egyptian The Results of Circumstances in Words and Deeds (1887/8)
Bahithat al-Badiya: Egyptian Bad Deeds of Men: Injustice (1909)
Ghada Samman: Syrian Our Constitution-We the Liberated Women
Emily Nasrallah: Lebanese September Birds (1962)
Hanan al Shaikh: Lebanese A Girl Called Apple (1981)
Ihsan Assal: Egyptian The House of Obedience (1962)
Evelyne Accad: Lebanese The Excised (1982)
Andree Chedid: Egyptian House of Arrest (1965)
May Muzaffar: Iraqi Personal Papers (1973)
Fadhma Amrouche: Algerian My Mother (1946)
Samar Attar: Syrian Rima (1988)
Nawal al-Saadawi: Egyptian Eyes (1988)

ACTIVISM

Hind Nawfal: Lebanese The Dawn of the Arabic Women's Press (1892)
Zainab Fawwaz: Lebanese Fair and Equal Treatment (1891)
Bahithat al-Badiya: Egyptian A Lecture in the Club of the Umma Party (1909)
May Ziyada: Palestinian Warda al-Yaziji (1924)
Qut al-Qulub: Egyptian The Elopement and the Impossible Joy (1958)
Nabawiya Musa: Egyptian The Effects of Books and Novels and Morals
The Differences Between Men and Women (1920)
Nazira Zain al-Din: Lebanese Unveiling the Veiling
The Young Women and the Shaikhs
Saiza Nabarawi: Egyptian Double Standard
Zoubeida Bittari: Algerian The Voice of Happiness
Farida Benlyazid:Moroccan The Gate of Heaven is Open
Nuha Samara: Palestinian Two Faces, One Woman
Huda Naamani: Syrian From Tumbling on the Snow
Fatima Mernissi: Moroccan Who's Cleverer, Man or Woman?
Chaibia: Moroccan My Life
Sufi Abdallah: Egyptian Eight Eyes
Huda Shaarawi: Egyptian Pan-Arab Feminism
Zahiya Dughan: Lebanese Arab Women's Intellectual Heritage
Inji Aflatun: Egyptian We Egyptian Women
Duriya Shafiq: Egyptian Islam and the Constitutional Rights of Women
Amina Said: Egyptian Feast of Unveiling
Why, Reverend Shaikh?
Nahid Toubia: Sudanese Challenges Facing Young Women in the Twentieth
Group of Egyptian Women Legal Rights of the Egyptian Women
ANatalrauf al-Sharki: North Yemeni An Unveiled Voice
Assia Djebar: Algerian Introduction to Nawak al-Saadawi's Ferdaous
Nawal al-Saadawi: Egyptian Reflections of a Feminist
Glossary
Index