Horizons for Feminist Research
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What are the horizons available for feminist research, or rather, what kind of questions are posed within a feminist agenda? Also, which are the questions that are relevant to us?

Many issues rush to the fore: they are diverse, quite varied and interrelated, so much so that it is sometimes impossible to isolate them from one another. I have therefore chosen to focus on a field of study that is particularly vital to the Women and Memory group of researchers, namely, the retrieval of the history of women in the Middle East. Before pinpointing some of the issues at stake, I will begin with a brief review of some of the areas explored by feminist researchers in different socio-cultural contexts, areas where a significant accumulation of knowledge has been achieved, particularly in some western countries. There are many shared spaces between researchers in the Middle East and the rest of the world, and there are illuminating experiences that can be drawn upon, (this is not to say copied or literally transferred) always taking into consideration social, political, economic and cultural specificities.(1)
It is a well-known fact that the beginnings of feminist research in history grew out of the agenda of women’s liberation movements in the twentieth century. Notwithstanding, the scope and diversity of feminist research did not remain locked in a preset or rigid agenda outlined by a socio-political movement, but extended to a multitude of topics and research concerns and engaged intellectually with epistemological assumptions. Four main directions can be identified. The first emphasizes the achievements of great women in history, following the model of the great men paradigm in traditional historiography.
The second studies the origins of patriarchal societies in which men victimize women. In this vein, researchers analyze the dynamics of oppression and the unequal power relations between the sexes. The third direction sheds light on specific moments in history where women organized themselves to challenge their marginalization from public life. For example, this direction would search for historical documentation of women revolts or women’s subversive cultural productions. The fourth is inspired by some of the basic principles of feminist consciousness, namely, that the personal is political. In other words, feminists challenge and deconstruct the binary opposition between the private and the public.
By the 1980s, feminist historians succeeded in producing a considerable bulk of historical knowledge on women. This accumulated knowledge encouraged a phase of evaluation and reconsideration of directions and strategies. In a famous article, Gerda Lerner reviewed some of the achievements of feminist historians and highlighted the challenges presented by them to traditional approaches to history. First, feminist historians proved that women do have a history that was suppressed and marginalized in mainstream historical sources. Second, they demonstrated that women were discriminated against in historical documentation. Third, feminist researchers succeeded in establishing gender as a category of analysis in history. Fourth, having established the marginalization of women in traditional historical sources, they argued for the need that these sources be reread and analyzed from a gender-sensitive perspective. The goal is not to produce new sources only, but also to reassess the old. Fifth, researchers drew attention to the fact that historical periodization agreed upon by historians was only suitable for male achievements and concerns and did not necessarily reflect women’s participation in the public sphere. Finally, to sum up, feminist researchers succeeded in demonstrating the need for a revision of some of the basic epistemological questions that direct research. All the questions posed above are relevant and still need further investigation in the field of Middle Eastern women’s history. There are also other questions related to our lives and our societies. Some of these questions have been addressed by other researchers from “Third World” countries with similar problems and concerns. New directions in research on Middle Eastern women’s history have already been initiated, but they still need to be consolidated and acknowledged in the Arab world. These approaches study women’s history while taking into consideration some basic determinants that are specific to the region such as, the beginning of the modernist discourse on women, the colonial burden and its influence on the writing of history, and deconstructing eurocentrism. Attention is also given to some of the issues that have forced themselves on feminist movements, such as the specificities of problems and experiences in as much as they are related to people’s lives, or, in other words, to what extent does the identity of the knower, or the seeker of knowledge, interfere in formulating and directing the research questions. Furthermore, we, in the Arab world, need to reach out to the cultures of the world without depending on the mediation of western culture: so far, we only recognize Indian cultural production after it is recognized in the West. Adopting a comparative perspective in approaching women’s history not only enriches research but could also safeguard the researcher from upholding dominant assumptions that need to be revised.
The revival and retrieval of women’s history in the Middle East is no easy endeavour.
This is the case due to conflictual socio-cultural struggles that exploit women’s issues to score short-term political gains. History, or the act of writing history, is closely related to the formation of consciousness and awareness. A study of marriage contracts in Egypt in the eighteenth century could result in a political battle on the pages of newspapers. These constraints inevitably raise some question marks regarding academic freedom in the Arab world and the presence or absence of research institutions that support research and provide the necessary safe environment to encourage researchers. On the other hand, the above-mentioned constraints highlight the intricate relation between research and social change.
This issue attempts to present a varied sample of research directions dealing with women’s history, or using history as an entry point in the discussion of a contemporary topical issue. Rania Abdel Rahman focuses on the contribution of feminist researchers in revising mainstream representations of the position of women in the Caribbean, and the degree of their involvement in public life. As for Dalia Azmy, she looks at the dynamic controversy which is ongoing between “first world” women and “Third World” women, and sheds lights on the success of researchers from the “third world” in reformulating and revising feminist concepts and principles. At first, they foregrounded the issue of difference and cultural and racial specificity in contradistinction to the principle of “sisterhood.” Then came the stage where difference was deconstructed and its essentialist, monolithic potential exposed, leading to other attempts to formulate new concepts with new connotations. Hala Kamal uses history to intervene in the topical feminist controversy around the most effective strategies for initiating women’s issues and work. Leila Hesseini’s review of Alison Baker’s Voices of Resistance, draws attention to an important research direction which resorts to women’s oral narratives in rewriting women’s history and in revising the role they played in specific historical moments, in this case the period of national liberation in Algeria. Similarly, “Women and the Arab NGOs” reviewed by Hoda El Saadi sheds light on the interrelation between national struggle and women’s organizations in the Arab world.
The participation of women belonging to different cultures of the world in reading history from a gender-sensitive perspective opens up new horizons of research and inquiry that can potentially lead to new visions and directions.
 
Hoda Elsadda*
*Professor of English Literature at Cairo University. Founding member of the Women &
Memory Forum.
(1) I addressed this issue in an interview entitled “Women and Memory” in Alif, Special
Issue on Gender and Knowledge: Contribution of Gender Perspectives to Intellectual
Formations, No.19, 1999.

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