“What About Women?”: The Treatment of Women in Mohja Kahf’s the Girl in the Tangerine Scarf
Abstract
In this article, I will argue that the treatment of women in Mohja Kahf’s The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf is problematic because (a) polygyny in modern practice is depicted as if it were exclusive to Islam when in fact some Mormons still practice polygyny and (b) some readers could misconstrue the traditional gender role for women as being imposed by Islam when in fact it is imposed by a conservative strand of Sunni Islam. First, this article will define the term polygyny - as opposed to polygamy - in order to justify my use of the phrase “polygyny in modern practice,” examine the novel’s implication that Mormons no longer practice polygyny, and present a rebuttal through examples of recent court cases involving Mormon polygynists to prove that some Mormons still practice polygyny. By doing this, it will show that polygyny in modern practice is not exclusive to Islam. Next, this article will clarify what I mean by “the traditional gender role for women” and by “a conservative strand of Sunni Islam,” discuss how Ebtehaj fulfills the traditional gender role for women, and highlight an underlying cultural dissimilarity between her and Aunt Khadija in view of the fact that both women are Sunni. By doing this, it will show that the traditional gender role for women is imposed by a conservative strand of Sunni Islam rather than by Islam itself. Finally, this article will recap my argument, clarify my problem with the novel’s depiction of polygyny, and explain how some readers could misconstrue the traditional gender role for women as being imposed by Islam.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
‘Ali, ‘A. Y. (1989). The meaning of the holy qur’an, new ed. with rev. Translation and commentary. Maryland: Amana Publications.
Buhman, B. V. (2013). District of Utah, central division. Case No. 2:11-cv-0652-CW. Retrieved from http://ecf.utd.uscourts.gov/cgibin/show_public_doc?211cv0652-78
Dalrymple II, J. (2014, December 14). Federal judge declares Utah polygamy law unconstitutional. The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved from http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/56894145-78/utah-polygamy-waddoups- ruling.html.csp
Kahf, M. (2007). The girl in the tangerine scarf. Pennsylvania: PublicAffairs.
Kawar, M. (1997). Gender and generation in household labor supply in Jordan (PhD research project). London School of Economics. ruling.html.csp
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/%25x
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2014 Husni Abumelhim
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Reminder
- How to do online submission to another Journal?
- If you have already registered in Journal A, then how can you submit another article to Journal B? It takes two steps to make it happen:
1. Register yourself in Journal B as an Author
- Find the journal you want to submit to in CATEGORIES, click on “VIEW JOURNAL”, “Online Submissions”, “GO TO LOGIN” and “Edit My Profile”. Check “Author” on the “Edit Profile” page, then “Save”.
2. Submission
Online Submission: http://cscanada.org/index.php/ccc/submission/wizard
- Go to “User Home”, and click on “Author” under the name of Journal B. You may start a New Submission by clicking on “CLICK HERE”.
- We only use four mailboxes as follows to deal with issues about paper acceptance, payment and submission of electronic versions of our journals to databases: caooc@hotmail.com; office@cscanada.net; ccc@cscanada.net; ccc@cscanada.org
Articles published in Cross-Cultural Communication are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY).
CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION Editorial Office
Address: 1055 Rue Lucien-L'Allier, Unit #772, Montreal, QC H3G 3C4, Canada.
Telephone: 1-514-558 6138
Website: Http://www.cscanada.net; Http://www.cscanada.org
E-mail:caooc@hotmail.com; office@cscanada.net
Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture