Ecriture Feminine: Feminism and Nationalism in Seyyedeh Zahra Hosseini’s ‘One Woman’s War: Da’

Esmaeil Zeiny

doi:10.17576/3l-2019-2503-09

Abstract

For centuries, the tradition of veiling and public silence repressed the Iranian women both physically and verbally. These conventions stipulated that women’s physique should be concealed and their voice, emotion and concern remain unexpressed. Although Iranian women have always played crucial and representative roles in various political and historical eras, the tendency to trivialize and neglect their roles and movements has been rife. This affected Persian literature as well; women were either totally excluded or were marginalized and mentioned very briefly in literature. The Iranian women had challenged these conventions, ventured into the public, and voiced their thoughts and concerns through literature but they were again marginalized and their literature was overlooked due to possessing traditional masculine styles of writing. This sentiment gradually disappeared with the emergence of women authors whose literary works had a different style than men’s writings. These writings brought women from the periphery to the center as well. Since then, Iranian women authors have been producing literature to protest against patriarchy and traditional discriminatory policies. They have also been active writers in what now can be regarded as the formerly male-dominated genres that deal with nationalism such as war literature. ‘One Woman’s War: Da’ (2014) is one such work. Drawing upon and reviving Cixous’ notion of ecriture feminine , this paper explores how Da, a state-sponsored war memoir, constructs feminine writing that challenges patrilineal culture and highlights women’s roles in nation-building projects like the Iran-Iraq war. Keywords: ecriture feminine; masculine writing; feminine writing; patrilineal culture; feminism

Highlights

For over thirty years since a decade after the 1979 Revolution, Iranian women writers in Iran have been creating a literature engaged with women’s issue and gender relations
Iranian women authors have produced significant literature in what is regarded as formerly maledominated genres that deal with nationalism such as war literature or ‘Sacred Defense Literature’ which refers to the literature about Iran-Iraq war
Halimi acted as a counsel for Djamila and helped her bring her torture case to trial and Simone de Beauvoir assisted in the case publicity by writing an article in the French newspaper, Le Monde. This is the first example of a series of instances in the memoir that criticize the traditional belief about the role of women in nationalism

Summary

INTRODUCTION

For over thirty years since a decade after the 1979 Revolution, Iranian women writers in Iran have been creating a literature engaged with women’s issue and gender relations. This literature modified the course of literature in Iran decisively. Breaking the exclusive grips that men had in the literary production of ‘Sacred Defense,’ women are narrating their sagas of endurance and sacrifices, and confrontations with Iraqi soldiers in the front This literature could be read through the feminist lens of ecriture feminine by questioning and interpolating the master discourse of. In what follows I bring to the surface Iranian women’s journey from absence to presence and authorship, and I reveal how Da (2014) constructs a feminine style of writing that defends women’s rights and highlights women’s roles in nation-building projects like the Iran-Iraq war

FROM ABSENCE TO PRESENCE AND AUTHORSHIP

ECRITURE FEMININE

DA AND NATIONALISM

CONCLUSION