Rewriting French Feminisms: Muslim Women and Intersectional Storytelling with Fatima Daas and Faïza Guène

Abstract

ABSTRACT As intersectionality has burgeoned into a buzzword, it has not always retained its origins in black women’s lives and standpoints. Unfortunately, criticisms of the concept can further marginalise longstanding histories of resistance to overlapping systems of oppression. This article examines the value of an intersectional lens on transnational French-Algerian feminisms. It analyses the stories that circulate about intersectionality and feminism in France, particularly a misleading tension between, on the one hand, universalism, national identity and French feminism, and on the other, intersectionality. To ensure a situated and embodied approach, the recent works of two French writers, La petite dernière by Fatima Daas and La discrétion by Faïza Guène, guide this article’s rethinking of the epistemological bounds of (intersectional) feminism. An analysis of how the authors engage publicly with feminism, how their characters navigate sexism, racism, and Islamophobia in Paris and how the works are received, reveals a productive tension between the plural modes of resistance and agency Daas and Guène present, and dominant French feminist discourse. I argue for the value of an intersectional lens in bridging this gap and enabling the lives of Muslim women to shape the feminist project and participate in the construction of the universal.