Voicing Feminist Resistance in Joumana Haddad’s I Killed Scheherazade: Confessions of an Angry Arab Woman

Abstract

Writing is a weapon women writers used throughout history to change reality, shatter stereotypes and give women voice. Arab women writers understand how writing is a political act that disrupts devaluating and oppressive systems. This paper sheds light on how literature can be used to resist. Joumana Haddad turns her anger into writing in order to resist reality, shatter stereotypes and enhance change. Haddad speaks for every Arab woman who feels like her and believes in similar choices and dogmas. Her novella I Killed Scheherazade: Confessions of an Angry Arab Woman is a book for Arab women that encompasses interrogation of Western assumptions about women of the Middle East, and demonstrates the necessity of internal criticism of culture. Haddad is aiming at collective Arab women empowerment. Haddad reflects on what it means to be an Arab woman and specifically an Arab woman writer in the current time, and shows a different picture of Arab women of that prevalent in the West. The aim of this paper is to shed light on contemporary Arab feminist resistance literature. The selected text is examined for the presence of voices of feminist resistance the writer employs to shatter stereotypes, enlighten the Western and Arab readers and give Arab women writers voice