New Interpretations of Feminism

Starting the day with a panel titled The Endless Wave: New Feminist Writing, Mohamed and a co-panelist, the Saudi journalist and chat show host Badriah al Beshr, discussed the need for flexible interpretations of feminism that reflect different countries and contexts—and the diversity of thought within them—across the Arab world.

For al Beshr, who has written widely on issues affecting Saudi women, the current wave of feminism calls for supporting the individual through localized responses. “We have to make it more relevant,” she said.

In the past, issues facing Saudi women were fixed, she told listeners, ticking off some of the recent hard-won gains for women in the kingdom, including the right to drive and increased female participation in public life. She sidestepped prompts to criticize the Saudi government for imprisoning female activists who campaigned for some of these freedoms. These are security issues, she said. “It’s not for me to discuss right now.” (See a related article, “Women’s Advocates Go on Trial in Saudi Arabia.”)

In Egypt, a crackdown on freedom of expression has made a degree of caution necessary among writers, artists and activists. “In theory we might have a lot of rights but in practice we don’t,” said Mohamed, whose debut graphic novel Shubeik Lubeik won the award for best printed graphic novel and the grand prize at the CairoComix Festival in 2017.

She outlined two types of feminism in Egypt: a state-sponsored brand and grass-roots activism, which operates within a very stifled space. The result is a sanitized feminism that “tiptoes” around issues that need to be addressed. “Right now we’re scraping for leftovers.”

Censoring the Gay Experience

Censorship was explored from other perspectives during a panel headlined Bold Voices: New Queer Writing, where the poet, playwright and actress Dima Mikhayel Matta joked—without divulging too many trade secrets—about the loopholes LGBTQ artists exploit to share their work in restricted environments. Censors who ask why a piece differs from the version submitted may hear that the piece is “in progress,” she said. Also, art galleries are often used instead of theaters because they face fewer restrictions.

“Publishing can be practiced underground, which is even sexier,” added the artist Joseph Kai, to loud applause.

For Kai, an editor at the Lebanese comic collective Samandal, homophobia is the “eye that is always there, reading whatever I’m writing … searching for sexuality.”

Kai, whose works explore the unspoken, marginalization and gender, spoke of different forms of homophobia in Beirut. The city is considered one of the region’s most liberal and was the first in the Arab world to host a gay pride week in 2017. But the fragility of these freedoms was made clear last year when authorities forced the cancelation of Beirut Pride and detained its organizer, Hadi Damien, overnight.

“Homophobia very much exists in Lebanon,” said Matta, who said she feels safe in her Beirut neighborhood but plays straight at work to avoid being fired.

But she and others said they were not out to “normalize” the gay experience.