Guests of the Sheik
Element of Gender:
A review of the Literature Through out Middle East the lives of women appear to have no influencing role in society. Elizabeth Fernea provides an survey of the traditions of an Iraqi village in her book Guests of the Sheik. Within this book, Fernea explores the element of gender and its impact on the roles of women in Iraq, directly in the village of El Nahra. She also encounters the expectations based on the gender-specific social constructs of polygamous families. Another woman author, Leila Abouzeid, explores similar elements in the work Return to Childhood, which is based in islamic Morocco. Fernea, who the women of the harem call Beeja, presents experiential information about the life of both women and men and her role within her husband's life as it reflects upon this eastern culture. This provides for an interesting perspective about the different roles of men and women in distant eastern cultures. Abouzeid also comments on family structure from the eyes of a child and how she viewed the role of the woman also within the eastern culture. In Guest of the sheik,Fernea's narrative comes from her stay, with her husband, Bob, on the outskirts of a Iraqi village, and the encounters that they experienced as a guest
2 he sheik though the eyes of a westerner. Even though Fernea and her husband were both well respected westerners, Fernea herself recognized that the role of a female within the Iraqi community would require her to conform to some of the gender-based social norms. This was evident in her expectations of their first meeting. After being invited by the sheik to lunch, Fernea reflected on the visit by stating that the invitation meant that "Bob would eat with the men in the sheik's mudhif or guest house, and I would lunch in the Harem, or women's quarters"(24).Fernea is also forced to conform to the dress appropriate for woman, the abayah, to avoid insults and her own self-conscious about how she was being view a woman. "They say an
A review of the Literature Through out Middle East the lives of women appear to have no influencing role in society. Elizabeth Fernea provides an survey of the traditions of an Iraqi village in her book Guests of the Sheik. Within this book, Fernea explores the element of gender and its impact on the roles of women in Iraq, directly in the village of El Nahra. She also encounters the expectations based on the gender-specific social constructs of polygamous families. Another woman author, Leila Abouzeid, explores similar elements in the work Return to Childhood, which is based in islamic Morocco. Fernea, who the women of the harem call Beeja, presents experiential information about the life of both women and men and her role within her husband's life as it reflects upon this eastern culture. This provides for an interesting perspective about the different roles of men and women in distant eastern cultures. Abouzeid also comments on family structure from the eyes of a child and how she viewed the role of the woman also within the eastern culture. In Guest of the sheik,Fernea's narrative comes from her stay, with her husband, Bob, on the outskirts of a Iraqi village, and the encounters that they experienced as a guest
2 he sheik though the eyes of a westerner. Even though Fernea and her husband were both well respected westerners, Fernea herself recognized that the role of a female within the Iraqi community would require her to conform to some of the gender-based social norms. This was evident in her expectations of their first meeting. After being invited by the sheik to lunch, Fernea reflected on the visit by stating that the invitation meant that "Bob would eat with the men in the sheik's mudhif or guest house, and I would lunch in the Harem, or women's quarters"(24).Fernea is also forced to conform to the dress appropriate for woman, the abayah, to avoid insults and her own self-conscious about how she was being view a woman. "They say an