Theories of Womens Relationship to Public Space - Research Paper Example

Theories of women’s relationship to public space in all their complexity with reference to Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North. The world we live in is arranged in ways that are not gender neutral. This is obvious in modern society where despite decades of equal opportunities legislation in the United States and other developed western countries there are still huge differences in the earning capacity of woman as compared to men, and there are many areas where men dominate and take control of the best resources, leaving unjust proportion for women. High status jobs, political positions, reputations in business and in the history books are all dominated by men, and qualities which are stereotypically male such as strength, action and decisiveness are valued above qualities which are stereotypically female like nurturing and supporting. When we look at large scale events in global history like major exploration, war and colonization, it is the male ambition to conquer, control and exploit which characterizes them. Traditionally, males are active and operate in the public arena, while females are passive and are confined largely to private and domestic spaces. These stereotypes are evident in the system that we know as patriarchy, and they operate at the level of individuals within families, in different social and cultural groups, and in the way that nations and states relate to each other. Journeying out to capture and control a physical location is a classically patriarchal activity. We can detect this kind of influence when we look at the narratives of history that have been drawn up to make sense of human behaviour. The age of empire building, somewhat ironically under the leadership of a British Queen, as well as various kings and prime ministers across the globe was one of expansion for the conquerors and cultural demolition for those who were colonized. Just as women in Victorian England were nominally revered and respected, but at the same time dominated and repressed by their husbands, so narratives of the “exotic” and the “primitive” were used to give a positive spin to the systematic exploitation of vast areas of Africa, India and Asia. Hierarchical Western systems were introduced to replace overlapping tribal and national structures and women found themselves on the bottom rung of all these new hierarchies. The position of former colonies was for many years to be trapped into an opposition to this dominance, rather than to develop freely in whichever direction they would themselves have chosen. It was only in the mid to late twentieth century that authors in former colonies began to theorize this bitter experience and emerge from the imposed binary opposition of colonialism into a more nuanced appreciation of power relations in the modern world. One such author, Tayeb Salih, reflects on these matters in his novel Season of Migration to the North (Salih, 2009) and draws complex parallels between the subjugation of Sudan under colonialism and the subjugation of women under patriarchal systems. The novel revolves around themes of colonialization, a term which in feminist theory “almost invariably implies a relation of structural domination, and a discursive or political suppression of the heterogeneity of the subject(s) in question” (Mohanty, 1988, p. 61) and exploration of the complex and various types of male and female relations that exist in the post-colonial world. This makes the book at times complex, even ambiguous, but this quality ensures that it is true to situation, Unresolved issues that were paramount in the period immediately after independence was gained in the Sudan are presented as they were experienced, not least the evolving role of women and their gradual emergence into public life. The plot revolves around, as the title suggests, what happens when some of the residents of Sudan migrate back to where the colonial masters came from, before returning to their homeland having gained new and shocking knowledge which then contributes to the way that the country reasserts its own identity. In a way this journey is retracing the steps of the colonizers before coming back to reclaim the land for a new and freer future. Following on from ideas originating in Foucault and others, feminist scholars have pointed out that segregation and stratification of women into particular architectural and geographic locations excludes them from the places where men traditionally exchange types of knowledge which are socially valued. “Women’s position within society, whether measured as power, prestige, economic position, or social rank, is related to spatial segregation insofar as existing physical arrangements facilitate or inhibit the exchange of knowledge between those with greater and those with lesser status” (Spain, 1993, p. 137) Different cultures do this in different ways, so that for example in Jewish synagogues women and men worship in separate rooms, and in many Muslim homes and workplaces there are separate male and female areas within the same building, which is architectural segregation. In some cultures boys and girls are educated in different schools, which is geographical segregation. These cultural differences are quite diverse but it has been noted that “the more pronounced the degree of spatial gender segregation, the lower is women’s status relative to men.” (Spain, 1993, p. 137) This paper explores this point, examining the way that relationships between men and women change through contact with the former colonizers, mediated by the migrating men to their wives and families back in their home countries. There are a number of different theories that can explain these patterns in male and female occupation of space. Marxist and feminist theories tend to focus on the economic aspect of women’s roles, and the way that employment and wage earning empowers women, while family centered theories, especially referring to non-industrial societies, look at women’s role as mothers and their influence in the home. Most people are not very aware of the social construction of the places that they live and work in and how much this guides the way that they think and the way that they behave. Over time certain practices become “normal” and accepted, and this explains why patriarchy has such a strong hold on most societies. One of the big ideas in the feminist movement, from Virginia Woolf’s plea for “A room of one’s own” onwards has been for equal access to the spaces that allow for higher level tasks like thinking, learning and writing rather than just for the domestic work that housewives do in their homes. In Season of Migration to the North the spot under the tree where the men of the village sit and debate all the issues of the day is just such a privileged location. The patriarchs dominate this space, and it is interesting that Bint Majzoub is admitted to this circle and allowed to occupy this space. Her age, and her widowhood give her a certain freedom from the usual domestic duties that tie women to private, indoor space, and in some ways she demonstrates a kind of freedom that is traditionally North African, and not in the least affected by the colonial education system and all the hierarchies of class and power that come with that. She is not submissive, and refuses to remain out of sight, and in the bright light of the sun she participates in the banter that the elders of the village use to show their knowledge of the world. She has broken through the spatial barriers, the domestic walls, that constrained her as a younger woman, and this shows that there is a potential for change and for women to use key public spaces. She takes on some of the habits of the men, like swearing and smoking, which is a considerable liberty in this culture. Being in that space gives her status, and having the status of a wise old woman gives her access to that space. The one does not cause the other, and in the book there is no explanation why she is there. It just happens this way, and everyone accepts it. Interestingly, she goes on to use that space, to join in the rather sexist jokes of the men, and critics have noted that she appears to condone the local practice of female circumcision when she says “We were afraid … you’d bring back with you an uncircumcised infidel for a wife” (Salih, 2009, p. 5) Bint Majzoub has taken the first step to reclaim public spaces for her sex, but she is not enlightened enough to use it to make further gains. The redrawing of spatial boundaries takes a long time, and a lot of people, but the novel shows some of the individual steps towards more equal occupation of powerful positions and locations. Post-colonialist theories focus on the role of power in the lives of people and in the institutional structures of different societies. One of the most striking, and long-lasting legacies of colonial invasion in places like Africa has been the urbanization of the landscape, and the erection of monuments to Western power and technological superiority. This kind of domination of the landscape is a form of patriarchy, in which the colonizer plays the forceful male role and the colonized is forced to play the submissive female role. When the colonizers gradually left these lands in the middle of the twentieth century, these legacies remained, leaving physical and cultural scars on the landscape. Women in these countries find themselves initially at the bottom of every hierarchy, suffering the ignominy of being colonized, exclusion from the benefits such as education and access to paid work, and also the enduring second place citizenship that they possessed even before the colonizers came along. Women in the colonizing countries share the stigma of being perpetrators, and as Tayeb Salih shows in the figure of Mustafa Sa’eed at times play the role of scapegoat, suffering the rage and revenge that bubbles up from the former colonies. In Islamic countries there is also a very clearly demarcated male and female sphere of influence, with women largely confined to domestic and nurturing roles, and men taking responsibility for public functions and earning the money to support women and children. This complex tapestry of race, gender, power and religion is not a fixed situation, but an evolving one, and Tayeb Salih captures a moment in Sudanese history when the colonizers have left, but the formerly colonized have not freed themselves from the influences of their former masters. The men have the freedom to “migrate” away from their homeland and out into the northern lands of the conquerors. This is a necessary step for them, because they need to sort out in their heads what is their own heritage and what is the heritage imposed from outside by an alien nation. The Sudanese women do not have this luxury because their lives are restricted by the limitations of household and obedience to patriarchal husbands. The women receive the knowledge of the northern lands at second hand through their husbands. They are in a sense protected from the destructive contact with harmful influences, and at the same time excluded from the learning process that this would bring. The men “migrate” for a season, which in fact lasts several years, while the women are static, providing stability and security for the youngsters and older people of the village. Most people in the world spend most of their home lives in households with some degree of gender-stereotyped structures. Gerson argues that it is not necessary to dissolve the private/public boundary to increase women’s access to roles traditionally occupied by men, since it is possible to have a kind of “deliberative household” in which all parties can debate issues and change things to suit everyone’s needs. In this view of human society, there is no dependence on stereotypical and hierarchical gender roles, but instead, women and men negotiate with each other to find solutions that they both find acceptable. It is interesting to see how the Muslim men in Season of Migration to the North view Western women in the light of these theories, because there seems to be a tension between retaining the traditional segregation of their rural homeland, and venturing into the more egalitarian lifestyles of the Western cities that they migrate to. The unnamed narrator makes this journey, both in geography and in mental attitudes, and appears to bring back to his homeland a more deliberative view of marriage, while the negatively portrayed Mustafa Sa’eed only finds further locations in which to terrorize and exploit women. Mustafa replicates the sins of the oppressors, while the narrator attempts to find a middle way which draws out a viable future identity for someone who has grown up caught between cultures. Mustafa acts, often violently, while the narrator seems paralyzed into neutral and passive observation, until the end of the novel at least, when he takes a more active role in adopting Mustafa’s orphaned children. There is an extended metaphor for gender relations in the novel and it is tied in with the novel’s title: Season of Migration to the North. The north represents coolness and power, while the south represents heat and passion. Mustafa Sa’eed aligns these locations with male and female desires and makes this clear when he speaks about his relationships with women from Europe: “Unlike me, she [= Ann Hammond] yearned for tropical climes, cruel suns, purple horizons… I am the South that yearns for the North and the ice.” (Salih, 2009, p. 27) In both northern and southern contexts, domestic spaces are extremely important in the novel, and Salih conveys something of a mixed message through them. One of the problems of considering women’s relationship to public and private space in the novel lies in the fact that the book is told from a largely male point of view. The device of a having a main character, Mustafa Sa’eed and a different character narrating the story allows for more than one male perspective on post-colonial rural Sudan, which is good, because it explores different dimensions of culture, religion and politics through their contrasting experiences and views. They have both been abroad and have experienced non-Muslim societies first hand, but they return to their homeland with very different perspectives on the former colonial masters, and the former colonized homeland. The unnamed narrator presents himself, a male, as equally at home in the family setting as in the world of work. His attachment to his grandfather and his appreciation of his parental home are very positive aspects of his depiction. He likens his return to his parents’ household as becoming “Like that palm tree, a being with a background, with roots, with a purpose.” The narrator’s domestic space is portrayed in idyllic terms in which there are clear gender demarcations, but within a harmonious whole: “My mother brought tea. My father, having finished his prayers and recitations from the Koran, came along. Then my sister and brothes came and we all sat down and drank tea and talked, as we have done ever since my eyes opened on life. Yes, life is good and the world unchanged as ever.” (Salih, 2009, p. 4) Through the image of a tall and shady palm tree this stability of the home location is contrasted with the shifting uncertainty of the narrator’s travels. It shows a how Sudanese culture provides a superior environment to the urban cultures of London and Paris. The view is a male one, of course, but it is also appreciative and balanced, showing the benefits of his own culture. This book does not defend simplistic “religion-as-nation” definitions (McAlister, 2005, p. 211) but presents a nuanced view of the interplay between nationality, religion and culture. The narrator also, at the end of the book, provides some of this domestic stability for the sons of Mustafa Sa’eed, taking up the Muslim male role of protector and provider of those in need. This shows the positive side of patriarchy, thankful for the services of women in his domestic environment, and stepping up to the mark when vulnerable minors require his assistance. The cool safety of the home and the bright communal talking spaces under the palm trees are the private and public locations that define Sudan for the narrator. The tree in the village public space is an important symbol in Islam and has connotations with the legend of holy man Wad Hamid. It represents all that is original and authentic in Sudanese life, because it is “in direct opposition to the city, with its hospitals, electricity, radios, cinemas, newspapers, schools and modern means of transport.” ( p. 89) In other words, it symbolizes Sudan without the influence of former colonial powers, and true to the mysticism of popular Islam. Salih presents the image of the benign patriarch in his grandfather, and he, too is likened to a palm tree, very tall and strong, with roots going down into the earth. A different public/private demarcation is presented by Mustafa Sa’eed. He boasts of his bedroom in England which he used as a place to seduce western women. The multiple mirrors on the walls and ceiling signify the fragmented, and unstable private space that this room represents. He brings to it a very non British concept: “When I slept with a woman it was as if I slept with a whole harem simultaneously.” (Salih, 2009, p. 31) This space is a trap for his female victims, and he uses it as a predatory male for his own pleasure. Another space which is elaborately described in the novel is Mustafa Sa’eed’s study. Conversely, this is a room in the Sudan, decked out like a British colonial library with Persian carpets and solid oak ceilings: “How ridiculous! A fireplace - imagine it! A real English fireplace with all the bits and pieces… two Victorian chairs covered in a figured silk material… Not a single Arabic book. A graveyard. A mausoleum. An insane idea. A prison. A huge joke. A treasure chamber. ‘Open Sesame…” (Salih, 2009, 111-113) In this room are photographs and letters from Mustafa Sa’eed’s former girlfriends and lovers. Their words are filtered through the anonymous narrator who takes in the strange décor and trophy pictures and books with sheer amazement. The women are here treated as objects, almost in the same way that colonial tourists and big game hunters would display exhibits to show off their appreciation of foreign artefacts and stuffed animals, What this room represents is a reversal of the traditional Victorian plundering of the East for consumer pleasure in the West. It reveals a lot about Mustafa Sa’eed: “The peace of mind Mustafa finds in that room suggests his alienation.” (Nasr, 1980, p. 98) The unnamed narrator reads the touching letters from the various women with the double perspective of East and West, seeing them both as human beings in their own right, with feelings and ambitions, and as objects of desire that Mustafa Sa’eed has conquered. He detects something of the real personalities behind the photographs and the exaggerated boastings of Mustafa Sa’eed: “She [=Isabella Seymour] was not, as he had described her, exactly a bronze statue, but there was manifest good nature in her face and an optimistic outlook on life.” (Salih, 2009, p. 117) Even out of death, these women speak to the narrator through the trophies that Mustafa has collected. Two male characters, Wad Rayyes and Mustafa Sa’eed, however, are depicted as being more like lustful animals than domesticated human beings. Wad Rayyes is likened to a horse: “He had been much married and much divorced, taking no heed of anything in a woman except that she was a woman, taking them as they came, and if asked about it, replying “A stallion isn’t finicky.” (Salih, 2009, p. 81) In another passage Wad Rayyes is shown to treat women like beasts of burden: “Wad Rayyes, who charged women as he charged donkeys.” Mustafa is likened to a “savage bull that does not weary of the chase” (Salih, 2009, p. 33) These references to semi-domesticated animals reflect the rural location of the Sudan, and the tension that men feel when they are expected to behave with restraint and respect towards women in their domestic lives. It is difficult to analyse the relationships that the women in Season of Migration to the North have with public space, because there is not very much opportunity to hear them speaking or see them in action during the course of the novel. In general the female characters in the book are portrayed as victims, and they suffer injury and even death at the hands of their violent husbands. This is true both of the Sudanese female characters, and the western women that Mustafa Sa’eed encounters in Europe. The women fight against the role that they are cast in, however, and we can see this in the character of Jean Morris, who intuitively destroys his books and papers because she detects in them the origins of Mustafa’s hatred and violence. It is his study of the West, and the adoption of its cruelty and use of force that turns Mustafa Sa’eed into the terrible man that he is, and she lashes out at the source. We see resistance to the unjust domination of men also in the character of Mabrouka, the former wife of Wad Rayyes , who shows no sadness when she hears of his horrific murder at the hands of Hosna, and simply comment obliquely on his cruelty and the justice of his fate: “Women, let everyone of you go about her business. Wad Rayyes dug his grave with his own hand and Bint Mahmoud, God’s blessings upon her, paid him in full.” (Salih, 2009, p. 106) Hosna is a tragic character, bought and sold like an object and driven finally to murder and suicide because of her treatment at the hands of her husband. The skill of the novelist is used, however, to link Hosna’s tragic actions in a symbolic way to the history of Sudan. This is done by showing the narrator’s feeling of distress at the suffering of Hosna, and incomprehension when he sees his beloved grandfather mourning the death of the despicable Wad Rayyes, and showing no sympathy at all for the suffering of Hosna. This cultural gulf is one of the strengths of the book: it neither demonizes nor idealizes Sudanese traditions and women’s struggles for freedom from oppression: “Salih’s fable is about modern Sudan itself, as it re-emerges into the world after a long period of colonization in the East and two world wars in the West. The modern Sudanese woman is given birth in agony and blood, through the immolation of Hosna.” (Takieddine-Amyuni, 1985, p. 34) The experiences of Mustafa Sa’eed in Europe seep back into the Sudan bringing a tide of changes into the seclusion of the village: “She [= Hosna] accomplishes in the village what Mustafa failed to do in England: she changes the way the village can look at the world – she affects history” (Davidson, 1989, p. 94) The significance of Hosna’s rebellion is that it sets up a new set of possibilities and expectations that would have been unthinkable before: “Hosna is dead, but no longer can a woman be looked upon merely as property or raped without second thought.” (Davidson, 1989, p. 396) Salih’s novel shows that bringing female rebellion into the open air and bright sun of the Sudanese village is another small but significant step in the reclaiming of public space for women. In these dramatic individual tales of men and women in a corner of Sudan, Salih illustrates the way forward, complex and problematic as it is, for everyone to find a future together that is open and free, without oppressive hierarchies of any sort. Islam is presented here as a multifaceted influence, bringing some negative effects for women, such as their dependence on men who often treat them from a position of dominance, but also showing a kinder and more family oriented approached, as evidenced in the personality of the unnamed narrator. The issues are not resolved in the book, but they are presented clearly, in all their complexity and at times brutality, and with due regard for the heterogeneity of women’s experience, and free from simplistic assumptions, and this is the major strength of the novel. References Davidson, John E. “In Search of a Middle Point: The Origins of Oppression in Tayeb Salih;s ‘Season of Migration to the North.” Research in African Literatures 20 (3), (1989), pp. 385-400. Gerson, Gal. “Deliberative Households: Republicans, Liberals, and the Public-Private Split.” Political Research Quarterly 57 (4) (204), pp. 653-663. Makdisi, Saree S. “The Empire Renarrated: ‘Season of Migration to the North’ and the Reinvention of the Present.” Critical Inquiry 18 (4), pp. 804-820. McAlister, Melani. Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East since 1945. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses.” Feminist Review 30 (1988), pp. 61-88. Nasr, Ahmad A. “Popular Islam in Al-Tayyib Salih.” Journal of Arabic Literature 11 (1980), pp. 88-104. Salih, Tayeb. Season of Migration to the North. Translated by Denys Johnson-Davies. New York: NYRB, 2009. Spain, Daphne. “Gendered Spaces and Women’s Status.” Sociological Theory 1 (2) (1993), pp. 137-151. Takieddine-Amyuni, Mona. “Images of Arab Women in Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz and Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 17 (1) (1985), pp. 25-36. Read More