ELIZABETH WARNOCK FERNEA (1927-2008)

1. ELIZABETH WARNOCK FERNEA (1927-2008) Presented by Nur Nabila BintiHamdan RabiyaKhatun SitiHajarBinti Mustapha Edited by Dr. Md. MahmudulHasan International Islamic University Malaysia 2011

3. biography • Born: October 21, 1927, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA • Died: December 2, 2008, at the age of 81 • An influential writer, filmmaker, and anthropologist • A leading scholar of women’s issues in the Arab world • Husband: Robert A. Fernea

4. Her father was a mining engineer and worked in Manitoba, Canada. • Instead of forcing his family to live on the mining firm’s compound, he opted to live in town with ordinary people. • This choice might have sparked Fernea’s later interest in anthropology because, as an American, she was marginalized by her fellow Canadian students. • Since it was during the time of Depression, other children were not friendly to her, which was her first taste of being an “outsider”.

5. During an interview with Fayza Hassan, Fernea stated that the other kids would yell at her window saying “It’s not that we hate you, it’s just that you’re American.” • Fernea learned from her mother that it is the norm to follow one’s husband where his job takes him. • These two lessons could be the reason why she was so willing to go with her husband Robert to Iraq and why she was able to eventually fit in with the women there.

6. education • Her local school was staffed with great teachers who moved to Canada. • World War II broke out, her family moved to Portland, Oregon. • In America, she was bored with the curriculum and found it far less challenging than in Canada. • After high school she obtained her degree in English from Reed College in Portland. • Did postgraduate studies at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and the University of Chicago. • Met Robert Fernea at Reed College and married him in 1956.

7. marriage • After marriage, she followed Robert to Iraq where he conducted part of his doctoral research in anthropology. • They stayed in the village of El Nahra for two years. • She learned a lot about Arab women. • At first, Fernea was stubborn and did not want to wear the abayah but after being stared at, she thought it was best to don the clothing worn by the women of El Nahra.

8. Life’s JOURNEY • Fayza Hassan argues: “This may have been the awakening of Fernea’s true pioneer spirit.” • She could easily have worn jeans and paraded around the village in front of men but instead she respected the differences and chose to become a veiled woman and respect the indigenous culture.

9. She felt like she was leaving home when she and Robert were coming back to America. • She established lifelong friendships with some women of El Nahra. • Robert and her friend Audrey Walz encouraged her to publish her writings about her El Nahra experiences. • Finally she published her ethnographic work even though she was not as anthropologist by training.

10. MIDDLE EASTERN CULTURE WRITING • In 1986, Fernea and Robert co-authored the article “Symbolizing Roles: Behind the Veil” that talks about the veil in Arab culture. • Fernea tried to show the West how Middle Eastern women feel about the veil. • She realized that it was important to tell the West about the cultural specificity of the Arab world.

11. Elizabeth Fernea’s films • Reformers and Revolutionaries: Middle Eastern Women (1984) • The Struggle for Peace: Israelis and Palestinians (1992) • The Road to Peace: Israelis and Palestinians (1994) • Living with the Past (2001)

12. major works and HONORS • In 1999, Fernea retired from teaching at the University of Texas, Austin. • Her books: Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village (1989) A View of the Nile (1970); Street in Marrakech (1988) Middle Eastern Muslim Women Speak (1978) Women and Family in the Middle East: New Voices of Change (1985) In Search of Islamic Feminism: One Woman’s Global Journey (1998)

13. She co-authored two books with Robert: The Arab World: Personal Encounters (1997) and Nubian Ethnographies (1990) • The Elizabeth Warnock Fernea Excellence Endowment in English was established at the University of Texas in 2004. It supports graduate students of comparative literature, especially those working on the Middle East, Ethnic and Third World Literature or Third World Culture Theory and Cultural Studies.

14. WOMEN AND THE FAMILY IN THE MIDDLE EAST:NEW VOICES OF CHANGE • The book is a fascinating study of the lives of present day Arab women of Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Palestine. • Statements by men and women about their lives and experiences are provided in forms of short stories, essays, interviews, poems and life histories.

15. There is an underlying sense of disappointment among people, as many of the revolutionary promises have not been kept. There is also hope, because these people wish to live with honor. • Importantly, these people never look to the west for answers to their problems. • They try to improve lives using indigenous traditions, customs, Islam and kinship and family patterns.

16. Arab women and men think collectively, not individually. • They look at their problems holistically as conditions involving men, the family, and the wider society. • The book is divided into 8 main parts. • Part 1 includes a discussion by Algerian women on the need for change. • Part 2 deals with the family and society, marriage and divorce. • The Arab family is the basic unit of social organization. • People inherit their religious, social class and cultural identities through the family.

17. The social system provides security and support at times of disstress. • There is a need for transforming the socioeconomic system for the emancipation of women. • Part 3 discusses health and education, female sexuality and female education. • Female circumcision is part of political and religious issues. • Efforts are in progress to eradicate this tradition.

18. Education is free from primary to tertiary level in several Arab countries. • Remarkable progress in women education – vocational, scientific, medical, and professional education. • More Arab women now study engineering because of its high status and employment prospects in the increasingly industrialized Arab world.

19. Part 4 covers war, politics and revolution. • Fernea writes, “Conflict – local, national, or international – has characterized the Middle East for the past 50 years.” • Warfare disrupted aspirations and ideals, shifted personal goals, and ruptured traditional family patterns. Good outcomes of warfare: • In Lebanon, women have become more independent, as they were needed in the war. • The politicization of Palestinian women has increased. • They are in the forefront of charitable and social work. • Each town and village has its own local women leaders.

20. Part 5 is dedicated to religion and law. • Religion in the middle east is not part of the social structure, it is the structure. • Islam is the basis for most of the laws in most Arab countries. • Confirmation of Islamic values and identities is a recurring theme throughout Muslim history. • Shari’ah is believed to be one of the most sophisticated legal systems. • Despite the differing viewpoints, the majority are in favor of the Islamic tradition and the flexible legal system of Shari’ah.

21. In part 6 Fernea talks about work and how it is transforming housebound women to face challenges of the world of work. • Due to the changing economic conditions, a growing number of women are going outside the house to work for wages. • Women campaign for more state support to facilitate wage labor. Some question the employment of women. Because • Women are taken away from their true responsibilities at home. • Work of women threatens the husband’s sense of masculine pride. However, • Cairo's factory women say, “work strengthens women’s position…we are a tight group… we defend each other's rights… All of us work hard, we have earned these rights. You see us all with strong personalities. Aren’t our eyes opened wider than housewives?”

22. Part 7 discusses the issue of identity. • Arab women have never doubted their own identities. • They never see themselves as isolated individuals in an alien wilderness. • Women forming new connections with their groups, with their origins discovering themselves in new relationships to the past, the present, to men and to other women. • Part 8, the postscript is an excerpt from Assia Djebar’s “ Women of Algiers in their Apartment”. • “Change must also come through the efforts of women themselves.” • “Fear leads not only to defeat and victory can only be won through courage.”

23. GUESTS OF THE SHEIK: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF AN IRAQI VILLAGE

24. The book is more like a life story of Elizabeth Warnock Fernea. She was inspired to write it when she had to follow her husband to Iraq in the 1950s. The book was first published in 1965 but still available and reprinted several times. Newsweek recently listed it as one of ten best books to read about the Arab world since the September 11 crisis. The book is a study of the Iraqi rural area, especially the life of women.

25. Fernea talks about how the village people practice their religious customs. She represents herself as one of the Arab women and narrates her experiences and Iraqi people’s life in more details. For example she talks about how she learnt the language of the village people and made friends with Arab women.

26. She lived in a mud house and used the same transportations like the village people. From there she learnt how to mingle and interact with them more closely. She even attended their festivals and fiestas. Interesting side of this book is that she tells the reader about Arab people in a an unconventional manner. She portrays even the negative aspect in a respectful manner. She explains why those people do certain cultural practices. She received letters from the village people even many years after she and her husband had left Iraq.

27. THE STRUGGLE FOR PEACE: THE ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS

28. In the 1990s, Fernea's work took a new turn when she began to explore the activities of several of the 78 Israeli and Palestinian peace organizations. This is a collection of brief comments by two dozen activists on both sides who have been working for peace despite their doubts about the value of these efforts. She produced a documentary film together with a famous director named Steve Talley renowned for his work on the Jewish-Arab relationship.

29. For this film, she earned two National Endowment for the Humanities grants. The film introduces grassroots organizations with very different perspectives on how to bring about a peaceful settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These personal statements are complemented by numerous academic analyses and historical overviews.

30. The film introduces groups such as "Women in Black" composed of Palestinians and Israelis who hold weekly vigils in twenty locations to protest Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. One of the many Israeli soldiers who risked imprisonment by refusing to serve in the Occupied Territories states: "The purpose of the Israeli Defence Forces is supposed to be to defend our nation, not to oppress others”.