Femme touarègue (French Edition)
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Text Bibliography Author s. Zoom in Original jpeg, k. Author s Rachid Bellil. Freemium Recommend to your library for acquisition. The postal address of the institution is: Available on the Internet: Bellil, Rachid, and Badi Dida. Rachid Bellil and Badi Dida. In my research work, I have found more than stories of travels to the Orient written by women in the 19 th Century and the first half of the 20 th Century.
The emphasis of this discourse is placed upon a study of space. I would like to enlarge the Orientalist discourse by following the path of Edward Said and integrating the 20 th Century and those stories written by women. The integration of the 20 th century in concentrating on travels into the desert opens up a new genre within the Voyage to the Orient: The most common opinion about Orientalism certainly originates from the Palestinian cultural historian, Edward W.
According to him "[ What happens when a woman - traditionally considered by the man as the Other - starts a journey in a country that represents for the Occident the oldest image of the Other? Is this then a case of double otherness? It is also the Other that sees itself in the Other, that identifies with the Other. It is again the Other that rejects its own image; it is the broken mirror, the oppressed being that oppresses in return.
In the 19 th Century, the Orient was a synonym for decadence and unrestrained sexuality, as mentioned above. It is not only the Orient, therefore, but, at the same time, woman who represents a discourse related to the sexual fantasies of men. Since the 16 th Century and from the time in which exploration first began, a tradition has been developing in which the image of foreign space is superimposed onto the female body. In this tradition, the traveler has a sexualized relation to space.
According to Ella Shohat: This process is one of the consequences of the colonial tradition. This observation raises the question concerning the way in which women travelers may have desexualized the traditional discourse on the Orient. I accept the principle that Oriental women were not necessarily their object of desire. We also have to ask ourselves whether the foreign country does not lend a certain kind of power to women travelers; because the woman who travels is convinced that she belongs to the dominant culture.
An homogenous model of power between the colonized and colonizers does not exist. Through the integration of women, a greater heterogeneity of texts resulted, because of gradual differences in relation to colonial involvedness see Mathieu In these travel stories, one finds both affirmations but also conflicts referring to colonialism, for the reason that women's access to power was rather indirect.
When a woman starts a journey to the Orient, the cultural discourse is extended around the gender discourse. Texts written by women reflect the problem of colonialism and Orientalism in a different way than texts written by men, because women are both colonizers and the colonized at the same time: When travelling across the colonized foreign country, they were able to cast off the limitations or restrictions of their role as women.
By travelling, the power position changed: When studying travel stories written by women in the 19 th Century, these texts can, as a rule, be read as a modification of the Oriental femme fatale as described by men. The travelling women's intent is particularly demonstrated through their images of Oriental women in the context of descriptions of the harem.
These completely 'desexualise' the Orient. It is a negative inversion of the erotically charged image of a foreign and exotic femininity. In this case, we encounter a transformation of male dreams into nightmares. The image of Oriental woman embodying the sensuality of the Orient is not just often disproven, it is ignored, sometimes declared false and negated. In order to verify this thesis, I have isolated some central parts of these texts.
In her book, Asie Mineure et Syrie. Souvenirs de Voyages she paints a picture of Oriental life:. I will perhaps destroy some illusions when speaking with so little respect of the harems.
femme touareg
We have read descriptions in A thousand and one nights and other Oriental stories; we have been told that these are places where beauty and love reside: But we are a long way away from reality! Imagine blackened and cracked walls, wooden ceilings partly split and covered with dust and cobwebs, sofas that are torn and greasy, doors hanging in fragments, traces of wax and oil everywhere. When I first entered these charming dens, I was choked; but the mistresses of the house are not aware of this. Their outward appearance is according. Cristina de Belgiojoso also speaks of "the dirty atmosphere of the harem" Belgiojoso Mirrors being very rare in this country, the women adorn themselves in frippery, and cannot imagine its bizarre effect.
They stick thick needles decorated with diamonds and small stones into printed cotton scarves which they wrap around their heads. Nothing is more unkempt than their hair, and only the very important ladies who once lived in the capital have combs. What concerns their multicolored make-up, of which they make immoderate use; they are only able to regulate its application by giving each other recommendations, and as the women living in the same house are also rivals, the one encourages the other to apply the most grotesque coloring.
They put vermilion on their lips, rouge on their cheeks, on their noses and on their foreheads and chins, and distribute white powder adventurously. As a finale, they put blue powder around their eyes and under their noses. To sum up, she declares making a Voyage to the Orient as a rather dangerous affair, of no value to a young woman. This is the reason why such travel is superfluous and the Orient should be forbidden as a place of residence for a decent woman:. I don't see how such travel, executed on camels in desert countries and among Arabs, could contribute to forming the heart and soul of these young women destined to live in another hemisphere, in the middle of a completely different society or civilization, nor help them to become obsequious girls, faithful wives or good mothers.
Female here means the female animal. Taken at the human level, this word devalues the persons to which it is assigned. In her book, A travers le monde: What a miserable and vulgar reality availed my eyes. What a blanket of icy water doused my white heated curiosity. Instead of gold and silk cloth [ I saw the slave, and not the slave garlanded with flowers. Hommaire de Hell Pitying the women of the harem, she concludes: Hommaire de Hell , 63 Impressions de voyage d'une Parisienne: This list of quotations could be continued as you like.
femme touareg : Print on paper - Mohamed Harireche
What has to be emphasized is that, instead of demonstrating solidarity with Oriental women, the woman traveler underlines the difference. Cultural differences are constructed as opposites, often to the detriment of the foreign women. The harem descriptions function to prove their cultural backwardness and anachronistic domestication.
By despising Oriental women, women travelers have contributed to the propagation of prejudices and stereotypes. Not only their colonial background, but also their own departure makes demonstrating solidarity with the foreign woman very difficult. This extreme reduction in status of the Oriental woman also indicates a defensive reaction from the side of the woman traveler.
In the Orient, European women encounter a form of life from which they have just managed to distance themselves with some effort: I conclude that women travelers of the 19 th Century are to be found in an extraordinary relationship of opposites: I would now like to pass on to women travelers of the 20 th Century, that is the traveler of the desert. Whereas the desert as a symbol represents a place of liberty, of solitude, of marginality, and a place free of conventions, the harem represented a foreign but yet familiar place at the same time.
This exile, chosen freely by women travelers, could be interpreted as a flight from the patriarchal norm. The desert is a place predestined for dreams of departure, and for new beginnings.
hawad-mahmoudan-66 Bibliografia
The desert becomes a place of refuge, of asylum and exile all at the same time. It is also a place of experiential extremes, a loss of orientation, which is typical for the modern individual. In other words, the subject of a mythical return to the roots, to a pre-civilization, is discovered here: The idea of civilization creates the idea of the desert as its negative projection, as its necessary contrast". At the end of the 20 th Century, the hunt for the last bastions of retreat of the pre-modern requires an ever larger degree of effort see Wolfzettel The vacuum of the desert particularly serves as a projection of the sufferings and desires of the soul.
The experience of the "end of the world" Paul Virilio is transformed into the conclusive travel experience here. According to the opinion of most women travelers, the women of the desert dispose of an extraordinary authority and a liberty greater than the women of the harem. In their eyes, nomadic women are approaching a hypothetical society which is known as matriarchy.
Having destroyed the image of the exotic Oriental woman, the woman traveler creates a new and contrasting image of the nomadic woman as the self-determining woman.
Is this a new ideal of female liberation? Do we transfer our dreams and utopias onto other societies? Madame Jean Pommerol, who spent two years with the women of the Sahara at the turn of the century, treats them all with condescension, except for the Tuareg women: The Tuareg woman enjoys great independence and influence. She goes out alone on a dromedary through the immensities of the desert. She is admitted to the councils, she benefits from the powers of her husband as the chief if she is widowed.