I was recently having a conversation at a bar with a very bold and quite impressive woman. She spoke to me about how she’s been facing issues at work which are stemmed from sexism and how she wishes for that utopia where gender bias won’t be a thing.
I was only very happy to talk to someone about feminism. I don’t have female colleagues and it can be exhausting to explain feminism to men, and then reassure them that we aren’t bent on taking away their rights.
And then. as the conversation progressed with a steady refilling of scotch, she said something that put me off. She said that feminism is an idea of the English-speaking world, that it was White Women who magically thought that we shouldn’t be oppressed anymore. I was outraged and excused myself from my beloved corner at the bar and went straight home.
In a drunken haze, I began reading Something Strange, Like Hunger by the late Malika Moustadraf, published by Saqi Books last month. From the first story itself, I felt a punch in my gut. something so strong and powerful in her words that made me want to cry and smile and cry again. I spent the entire night reading, finishing the book with a ravenous yearning for her words.
Malika Moustadraf is a cult feminist icon in contemporary Moroccan literature, celebrated for her uncompromising, troubling depiction of life on the margins and her stark interrogation of gender and sexuality in North Africa.
Moustadraf’s writing is in my opinion a perfect introduction to feminism for someone who only has seen popular culture’s take on it. Does it not cross our minds that a lot of popular culture is white-washed, and every other color of human existence is merely fetishized. Moustadraf speaks of problems that are central to how women are perceived, how we are either dismissed or put on a pedestal, how our worth seems to come from our vagina. The truth and Moustadraf expresses this perfectly throughout her collection, is that men might seem to benefit from this bias but at the end of the day sexism makes men pay a price too. It takes away their humanity, stifles their emotions and urges, and turns them into something deplorable, even to themselves.
Her writing is visceral, it feels so earthy, hitting home and it reminds us that we are united through our problems, through the vigor that each one of us has to live and above everything, the fact that we are too occupied by seemingly trivial ideas of what a woman ought to be that we inhibit and choke our growth.
So I would argue that what we call “the marginalized” are people, human beings that deserve dignity and attention from the learned world. Moustadraf’s life’s work is reflected in how keenly she has studied the conditions, and obstacles that thwart the progress of women in Morocco.
My wish, if I am allowed one, is to read more translated literature so that in our search for feminine oneness, we do not leave our sisters behind. What is feminism without inclusivity, and what is your bookshelf if doesn’t have a bit of Morocco in it?
Kudos to Alice Guthrie for the brilliant translation and thank you Saqi books for giving me the opportunity to read this legend. I am indebted.