Resistance against Women’s Oppression to Achieve Equal Recognition with Men in Nawal El Saadawi’s Memoirs of a Woman Doctor

Abstract

This article deals with Nawal El Saadawi’s strategies of resistance to achieve altered representation whereby woman attains potent agency of resistance through dismantled gender hierarchy in Memoirs of a Woman Doctor. The paper examines El Saadawi’s presentation of resistance through which she suggests a peaceful coexistence where partners view each other as equals. Feminist theoretical perspective is employed to examine the meaning and condition of resistance. Women have been subjected to complex systems of oppression and exclusion in many African cultures. However, one hardly finds a system of gender oppression and exclusion in which women have not participated. The most important step in the resistance against gender-based oppression is creating understanding on how the system of oppression works and the link between the structures and processes of oppression. The narrative is relayed in the first-person point of view unfolding the evolving character who eventually accepts living with a partner. The article argues that El Saadawi’s version of resistance is intended to bring about representation of harmonious coexistence of both sexes in which woman is guaranteed due recognition, love and equality.