In order for oppression and racism to occur, there must be an ôotherö created that is deemed necessarily inferior to the oppressor. As Windschuttle maintains, ôThe construction of identity in every age and every society involves established opposites and æothers.Æ This happens because the development and maintenance of every culture require the existence of another different and competing alter egoö (31). In the literature of El Saadawi, Head, and Abu-Khalid, we see that minority female authors often lend a ôvoiceö to their characters in order to provide a contrasting image and identity of their respective people than is generally perpetrated of them by dominant cultures. However, we see in each work that women are typically turned into the ôotherö in their own culture by men. Each of these minority female authors attempt to champion womenÆs rights for women in their respective cultures in a different manner. This analysis will discuss how each author champions womenÆs rights in El SaadawiÆs A Modern Love Letter, HeadÆs The Collector of Treasures, and Abu-KhalidÆs MotherÆs Inheritance.
In Nawal El SaadawiÆs A Modern Love Letter, the author fashions a love letter to her beloved. In so doing, she is making an effort to prove that women have understanding and intellect and are as dissatisfied with many of the unanswered questions about life as men. In this ôletterö, the author is attempting to champion womenÆs rights and empowerment by communicating with her beloved in a way that will permit him to know here more deeply. However, when she begins her letter, she admits she is not sure if such a goal is possible through words, ôThe attempt may come to nothing, for who is able to understand himself or the other?ö (El Saadawi 59).
Despite this implication by El Saadawi, that complete human understand of the self or the other is possible in light of human limitations, Saadawi attempts to share her inner m...