Women’s Marginalization and Representations of the Patriarchal System in the Arabic Novel after 2010: “Intellectual Confiscation” as a Model – A Socio-Cultural Study

Abstract

This study examines the various references that contribute to the formation of women's image within the Arab societal context, and attempts to uncover the nature of the systems that have framed women's lives and imprinted them with a particular character, as well as the effects resulting from these cultural and social systems that have reflected upon women's relationship with themselves and with others, and contributed to the formation of their identity. This is achieved through interrogating Arabic narrative novels after 2010 CE, and explaining the critical vision concerning this type of practice. The researchers found that Arab narrative, stemming from its attention to the outcasts and marginalized, has adhered to a stereotypical image of women. This image is built upon the problematic issue of the deprivation of opinion, expression, and freedom of choice that the female self experiences within the imagined structure, which in turn serves as a clear and explicit reflection of reality. Through the narrative text and in an imagined manner, the study has proven that women represent a part of a social system that imposes upon them acceptance of and submission to the situation, and avoidance of any attempt to deviate from it. This is a classical vision that relied upon inherited references and has not undergone transformation or change. The study adopted the socio-cultural approach in its reading of the narrative novels and in tracing the intellectual perspectives related to women's issues.