Unveiling Scheherazade: Feminist Orientalism in the International Alliance of Women, 1911-1950
Author(s)
Weber, Charlotte
Abstract
Feminists Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947) of the United States and Aletta Jacobs (1851-1929) of the Netherlands traveled to the Middle East in 1911-12 to attract support for the International Alliance of Women’s campaign for suffrage and other women’s rights. Catt’s reports, published in the alliance’s publication Ius Suffragii, showed some awareness that the differences she observed between Western and Middle Eastern cultures were not simply due to the difference between progress and tradition, but the assumption that Western women should guide women in less advanced societies into the modern world prevailed. The alliance supported Zionist women’s groups for their potential as modernizing agents, but this alienated Arab feminists. The agenda of the Arab Feminist Union that emerged from the 1944 Arab Feminist Congress included support for the Palestinians, leading to a split between Western and Arab feminists.
