The novel A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum is the story of three generations of women from Palestine. The mother, Isra, is married off to a man named Adam who she barely knows, and leaves Palestine with him for his home in Brooklyn, where she lives with his mother Fareeda and his brothers and their wives. She has a daughter named Deya, and we get her part of the story, told in her own voice, about ten years after the death of her mother.
The lives of these Muslim women are truly awful – forced into domestic drudgery, unable to make any choices about their own lives or gain much education, they are expected to marry, bear children, and spend their lives looking after men who beat them. When Isra is beaten by her husband, her mother-in-law gives her foundation makeup to hide the bruises, calling them the woman’s shame as if it were all her fault she got beaten, and does nothing to stop her son from hitting his wife again. As I read, I longed to rescue them, throw away their hijabs, escort them to college, and show them that women can live differently to the appalling lives they endure. In many ways the characters were infuriating – I wanted them to do more to help themselves, but when you look at their childhoods and the way they have always been treated, you can see why it is so hard for them to stand up for themselves or take any dramatic action to change their claustrophobic lives.
The book ends in an unusual and controversial way, offering various options for the reader. For many it is a confusing conclusion, but it’s an ending you immediately long to discuss with anyone else who has read the book. I’d love to discuss it with you when you’ve read it. Please leave a comment.
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Ruth Wilson
I am not sure that sending these women to college is the answer, Susannah. There they will be seduced into activist groups the members of which totally misrepresent the plight in which such women find themselves. They will be encouraged to rally for a solution that would leave them at the mercy of a terrorist government that not only attempted to commit genocide against a neighbouring sovereign state but that also advocates the suppression and abuse of women and threatens the gay population with execution.
Susannah Fullerton
Yes, that’s probably true. As I read the book, I just felt so angry at the way these poor women were treated by their men and their society. They were brainwashed right from the start, and were so helpless to change anything. It was a memorable, but depressing book.