Etaf Rum "A Woman is No Man": The Importance of Female Agency

Etaf Rum
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/cultural
-complications-a-q-and-a-with-etaf-rum
-on-a-woman-is-no-man/

Etaf Rum’s first novel portrays the experience of Arab women living in America across three generations, weaving threads of abuse, entrapment, and fear through each to transcribe a complete lineage. Fareeda begets Adam, who marries Isra who begets Deya. Despite most of the novel taking place in Brooklyn, the traditional perception and treatment of women by men in Arab culture pervades their lives. Without consideration, each woman is relegated to a purely domestic role, and any deviation, be it wrongly seasoning food or saying the wrong thing or failing to bear a son, incites verbal and physical abuse. 

From a purely literary perspective, the accumulation of abuse at the hands of men appropriately leads to only one conclusion, the ultimate resolution of that anger: killing. Her tragic destruction, the extensive damage wrought upon her body, is the embodiment of the cultural and social prison which has been imposed upon the women in her family. As such, her death is the most important metaphor in the novel. That being said, Isra’s death at Adam’s hand has relevance beyond literary progression. Her death forms an outcry, real and wounded, from the author. Isra’s death is an amalgam of the many small deaths Etaf Rum has experienced within her own culture’s treatment of women. The presence of arranged, unhappy marriages in the novel, and the abolishment of one such union with the killing of the wife by the husband draws similarity to Rum’s own arranged marriage and subsequent divorce. 

The Brooklyn Bridge at sunrise: Isra hoped to walk here with Adam
https://onemillionstops.com/sunrise-brooklyn-bridge/

This is not to say that the novel is without hope. We see glimmers in Sarah’s self liberation, and Deya’s determination to go to college, and Khaled’s tenderness towards both Isra and Deya. The ultimate act of independence though, comes not within the pages of the book but in the publication of the book itself. Rum’s unapologetic telling of her own experience through these characters she has created shatters the concepts of traditional gender roles in Arab culture. 

Rum gives herself agency; control over her own voice, as a woman, is empowering to herself and women everywhere who are victims of abuse. This empowerment can be isolating, as is Rum’s situation with regards to her family and members of her culture, but it is a critical voice in the spectrum of literary perspectives. When we embrace uncomfortable stories and their bearers, we acknowledge the humanity of others and gain a more complete understanding of the complexities that underlie human experience. Understanding is the root of empathy is the fabric in which weave harmonious, respectful relationships.