Its sometimes very hard for me to read a non-fiction novel and be objective. Often non-fiction novels bore me, even ones about cultures or time periods I like, because I don't like mixing reality with my fiction. For some reason however Scheherazade Goes West as well as several other of Mernissi's books have always been of interest to me, though this will be the first I've read.

Mernissi's accounting of what it was like to grow up in a 'harem' environment are powerful. The book itself doesn't progress in a consecutive time frame, often Mernissi will relate something that happened to her since being an adult and then tie that in with stories of her childhood. For instance she mentions talking with reporters and other media types from the English-speaking world and how when she said the word 'harem' different countries held different expressions. Some had a curious and almost leering look in their eyes--imagining the Sultans with the barely clad women at their feet no doubt. Others had looks of disgust in their eyes. Regardless she never felt they understood exactly what it meant.

The book itself is about just that however--its her observations from various book tours and trips of her own that made about how each different country viewed harems. She is careful to explain that she understands that foreign media portrays the 'harem life' as something exotic and erotic, but also explains how the life is a hard and brutal one at times. Using the famous storyteller Scheherazade Mernissi explores how the harem life she grew up in and was an integral part of her culture and religion, was more about the female power and ingenuity then about erotic arts.

The book can be dry at times, but Mernissi's remarks about foreign journalists and friends reactions to her stories are priceless and full of wit. This isn't a book that is meant to be the bible on East meets West cultural clashes--this is almost a traveling journal about her observations. She doesn't claim to have all the answers, but Mernissi offers an academic and entertaining book about perceptions and viewpoints. ( )

Fatema begins her book by narrating the story of
The Lady with the Feather Dress mentioned in the The Arabian Nights .she tells it from her grandmother's perspective who changed the end, that instead of living happily ever after , that lady left her husband and went back to her island home , as she was deprived from her wings,the main message is that a woman should lead her life ,. She should be ready to move, the tale teaches, that love can engulf and imprison you …
She is impressed by the wisdom of her grandmother,who has always encouraged her to leave her country,and try to learn from other cultures,she uses her Sufi heritage to help her be patient and open to learn……

With the knowledge of other cultures we can compare ourselves to others, and came to gain better understanding of ourselves….
she was referring also to the storytelling which was away to escape censorship on written works ....
And that oral heritage has been a record for a lot of traditions that has a very powerful effect......
She thinks that men are irresistibly attracted to independent women and fall deeply in love with them, but are always terrified of being abandoned......
And that is why men used to imprison women.....
As they recognize their uncontrollable force.....
She then move to another point which is Western representations of Scheherazade in ballet, Hollywood movies and paintings ....

Which was completely different from the eastern point of view
As she was seen as intelligent an smart woman who has succeeded in saving many women from death.......
Her ability to penetrate Shahriyar's brain by using the power of her stories.......
She was using her wisdom to get control over him.....
And get him repent killing all those brides......
She sees her as woman of a particular political role who was rescuing her own life for stopping all this killing......
She didn’t see her as an oppressed sexual object......
As if she was so ,she would have been killed at her first night, like the others........
She was having the role of a psychiatrist who was trying to heal his patient's wounds.....
She was trying to say by her stories that you are not the only man who has been betrayed......


in Fatema's journey of searching,Jack her friend, was guiding her and advised her to read Kant's books,she was shocked to know that he sees that the knowledge decrease women charm and attractiveness,he thinks that a learned woman "might as well even have a beard. "
also the same idea was mentioned in some of Molière plays.....
she accompanied Jack on a walking tour of his favorite odalisques, from Ingres to Matisse, she wanted to know why Ingres was portraying them so nude and powerless although they actually dressed like men ,and was very powerful and have a great authority and control over men,and that that place was a scene of many conspiracies…and a dangerous site for struggle.......
she said that one of the European Travelers was amazed when he sneaks a peek over on of the Turkish harem and saw that they were dressed like men......
here she focuses on how art can signify a culture,and result in a Social stigma .......

She also differentiate between different Islamic cultures,saying that Turkish women were having control over their men, and gave examples of famous powerful women in different cultures,like Empress of the Mughal Empire , Nur Jahan who was the best tiger haunter......

She ended her book with a story she told about herself,in a trip to a designer's shop in New York,she didn’t find her size in the store,she thinks that western women are pressured to be at size 6 , which limits value and visibility of women to an image of a certain kind of 14-year-old girl,she sees this as a new oppression and enslavement and the western harem,this situation makes her lose her self confidence,but she comforted her self by remembering how she was praised in her country for having those heavy hips......

I wanna tell u Ms. Rantisi that this is not existing any more,eastern men are now obsessed with skinny blonde girls....
u are talking about something from the past!!!
( )

n Scherazade goes West, Fatema Mernissi, a Moroccan women, sets out to explore the differences between “Eastern” and “Western” men’s views of the harems and promoting the superiority of “Eastern” views of sexuality and gender.

Instead of stating positions and offering evidences for them, Mernissi takes us along on her exploration into “Western” men’s views of harems. She describes the European and American paintings and books she explored and the two, atypical “Western” men and one woman that she interviewed. Not surprisingly, she identifies how harem women are portrayed as passive and inarticulate, waiting for men’s attention. Such images led her to see “Western” gender relations in those terms. On the basis of not being able to find a skirt in her size in a New York City store, she determines that “Western” men control women by defining women as obedient, brainless children. Interesting insights with some validity for some men, but hardly enough to define a whole culture’s views of gender and sexuality.

Read more on my blog: me, you and books
http://mdbrady.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/scherezada-goes-west-by-fatema-mernissi/

If Mernissi is, as her publisher claims, the greatest living Moslem sociologist, there can not be much competition. She recounts going to a store in New York where the clerk told her that size 4 and 6 are the only normal sizes. Acute observor that she is, she fails to notice that the average American woman, such as the ones presumably walking down the sidewalk with her, is size 12 or 14. As a 3X, I am apparently considerably larger than Mernissi, and I can attest that while it was easier to shop when I was a size nine, I don't have any real trouble finding clothes. Since Mernissi tells us that she was teased as a young woman for being too thin, it's hard to buy her claim that the issue of physical beauty is a burden peculiar to American or Western women.

This is only the worst of her naive gaffs. She complains that Diaghlev's ballet reduces Scheherezade to a dancer; I dare say that if she had watched closely, she would have noticed that all the other characters were dancing also. She complains that a painting focuses on Scheherezade's looks rather than her intelligence. Well, it IS a painting, and the one on the cover of the book shows her telling her stories, so what's her point? She complains about Western paintings of odalisques, and then tells us that one of the common themes among Moslem painters is a certain heroine bathing in the wilderness. Not so different, then? It might have helped if she had talked to any women other than her French editor and the salesclerk, but she spends vastly more time with men. This isn't impressive for an intelligent adult, let alone a professional scholar and sociologist.

One can understand a certain dismay on Mernissi's part. She tells us that she was interviewed by a number of male reporters, none of whom had read "Dreams of Trespass." (If they had read her book, they would have known what a harem is.) Mernissi, guided by her editor Christiane and friends, embarks on a tendentious search for Western harems; she wanted harems, and by golly they found them for her. Reading, or not reading, Kant, Naomi Wolfe, Edgar Allen Poe, Mernissi is confident that she has grasped the whole of western thought.

The only reason that I gave this book two stars is that I did finish it and it had lots of interesting little tidbits about some Moslem cultures. Fascinating though Haroun al-Rashid was, I am skeptical that the lives of his harem slaves had much to say about the life of the typical Moslem woman even of his own day, let alone the far-flung and diverse cultures of Islam today. I was also appalled at Mernissi's brutal indifference to these slave girls. She describes most woman as feeling imprisoned and resentful of the harem, but makes Haroun's harem sound glamorous and fulfilling. One can just imagine little girls all over Africa, Asia and Europe praying that their villages would be sacked, their male kith and kin slaughtered, and that they would endure the horrors of the slave coffle for the chance to join it. She never considers how if might feel to be the discarded favorite, or the woman who was never a favorite.

According to Mernissi, Moslem men fear women, imprison them, but fantasize about active assertive women. Western men don't fear woman, give them much more freedom, but fantasize about passive women. She sometimes seems to be saying that Moslem women are therefore better off, but I'm not convinced. It seems to me that there is a pattern of wanting what one doesn't have, common not only to men but to people in general.

Not much insight about Western women, and I am very skeptical of her insights about Moslem women. Only for readers wanting to read exhaustively about woman and Islam. ( )