Mernissi Study Guide

As you read Mernissi's Dreams of Tresspass, focus upon the following points.

• Compare the mothers in the three books read so far.
• p. 19: Dreams and Stories
  
  • Tresspass, hudud
• p. 21: French harem
• pp. 22-23: Old city—Medina; French city—La ville nouvelle
  p. 23: The Ville nouvelle was like their harem; just like the women, they could not walk freely in the Medina
• It’s all about violating frontiers:
  
  • p. 7: Listening to Radio Cairo, another place, another movement  
  • p. 17: Hanan violated frontiers
  • p. 25: Yasmina had Hanan in contact with nature
• p. 25: “The farm was part of Allah’s original earth, which had no frontiers, just vast, open fields without borders or boundaries, and of that I should not be afraid."
• p. 9: Mother is rebellious, encourages Fatima to be rebellious
• p. 100: My daughter will never wear a veil
• p. 13 ff.: Meaning of Schehrezade—p. 13 ff.
• Mother a crypto-feminist, part of a wave of invisible feminism.
• p. 16: Comment on Schehrezade:  a woman’s lifetime work “to tell stories to please a king.”
• Must become skillful with words: weaker people have to live by their wits   
• p. 16: Where will the troubled women go?  Father: in justification of harem
• p. 17: Women excelled in storytelling: Aunt Habiba, also had hanan.
• p. 25: Lalla for women; sidi for men (p. 25)
• p. 26: Yasmina, “Are we Muslims or not?  If we are, everyone is equal.”
• p. 31: This woman does not respect hierarchies.  Read: DOES NOT RESPECT FRONTIERS
• p. 32: HOW DID WOMEN SUBVERT FRONTIERS?  ROLE OF STORIES: SHAJARAT AL-DURR
• p. 33: Naming of farm animals after bad men by Yasmina: the peacock after King Farouk
• pp. 34-35: NOTION OF FREEDOM AND SLAVERY: NATIONALISTS DISCUSSED POLYGAMY, SLAVERY, AND THE HAREM
  
  • P. 36: Your grandfather was a nice man: but he bought slaves
  • p. 36: NAMING THE DUCK LALLA THOR WAS YASMINA’S WAY OF PARTICIPATING IN THE CREATION OF THE BEAUTIFUL, NEW MOROCCO
• p.39: WHAT IS A HAREM: AN OPEN FARM OR A FORTRESS IN FEZ
• p. 40: Two Camps
• p. 43 ff: HOW CAPTURING WOMEN BECOMES NECESSARY TO SULTAN.
• pp. 45-46: CONTRADICTORY OPINIONS
• p. 49 ff.: Co-wife, Tamou
• p.55: NATURE IS WOMAN’S BEST FRIEND
• p. 60-61: Meaning of harem—FORBIDDEN AND SACRED
  
• p.62: QAIDA is about CONTROLLING SPACE
• p.64: Prescient prediction about Mernissi's future
• p.67: Pastilla
• p.75: No eating at fixed hours at Yasmina’s place
• p. 77: No individualism in the harem
• Father loved his wife
• p.78: The idea of the harem is part of the bigger discourse about nationalism and traditions
  p.78: “WE LIVE IN DIFFICULT TIMES ... OUR CULTURE IS THREATENED.  ALL WE HAVE LEFT IS THESE TRADITIONS.”
• P.81: Women entitled to 100 % happiness (according to Fatima’s mother)
• p.85: The semiotics of women’s dress
  p. 119: if women dress like men, it is more than chaos, it is fana, the end of the world
• p.91: Tradition and modernity existed harmoniously for men; the young men all wore Western attire
• p.94: SOCIAL COMMENTARY: The veil for the women equated with yellow clothes for the Jews during World War II
  She sees the larger picture; constantly going back and forth between larger historical events and the private occurences.
• p. 106: Asmahan
• p. 113: Storytelling and movies
  pp. 196, 205: Magic/Shour
• pp. 127-8: Powerful female figures - role models
  
  • pp. 130-1: HUDA SHA`RAWI
  • pp. 133-34, 137 ff.: PRINCESS BUDUR
  • p. 180: PRINCESS AISHA, P. 180
• p. 121: Qacem Amin, The Liberation of the Woman (1885)
• p. 166: Forbidden terrace; girls and boys looked at one another, etc.
• pp. 184-85: No separation of races in Morocco, like there is in America
  
• p/ 187: A woman who ches gum is, in fact, making a revolutionary gesture
  
• pp. 196-7: A world changing: Modern education for the girls
  pp. 200-1: Powerful statement on the value of education
• p. 203 ff., p. 205: "Dreams let you fly"
• pp. 214-5: Circumvention of time
• p. 207: Taqlid, Bid'a
  
• P. 242: The construction of difference