Feminist Discourse: Power, Sexuality and Gender in Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi

Feminism highlights women’s contact with patriarchy, the long tradition of male rule in the society which muzzled women’s voices, distorted their lives and treated their concerns as peripheral. This article examines Feminist Discourse: Power, Sexuality and Gender in Nawal El Saadawi Woman at Point Zero, through the perspective of Main stream Feminism and snail sense Feminism. Through qualitative methodology, the paper observed that power belongs to patriarchy, since the world has been male-dominated and governed for most part by the male. El Sadaawi reimaged Firdaus is a successful prostitute, therefore, becomes economically and socially relevant and validated what it means to be a woman. She reclaimed her body and shows her superiority by choosing who went into her bed, to the extent that she would not accept Heads of State sent to her by the government. She committed male-crimes by killing Marzouk and slapping an Arab Prince, and she felt it was beneath her to appeal to the government to commute her death sentence by hanging to life imprisonment. Firdaus could not be stereotyped as she faced death with the power of a lion. Therefore, she wrenched the power to name her from patriarchy, and redeemed her sexuality: reversed the fear and the dread of her gender on patriarchy.

Keywords: Male-Dominated Inferior Powerless Patriarchy Stereotyped

Author

• Ima Usen Emmanuel
  Department of English
  University of Uyo, Uyo.
  imaimman@yahoo.com