Woman At Point Zero: My response

While “Woman at Point Zero” by Nawal El Saadawi is most commonly associated with the Islam community’s harsh unequal treatment of its women, the story extends far beyond the boundaries of Islamic culture. This book of testimony brings us into the stream of consciousness of two minds: Nawal El Saadawi’s and Firdaus’s. “Woman at Point Zero”, to a great extent is a courageous and revolutionary act of writing because the novel itself serves as a weapon against the misogynistic society in which both men and women share responsibility and blame, even as the women’s maltreatment is conveniently justified by their religious views.

The main character, Firdaus was born into a peasant family in the Egyptian countryside. The countryside setting serves as an allusion to conventional beliefs in an Arab Islamic society in which women are largely oppressed. The physical and cultural setting is a force in itself that controls and affects people. Firdaus is denied an education, kept subservient to the men in her family, punished for questioning traditional customs, and abused by men; this is deemed normal in her society. However, the men’s control of the social community that Firdaus and Saadawi live in is the historical product of actions or lack thereof, of both the women and men�"men write the rules and the women resign themselves.

As a child, Firdaus was vulnerable. She moved under the weight of the men’s wishes �"sexually abused by her father, molested by her uncle, ostracized by her mother when daring to question her birth without a father who as a child Firdaus imagined would be the ideal, loving man. She was taught to hang her head low. Therefore it allowed the men to take authority of her life and, being accustomed to this system, she felt she had only one choice: to acquiesce to it. The men look down at Firdaus, because men can sense fear and the women’s obvious docility enlarges the men’s power and control, eventually creating a relationship in which the man takes full advantage of a woman.

Escaping the exploitation of her merciless husband, whom she was sold to by her uncle and a man, Bayoumi, who deceived her, Firdaus discovers that she does not have to live in a cage. She meets Sharifa, a strong woman who claims, “the higher you price yourself the more he [the man] will realize what you are really worth”. Sharifa dresses Firdaus in luxuries that satisfied her sensuality, surrounded by “roast chicken and rice”, “soft, silk” and “fragrance”. However, even at this point, Firdaus is under the control of Sharifa, working under Sharifa as a prostitute, asking her questions, but not challenging her answers; Firdaus becomes dependent on Sharifa. Sharifa is not a man, yet Firdaus under Sharifa’s influence still feels restricted from the “pleasure” of what Firdaus does not know is love. Sharifa is a woman “with a movement full of pride” and is convinced she is a prominent figured, believing that “everyone knows [her]”. The common characteristic between the men and Sharifa, both of whom control Firdaus’s life, is high-self esteem; Firdaus is the opposite of this. The men and Sharifa can sense her defenseless self, and thus manipulate her.

In a way, the women of Firdaus’s society are all prostitutes. It does not matter if the woman is single, a mother, an office assistant, a teacher; each one is selling her self to the men of society. Upon realizing the importance of valuing her self, Firdaus made sure that nobody succeeds in “breaking [her] pride” and such that, “not a single high-ranking official had been able to make me bow, or lower her eyes to the ground”. She had changed the men around her, as a prostitute and as an office assistant, and the ultimate reason as to why it did not matter who she was is precisely as Sharifa had said, “the higher you price yourself the more [the man] will realize what you are really worth.”

After she killed a man who had tried to take control of her during the peak of her journey to achieve independence, Firdaus discovered that her value is greater than any other man or any other woman that serves as a “prostitute”; her revolution against her society, even as she became a prisoner in a grimy Cairo prison cell, made her, to El Saadawi, a sacred figure of society, living at the precipitous edge of her society, she explored the rare satisfaction of self-liberation and empowerment in such a society.

Saadawi brings Firdaus’s story to life, even after execution, making Firdaus’ story a platform not only of women’s empowerment, but also the struggle for self-worth. Each character is a portrayal of an aspect of society. Her journey through her encounters show the putrid hearts of misogyny. Though, in her society, rising from “point zero” leads to certain death, Firdaus’s example points out that women have nothing to lose because in this society they were born with nothing but their physical bodies and their limited lives in the first place. Her story has become Nawal El Sadaawi’s call to other women to take authority over their lives; the participation of women in the revolutions of “Arab Spring” evidences that the stirrings of voices of independence is also rising among Arab women. Firdaus’s story has opened the eyes of the international community to the realities of Muslim women in the Arab world. The power of writing on Sadaawi’s part, the sharing of story on Firdaus’ part, keep passing the message of self-emancipation on, and as people start fleeing from their enslaved lives, within moments, Firdaus �"alive and dead�"serves as an instrument to metamorphose and transform society.