Abstract :

This paper discusses the struggle of Arab women, particularly the Egyptian women, against the class and patriarchal systems in their society. Through a detailed analysis to Nawal El Sadaawi's novel Woman at Point Zero (1983), the paper will discuss several practices of violence against women's bodies, whether the symbolic violence of repression or some specific traumas, especially the case of female genital mutilation. The study is based on the assumption that the Egyptian women are subjected to different types of oppression at different stages of their lives, starting from being a child. On the other hand, the paper will discuss woman’s struggle against men in their society in an attempt of rejection to their authority and bodily abuse. This study attempts to highlight several ways that these women, as represented by the main character, followed in order to eradicate this oppression, and therefore, to liberate themselves and to escape the masculine power, in addition to the ways they followed in the process of searching for their own independence and identity. The fight for women's emancipation is in the heart of feminism and this wave of feminism is prevalent across the world including the Third World.Thus, the study concludes that all women are able to liberate themselves once they realize the fact that they are dominated by their patriarchal society, and once they become able to find the way to liberate themselves.