Nawal Alzoghbi's Oppression Of Women

In an interview with Nawal Alzoghbi, a well known Lebanese singer, the interviewer asked if she has ever been hit by a male partner? Alzoghbi’s answer was; that this is not an appropriate question to ask a lady (Every Friday). Speaking out is not a virtue that women are encouraged to practice. In fact, often times women are suppressed to not express their feelings. In consequence, it can bruise those who tried to speak out and speak up as Audre Lorde once wrote (Lorde, 40). Therefore, women often times fear speaking out in order not to look weaker more than what they already are. Or else, the fear for their safety if they speak, because women should not fight back, hence and they are inherently weak. For women (in particular) speaking out is …show more content…
Neither the safety of her body, and well-being, as this silence will not overcome the fear, it will only become a tumor that will kill those who ignore it slowly. Of course, this is exactly what the women working in the kitchen realized, and had to do to go about their hard days. Therefore, they came together and share the stories of their hard days working for people who asked too much and gave too little. Without these afternoons filled with stories of pain, sweat and nostalgia for a beautiful yet very poor homeland would these women be able to stand America as they experienced it? Talking served these women a cheap therapy as Marshall described it (Marshall). It is their way of preserving their psyche. Women voicing out their own thoughts to help save who they are is not exclusive to domestic workers who traveled hundreds of miles away to find a new home. In her graphic novel Fun Home, Alison Bechdel’s darkest memories were in times when she was not able to write things down (Bechdel, 142). And it does not always need to be as personal as a story of a meager lunch or a neglecting parents.It Can be as big as a collective identity (Adichie). It is a tool that enables women to have a say in how they have the right to give their side of the story as women, as a minority and as the …show more content…
it is above all about visibility. By speaking out women reassure that they are there, even under layers of social stratification (Marshall). When Alison Bechdel realized that she would like to identify as a lesbian she felt the need to “share it immediately”, as if she has finally become visible (Bechdel, 58). Thus, Lorde’s daughter asked her mother to tell the world that she only became a “whole” when she broke the wall of silence (Lorde, 42).
Audre Lorde talked about her regrets of being silent, and question the seriousness of the consequences of speaking out in comparing to silence (Lorde, 41). If speaking out is painful, then silence would be a series of deaths in a one lifetime. Though, these women committed an individual act of speaking out, they all encouraged other women directly and indirectly other women to be part of a collective action of empowering each other, by sharing their side of the story. And that they are not alone in the