Comparing Lane And Al-Tahtawi

On close reading of both Lane and al-Tahtawi it is revealed how very opinionated they are when it comes to describing women. The knowledge or assumptions that they make about women are not from direct interactions with women or their voice. Lane speaks of women from a received perspective, and Tahtawi makes judgment about women from what he sees. The way they speak about women reflects the larger picture of patriarchal society, their audience. These descriptions create a stereotype, which in effect constructs ideas about a group of people that may not reflect the truth. Moreover, these descriptions of the women also provide an insight into their own biases In an Imam in Paris, Rifat al-Tahtawi travels to France from Egypt. He is writing an academic Rihla. His writing style is different than other Rihla’s covered in the course. One of the style he uses throughout the piece is by stating something and then supporting the idea with a poem or writing an auto-ethnography. When he speaks
hen goes on to describe women as “savages” “treated like furniture in the East” and “ treated like spoiled children in the West.” One of the first things that come to mind about these descriptions is
These stereotypes also show the biases within al-Tahtawi. From the way he supports his points with poems we learn that he believes that the right way to treat women is to be disobedient to them and think of the worse about them. His articulations of the arguments are primarily based on how the acts of women affect men and not the other way. In addition, he only states the impact of women actions to men and not the other way. He is speaking on behalf of women because he does not believe that he needs to include their voice in the text, which comes from the time-period and the society he lived