Chapter One: Between Man and Natural Man
In the first chapter, Dr. Abdel Wahab El-Messiri conducts a critical analysis of Western concepts, particularly "feminism," which he views as part of a new rights system that emerged in the West during the postmodern era. El-Messiri begins by pointing out the lack of critical analysis within Arab and Islamic studies regarding Western concepts, noting that these ideas are often adopted without questioning their roots and foundational principles.
El-Messiri discusses the Western perspective, which revolves around "immanent materialistic monism," in which the universe, including humans and nature, is considered self-sufficient, with its reference point being internal and not transcending nature or matter. He presents the development of this model in stages, where humans attempt to transcend matter through willpower. Ultimately, humans and matter become part of a constant process of transformation and becoming.
Stages of the Monistic Model
1. Humanistic Monism: Humanity begins to perceive itself as the center of the universe, deriving its values solely from itself. Here, humans are centralized as the focal point of existence.
2. Imperialist Monism: This perspective evolves into a self-centered individualism, prioritizing the self over community and others, generating a sense of greatness and supremacy that leads to imperialist and racist tendencies.
3. Dualism of Man and Nature: Humans become separated from nature through absolute subjectivity, but simultaneously recognize nature as self-sufficient, leading to a rigid dichotomy between humanity and nature.
4. Solid Monism: The dichotomy between humans and nature dissolves, and the human element gradually fades in favor of nature, with humans becoming merely a part of nature.
5. Fluid Monism: The boundaries between humanity and nature vanish completely, with a dominance of becoming and a reality where everything is relative and ever-changing.
Chapter Two: Equality and Equivalence
El-Messiri discusses the philosophical differences between old and new liberation movements within the context of monism and its developments. He points out that the former were based on humanistic monism, which viewed humans as beings distinct from nature, superior to it, and central within the cosmos, capable of self-transcendence and self-reformation. From this viewpoint, these movements demanded human equality on the basis of "human centrality in the universe."
In contrast, the new liberation movements abandon these philosophical foundations, adopting imperialist monism and solid monism. This approach leads to conflicts between humans and nature and among individuals, rejecting the concept of shared humanity. Instead, it advocates experimentation without fixed standards. El-Messiri points out that these movements embrace fluidity, where multiple centers emerge, certainty dissipates, and human references are lost.
The author explains that one of the consequences of these intellectual transformations is the view that humanity is merely a natural being, indistinguishable from animals or plants. This outlook is reflected in issues such as homosexuality and animal rights advocacy, where human rights become a narrow concept, focusing solely on fulfilling an individual’s basic and abstract needs, removed from collective human values.
El-Messiri highlights the rise of naturalistic tendencies, like the worship of nature and satanic cults. He attributes this to the dominance of rigid and fluid material monism in the modern age, which advocates dissolving humanity into nature and stripping it of its sacred qualities. The author notes that contemporary minority rights have become a tool to attack the concept of shared humanity, where individuals are treated as isolated units, disconnected from community or culture, ultimately leading to societal fragmentation and the dissolution of the majority concept, fostering moral and epistemological chaos.
Finally, El-Messiri criticizes what he describes as absolute rights, viewing them as an impediment to the social contract, which relies on shared humanity. He provides the example of Palestine, where the Zionist movement brought with it absolute Jewish rights, disregarding shared humanity and leading to the displacement of Palestinians from their land.
Chapter Three: The Epistemological Context of Women's Liberation and Female-Centricity Movements
In this chapter, El-Messiri explains how feminism evolved from a movement defending women's rights to a female-centric movement with fundamental differences from traditional women's liberation concepts. Initially, the women’s liberation movement called for fairness for women within a human and social framework, acknowledging women’s role as mothers and active members of the family and community, aligning with humanistic visions that go beyond natural conflicts and emphasize social cooperation.
However, with the evolution of Western modernity, movements like feminism shifted from this humanistic framework, gravitating toward absolute individualism influenced by capitalist and bourgeois social contract concepts. El-Messiri notes that feminism reflects a deeper societal shift within Western societies, where material rationalization has led to recognition only of paid work, marginalizing household roles like motherhood, which are considered unpaid and relegated to the "private sphere," and thus deemed "worthless" from an economic standpoint.
El-Messiri continues his critique, highlighting how the focus on material values undermined the family as a central human institution. Consequently, women are compelled to enter the workforce to meet economic needs, drawing them away from traditional roles in child-rearing and family care.
He argues that feminism is not merely a movement defending women’s rights but is reflective of a broader transformation, where humanity is reduced to a natural/material entity equated with other material things, depriving humanity of its unique characteristics. Society thus transforms into a competitive entity where male-female relations are reduced to a rivalry between poles, ultimately dissolving fixed gender distinctions into an indistinct state devoid of stable values.
Chapter Four: Imperialist Monism, Dualism, Solid Monism, and Female-Centricity
This chapter discusses one of the core concepts of "female-centric" or "radical feminism," which emphasizes the differences between men and women and promotes an individualistic view that disregards human commonalities. Radical feminism is based on a binary and existential conflict between the sexes.
The chapter begins by explaining that female-centric thought revolves around a conflict between men and women, where the movement encourages women to focus on themselves and pursue self-realization independently, disregarding family structures and traditional gender relations. Thus, the role of women as mothers becomes unnecessary, and the family is seen as a burden.
The author then discusses the view within the female-centric movement that human history is a struggle, with some proponents claiming that alleged matriarchal societies were once controlled by women and characterized by soft, peaceful symbols. However, with male dominance, so-called "patriarchal societies" emerged, reshaping society within a conflictual framework. The movement links the concept of masculine history to male symbolism, including language, viewing words, terms, and even cultural symbols as male and representative of male oppression.
The chapter also addresses how some proponents of female-centric thought aim to rewrite history from a feminist perspective, referring to it as "herstory" instead of "history." They advocate for rephrasing language and reconstructing cultural symbols to reflect what they perceive as a purely feminine perspective, reinterpreting words with masculine roots.
This radical ideology, according to El-Messiri, leads to distortion and extremism, emphasizing that the materialistic, separatist view of men and women eliminates opportunities for dialogue and encourages "hard female monism," where lesbianism is seen as the ultimate expression of achieving complete separation.
Chapter Five: Fluid Monism and the Dissolution of Femininity
In the fifth chapter, El-Messiri discusses the concept of female-centricity as part of a materialistic trend that reduces women from human beings to natural, material entities focused on self. He argues that this transformation has created a world devoid of centrality and distinct identity, leading to a unisex society that erases gender distinctions.
El-Messiri describes this transformation as producing two new female models:
- Superwoman: An extreme woman who opposes and competes with men.
- Subwoman: A woman who completely assimilates with men, losing her distinct feminine identity.
He notes that both the "superwoman" and the "subwoman" deviate from the traditional model of women as mothers, wives, sisters, and active members of the inclusive human community, resulting in the dissolution of the family role and the weakening of shared human bonds.
Chapter Six: Female-Centricity and the New World Order
Women’s Liberation Movement
El-Messiri notes that proponents of the women's liberation movement recognize biological, psychological, and social differences between men and women and believe that these differences necessitate a natural distribution of roles and division of labor. Therefore, the movement seeks to prevent these differences from becoming social and human injustices.
Female-Centricity Movement
However, leaders of the female-centric movement reject the concept of shared humanity and deny the existence of natural gender differences. This movement adopts a deconstructive view that denies the distinctions between genders and calls for total equality, erasing biological, social, and even psychological differences.
Chapter Seven: Female-Centricity and Zionism
In this chapter, El-Messiri draws a comparison between female-centricity and Zionism, highlighting their similarities in thought and behavior, as well as the role each movement plays in achieving societal disintegration goals, particularly regarding family disintegration and national identity destruction.
Similarities between Female-Centricity and Zionism
El-Messiri notes that both movements deny shared humanity. Zionism divides humans into "Jews" and "Gentiles" (non-Jews), viewing an unbridgeable gap between the two, with each group having unique rights and feelings that the other cannot understand or empathize with.
Similarly, the female-centric movement divides the world into "women" and "men," emphasizing the sharp divide that separates them and viewing men as historical opponents of women, deepening conflict instead of working towards understanding or justice.
Deconstruction as a Colonial Tool
El-Messiri links deconstructionist thinking to colonial objectives, explaining that the Western world, having failed to achieve military dominance over third-world populations, turned to deconstruction as a more cost-effective and efficient strategy. The West recognized the importance of societal cohesion, anchored by the family unit as a foundation that preserves national values and identities, and thus began targeting it, especially the role of women within the family as its fundamental building block.
El-Messiri argues that this deconstructionist project ultimately serves globalization, which seeks to transform the world into a homogenous global market where people and goods move without cultural or value-based restrictions. In this way, the world becomes an open field devoid of national identities, making it easier for the new global system to exert control over these populations and subject them to the rules of the material market.
Chapter Eight: Searching for an Alternative
Abdel Wahab El-Messiri presents a profound critical perspective on the issue of "women's liberation," approaching it from a viewpoint that transcends the prevailing consumerist paradigm. He proposes a re-evaluation of the concepts of family and the role of women, distancing from Western molds that tend to dismantle the family structure and reduce women to a productive unit in the public labor market, which contributes to their alienation from their roles as mothers and wives and accelerates the deterioration of family values and social bonds.
He critiques the Western concept of individual rights, arguing for the primacy of human society as the foundational unit, rather than focusing solely on the individualistic demands that emphasize a woman’s rights as an independent entity. Building on this thought, he proposes a concept of "family rights" as an integrated unit, whereby rights are distributed in a way that respects mutual human connections and relationships. This approach positions motherhood as a dignified and fundamental human role, ensuring the child's development and transformation into a social being.
Conclusion
Dr. Abdel Wahab El-Messiri concludes that adopting the materialistic monistic perspective on men-women relationships ultimately harms the concept of shared humanity. He advocates for a balanced approach that respects the unique nature of both genders while fostering mutual understanding and unity.
