What Are The Stereotypes Of Being An Arab Woman

Mona Fayad, the author of “The Arab Woman and I” explores how being a member of a widely criticized and stereotyped community affects her everyday life and perception of herself. The stereotypes about Arab woman manifests itself into “The Arab Woman” and constantly follows and terrorizes Mona.

Living as a person who identifies with a group of people so highly stereotyped can make it hard for a person to see themselves outside of these stereotypes. Mona identifies as an Arab woman in the sense that she is a woman from an Arabic region. However, she is constantly haunted by the Arabic woman stereotypes that surround her and reflect the way most of the world views her in the form of the Arab Woman. Therefore, she is experiencing double consciousness, by viewing herself through the eyes of others, blurring her vision of how she knows herself. Mona writes, “As I try to assert my experience of being an Arab woman, the Arab Woman tries to make me write about her”, which illustrates the constant struggle to identify herself apart for how society sees her. (Fayad 94)

When everyone expects you to be a certain way, and it turns out you are nothing like their preconceived ideas and are actually quite similar to them, you lose your uniqueness. Mona struggles with this, as I am sure many Arab women do as well. She is torn because she wants to assert herself as an individual who doesn’t fit the stereotype, but also knows it is easier to follow along. She even writes that the inner Arab Woman in her wants “... facts, figures, ways of classifying women so they can be clearly placed in boxes” showing that human nature makes us want to categorize people, and she is also a victim to applying these stereotypes not only to herself, but to