Last year, 17-year-old Malala Yousafzai became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her ongoing struggle for "the right of all children to education." To be clear, in 2012, the Pakistani activist was not shot by a Taliban gunman for being a child: She was shot for being a girl. It's taken Western feminism a long time to look beyond Eurocentric borders, but What Do the Women Say?: Poetry of Resistance, Prose of Resilience is a good time to start. The celebration includes selections, written as early as 1867, from Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing. Here, an Egyptian woman defiantly describes a young bride who pushes powdered glass into her vagina to draw blood as evidence of her virginity. A West African nurse writes firsthand, "A woman with no clitoris is like a mud wall, a piece of cardboard, without spark. ..." In addition to readings in English and Persian by local poets and authors, Syrian-American opera singer Saousan Jarjour is making her Bay Area debut.
What Do the Women Say? starts at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. $12-$15; (510) 849-2568 or goldenthread.org.
510-849-2568
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