ABSTRACT
Of all the women writers in the Middle East, Nawal el Saadawi is rightly awarded the title of pioneer. Her personal journey is as remarkable as her professional career in overcoming insurmountable obstacles. El Saadawi considered herself a feminist from childhood although her first career was as a medical practitioner in Egypt. Neo-colonialism is taken to task by deconstructing the oppression of women regarding inheritance, land ownership, parenthood, and patriarchal family structures. Additionally, she lays bare the facts of the political, social, economic, sexual, historical and cultural structures that are women's reality in the Middle East. In Cultural Identity and Social Liberation in Latin American Thought Schutte covers Jose Carlos Mar- iategui's Indo-Hispanic socialism, the identity debates from Samuel Ramos to Augusto Salazar Bondy, and both the theology and the philosophy of liberation. The feminist critique of science comprises a large and varied scholarship involving theorists from a range of disciplines.
