Nawal El-Saddawi criticized social system in the Arab culture and their history of discrimination against women in her fictional story “In Camera”. Nawal El-Saadawi used a third person view to write this fictional story, also she use an outsider perspective to looked at the problems women were facing in the 1900s, She mainly focused on government oppression, limitations of women and how women were treated unequally in traditional Arab society.
In the story “In Camera” by Nawal El-Saadawi, women often played an insignificant role in traditional Arab society and were treated unequally in the political world because of their biological sex. The quotation, “No animal could sit like the way she could, if it did, what would it do with its four legs?” (1108), highlights just one of the struggles that women are faced with—degradation. Nawal El-Saddawi shows the status of women in her culture by using irony to compare women to animals, perhaps even worse than animal in some cases. In addition, she illustrated the idea that women were not supposed to get involved in the corrupt judicial system, “If she had been a man, he would not be suffering now the way she was” (1113). Leila, the main character of the story was raped by 10 different men and was badly tortured just because she made a political remark about a government official by calling him “stupid.” Even Leila’s parent were brainwashed by the beliefs of their traditional Islamic culture and believed that, “Politics is a dirty game which only ineffectual men play” (1109) women like Leila should not be part of it.
The conversation between the rapist and Leila brought out one of the most important themes of the story. One of her rapists said, “This is the way we torture you women—by depriving you of the most valuable thing you possess” (1113), followed by Leila’s angry response, “You fool! The most valuable thing I possess is not between my legs, you’re all stupid. And the most stupid among you is the one who leads you” (1113). The dialogues between Leila and the rapist showed that the role of women in the Arab culture were insignificant and often undervalued. Women’s ability to contribute in politics has been overseen in the past; morally deformed Men only looked at women as sex objects, in order to violate their “honour and dignity” (1113). The only punishment they possessed was to use sexual violence against them. Yes, they might have physically destroyed Leila’s body, but they will never conquer Leila’s heart and her desire to break the voices masked by fear of the women within the Arab culture.