She is Remarkable: Inspiring Stories from Around the World
By MENA Speakers
MENA Speakers, Dubai
ISBN: 978-9948801948
155pp.

Frail and fragile women are what fiction is made of, but fluffy kinds of romance do not exist in reality. In this complicated world of ours, instead of freeing the damsel in distress, the egotist male adds to her burden. And yet the Bard of Avon dared to write, “Frailty, thy name is woman.” Ugh!

Courageous, strong women are not a modern breed. Women of substance, who stand out as beacons, litter history generously. In fact, there are too many to mention in this limited space. Yet the notion that they are the ‘weaker’ sex seems to be part of some gospel, because every new era appears startled by women’s achievements and courageous deeds, as if it were the very first time they had occurred.

Honestly, though, it’s the women themselves who are to blame for this general notion of being under par to men. Undermining their own strength and achievements is like second nature to the female species, because how else will the men feel good about themselves?

She is Remarkable: Inspiring Stories from Around the World is an anthology of 29 stories by a diverse group of women who share tales of courage and achievement in the face of a variety of trials, ranging from the complicated struggles of balancing a family, to breaking social barriers and turning big dreams into reality.

An anthology of life stories about diverse women may be inspirational to some expatriates living in Dubai but might find little resonance with women in Third World countries who often struggle against greater odds

To be honest, the stories are not extraordinary per se. They are simple narratives of people who did not crumble when faced with adversities. The writers share how they pursued a challenging career while being a mother, created an independent life after a messy divorce, broke societal and family norms to establish an identity as a strong woman, and overcame debilitating health issues.

However, when reading how these storytellers overcame the hurdles that littered their respective paths, emerged as triumphant individuals and were recognised by the same society which tends to stigmatise women in every which way, my first reaction was, “So what?”

As women born and bred in the South Asian culture, we are so entrenched in the concept of bearing pain, doing our duty, facing stigma and so on, that facing and overcoming such hurdles is a psychic development to which we don’t give any credence.

Our mothers went through menopause and even bore the gut-wrenching pain of endometriosis during menstrual cycles, often without ever letting their husbands know what they were dealing with. They stood up despite the pain and discomfort and cooked and cleaned and brought up their kids and got absolutely no support or pat on the back for doing it. And that is how generations were conditioned: ‘yours is just to do and die!’

So at first, the chronicles of a set of privileged women residing in Dubai sounded somewhat hollow to a Pakistani woman, who has seen many women dealing with such matters as routine business and moving on.

But this was my self-deprecating conditioning instinctively kicking in. Yes, women have it tough everywhere, but there’s no shame in acknowledging what they surmount.

Two stories in the anthology stand out in particular. The first, ‘Call to Bravery’, is by a woman of colour, born in Apartheid South Africa, who identifies as neither white nor black. Juanita Coetzee’s mixed lineage confined her to the lowest rung of the social ladder even in post-Apartheid Africa.

Her determination as an adult to climb out of that racial system and educate herself to a master’s level, to get out of poverty and discrimination for the sake of her four small girls, is truly an inspiring tale. She writes: “I chose to take back my power and control over my life, my body and my mind, with education.”

Asma Jan Muhammad’s essay ‘Change the Legacy for the Better’ is the second outstanding tale, a tribute to her unlettered mother, Nisa.

Born in a village in Gujarat, India, and married off at the age of 16 to a man twice her age soon after her family migrated to Karachi after Partition, Nisa knew no life — either before or after marriage — except the drudgery of serving her household. The homage from her daughter is well-deserved, as Muhammad tells us how the one stand Nisa took in her life changed a generational curse.

Insisting that all her four daughters be educated, Nisa instilled the spirit for independence in the young girls. Educated in government schools and getting through college with extra income from home tuitions, the daughters held on to their mother’s teaching of altering their legacy through education.

The two elder daughters became teachers, the third became a doctor and the youngest — Muhammad — became a chartered accountant/ financial specialist, qualified from Pakistan, England and Wales. Her biography says that she also moonlights as a writer, hence, the well-penned tale.

The publishing pedigree of the anthology appears a bit hazy. No publishing house is clearly named in the credits and the only acknowledgement given is to ‘MENA Speakers’ and the ‘UAE National Media Council’. The foreword is written by Sanaa Azam and her biography tells us that she is a Forbes contributor, a keynote speaker and a performance coach for public speakers.

In her preface, Azam writes that the women and the stories they have chosen are “life lessons” for readers, to “serve as a guide to life … on divorce, career, what it is to be a mother, a daughter, a wife, a remarkable person.” Hmm, isn’t that the life story of every woman born in patriarchal households in South Asian, Asian, Middle Eastern and even, at times, Western families?

While the women in the book have valiantly pushed boundaries in their respective social settings, the prosperous backdrop of the majority of them cannot resonate with women in developing countries. This is not meant to take anything away from the contributors to She is Remarkable. It must simply be pointed out that theirs is an alien universe for the average public university graduate in Pakistan, who changes three buses en route to her place of internship, only to be ogled on the way by disreputable men and be bullied by a misogynist boss at work!

The ladies who have penned their accounts are also part of a club of inspirational speakers which, presumably, comes under the umbrella of the UAE National Media Council. Perhaps in the United Arab Emirates — a heterogeneous society resulting from a heavy influx of foreign settlers — their stories might be inspirational for the ‘whiter’ elements, but for a hardcore Pakistani journalist, most of the tales appear more fluff than substance.

The reviewer is a former member of staff and a writer/columnist covering social and geopolitical issues in Karachi and Toronto.

She can be reached at maheenrashdi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, July 9th, 2023