I diritti delle donne nelle parole delle pioniere del femminismo del Primo Novecento: i memoir di Hudā Sha‘rāwī e Nabawiyya Mūsā, e le biografie di Mayy Ziyāda

This article investigates the emergence of feminist consciousness in early twentieth-century Arab societies through a close reading of autobiographical writings by pioneering Egyptian and Levantine feminists. Focusing on the memoirs of Hudā Shaʿrāwī (Harem Years) and Nabawiyya Mūsā (Tārīkhī bi-qalamī), and the biographical writings of Mayy Ziyāda, the study examines how these authors used autobiographical and biographical genres as tools of self-narration and political intervention. Against the backdrop of colonial domination, nationalist mobilization, and the dismantling of the ḥarīm institution, these texts articulate a new female subjectivity that challenges patriarchal and colonial discourses. The authors explore how Arab women intellectuals strategically employed classical Arabic (fuṣḥā) to gain access to public discourse and to construct themselves as legitimate agents of modernity and reform. The article also considers the role of female genealogies in shaping feminist imaginaries, tracing a continuity from early exemplars such as Zaynab Fawwāz to the more introspective writings of Ziyāda. Through this textual corpus, the article sheds light on the intersections of gender, education, nationalism, and authorship in the formative stages of Arab feminist thought.