Falastiniyyat

AFalastiniyyat: A Century of Palestinian Feminisms chronicles Palestinian women's activism from the British Mandate to the present day through the intimate stories of pioneering feminists who shaped history. These stories include Matiel Mogannam organizing the Arab Women's Congress in 1929 to confront British imperialism, to Hind al-Husseini creating the Arab Children's Home in 1948 to care for orphans of the Deir Yassin massacre, to the contemporary challenges to pinkwashing and settler-colonial violence.

By showing how Palestinian women have consistently linked personal empowerment with collective liberation, anti-colonial struggle with social transformation, Nada Elia gives Palestinian feminists their rightful place in the global feminist canon- as pioneers who have been developing intersectional, anti-imperial feminist politics. Each chapter centers on one or two women whose stories illuminate broader historical moments: Jean Makdisi's 1960s Arab-American organizing, Naila Ayesh and Azza Qassem's grassroots leadership during the First Intifada, the scholars who founded Birzeit University's Women's Studies Institute in the 1990s.

Falastiniyyat rescues Palestinian feminist organizing from obscurity, showing how women have been central to every phase of Palestinian resistance. It positions Palestinian feminism within the canon of Black and women of color feminisms, challenging the false narrative that feminism is a "Western import". And especially how feminists continue this century-long tradition today: from Tal'at's fight against femicides to the Palestinian Feminist Collective's diaspora organizing..