The Construction of Women’s Resilience in the Novel Wasym Al-Tha’ir by Dunya Mikhail: A Radical Feminist Study

Abstract

This study discusses the resilience of female characters in the novel Wasym Al-Tha’ir by Dunya Mikhail based on Kate Millett’s radical feminist perspective. The novel depicts the experiences of Yazidi women in Iraq who suffer slavery, rape, and sexual exploitation within an extreme patriarchal system. This study aims to identify the forms of resilience demonstrated by female characters in facing oppression in the novel. This research employs a descriptive qualitative approach using reading and note-taking techniques. The primary data source is the novel Wasym Al-Tha’ir by Dunya Mikhail, while secondary data consist of journals and books related to Kate Millett’s radical feminism theory. The analysis focuses on four elements of radical feminism proposed by Kate Millett, namely ideological, sociological, psychological, and coercive elements. The findings indicate that the resilience of Yazidi women is reflected ideologically through resistance to patriarchal norms and symbolic oppression, sociologically through solidarity and emotional support among women, psychologically through emotional and spiritual endurance and the maintenance of self-esteem, and coercively through resistance to forced domination and bodily control.