Rachel Wahba

Video camera in hand, Donna Deitch of Desert Hearts fame asked my outspoken 95-year-old grandmother, "Granny, did you ever think of being with a woman?" "No, I didn't know about such things," Granny replied. "I just knew I didn't like sex. My poor husband, he didn't understand." I had no doubt Donna would enjoy this "interview." Granny was an exceptionally bright and articulate woman who spoke of wanting to be free in a time and place where that wasn't possible. "There is not

I was expecting a book on how to look glamorous, sexy, appealing to men. After all, it was called The Feminine Mystique. I was young and feminine and hoped to perfect my "mystique." Imagine my surprise when Betty Friedan's book arrived in the mail and it wasn't about glamour and being sexually attractive to men. What? It was about a whole new sense of empowerment, an inside job. It wasn't about beauty tricks and makeup skills. I was a new immigrant from India and Japan. My Mi

Baghdad was a terrible shock for her. Meeda Elias, my maternal grandmother was just sixteen when she left her native Singapore with her new husband, also an Iraqi Jew, to join his family in Baghdad. Iraq was not her native British Singapore. She found herself in a world she could never have imagined. She spoke English and Malay, not Arabic. She cut her hair short, wore western dresses, and thrived on progressive ideas. Being young and bright, she picked up Arabic quickly, but