Male Domination, Female Revolt

Male Domination, Female Revolt
Author: Ishaq Tijani
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 900416779X

This book investigates various forms of women s resistance to male domination, as represented in Kuwaiti women s fiction. Drawing on Marxist-feminist literary theory, it closely analyses selected texts (published between 1953 and 2000), which reflect the effects of patriarchal culture and tradition on race, class, and gender relations in Kuwait and the Arabian Gulf region in general. It argues that the selected texts portray the pre-oil generations of Kuwaiti/Arabian Gulf women born before or in the first half of the twentieth century as resistant and/or revolutionary figures, contrary to the common notion of their stereotypical passivity and submissiveness. This book demonstrates how Kuwaiti women writers have used literature to work for, and contribute to, social change.

Women's Rights in the Middle East and North Africa

Women's Rights in the Middle East and North Africa
Author: Sanja Kelly
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Total Pages: 606
Release: 2010-07-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1442203978

Freedom HouseOs innovative publication WomenOs Rights in the Middle East and North Africa: Progress Amid Resistance analyzes the status of women in the region, with a special focus on the gains and setbacks for womenOs rights since the first edition was released in 2005. The study presents a comparative evaluation of conditions for women in 17 countries and one territory: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine (Palestinian Authority and Israeli-Occupied Territories), Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. The publication identifies the causes and consequences of gender inequality in the Middle East, and provides concrete recommendations for national and international policymakers and implementers. Freedom House is an independent nongovernmental organization that supports democratic change, monitors freedom, and advocates for democracy and human rights. The project has been embraced as a resource not only by international players like the United Nations and the World Bank, but also by regional womenOs rights organizations, individual activists, scholars, and governments worldwide. WomenOs rights in each country are assessed in five key areas: (1) Nondiscrimination and Access to Justice; (2) Autonomy, Security, and Freedom of the Person; (3) Economic Rights and Equal Opportunity; (4) Political Rights and Civic Voice; and (5) Social and Cultural Rights. The methodology is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the study results are presented through a set of numerical scores and analytical narrative reports.

Women and Power in the Middle East

Women and Power in the Middle East
Author: Suad Joseph
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2011-10-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0812206908

The seventeen essays in Women and Power in the Middle East analyze the social, political, economic, and cultural forces that shape gender systems in the Middle East and North Africa. Published at different times in Middle East Report, the journal of the Middle East Research and Information Project, the essays document empirically the similarities and differences in the gendering of relations of power in twelve countries—Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran. Together they seek to build a framework for understanding broad patterns of gender in the Arab-Islamic world. Challenging questions are addressed throughout. What roles have women played in politics in this region? When and why are women politically mobilized, and which women? Does the nature and impact of their mobilization differ if it is initiated by the state, nationalist movements, revolutionary parties, or spontaneous revolt? And what happens to women when those agents of mobilization win or lose? In investigating these and other issues, the essays take a look at the impact of rapid social change in the Arab-Islamic world. They also analyze Arab disillusionment with the radical nationalisms of the 1950s and 1960s and with leftist ideologies, as well as the rise of political Islamist movements. Indeed the essays present rich new approaches to assessing what political participation has meant for women in this region and how emerging national states there have dealt with organized efforts by women to influence the institutions that govern their lives. Designed for courses in Middle East, women's, and cultural studies, Women and Power in the Middle East offers to both students and scholars an excellent introduction to the study of gender in the Arab-Islamic world.

Women Rising

Women Rising
Author: Rita Stephan
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 422
Release: 2020-06-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1479883034

Groundbreaking essays by female activists and scholars documenting women’s resistance before, during, and after the Arab Spring Images of women protesting in the Arab Spring, from Tahrir Square to the streets of Tunisia and Syria, have become emblematic of the political upheaval sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. In Women Rising, Rita Stephan and Mounira M. Charrad bring together a provocative group of scholars, activists, artists, and more, highlighting the first-hand experiences of these remarkable women. In this relevant and timely volume, Stephan and Charrad paint a picture of women’s political resistance in sixteen countries before, during, and since the Arab Spring protests first began in 2011. Contributors provide insight into a diverse range of perspectives across the entire movement, focusing on often-marginalized voices, including rural women, housewives, students, and artists. Women Rising offers an on-the-ground understanding of an important twenty-first century movement, telling the story of Arab women’s activism.

Infertility Around the Globe

Infertility Around the Globe
Author: Marcia C. Inhorn
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2002-05-30
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 0520231376

These essays examine the global impact of infertility as a major reproductive health issue, one that has profoundly affected the lives of countless women and men. The contributors address a range of topics including how the deeply gendered nature of infertility sets the blame on women's shoulders.

Reconstructed Lives

Reconstructed Lives
Author: Haleh Esfandiari
Publisher: Woodrow Wilson Center Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 1997-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801856198

Iranian women tell in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. The Islamic revolution of 1979 transformed all areas of Iranian life. For women, the consequences were extensive and profound, as the state set out to reverse legal and social rights women had won and to dictate many aspects of women's lives, including what they could study and how they must dress and relate to men. Reconstructed Lives presents Iranian women telling in their own words what the revolution attempted and how they responded. Through a series of interviews with professional and working women in Iran—doctors, lawyers, writers, professors, secretaries, businesswomen—Haleh Esfandiari gathers dramatic accounts of what has happened to their lives as women in an Islamic society. She and her informants describe the strategies by which women try to and sometimes succeed in subverting the state's agenda. Esfandiari also provides historical background on the women's movement in Iran. She finds evidence in Iran's experience that even women from "traditional" and working classes do not easily surrender rights or access they have gained to education, career opportunities, and a public role.

Sexuality in Muslim Contexts

Sexuality in Muslim Contexts
Author: Anissa Helie
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
Total Pages: 494
Release: 2012-10-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1780322887

This groundbreaking book explores resistance against the harsh policing of sexuality in some Muslim societies. Many Muslim majority countries still use religious discourse to enforce stigmatization and repression of those, especially women, who do not conform to sexual norms promoted either by the state or by non-state actors. In this context, Islam is often stigmatized in Western discourse for being intrinsically restrictive with respect to women's rights and sexuality. The authors show that conservative Muslim discourse does not necessarily match practices of believers or of citizens and that women's empowerment is facilitated where indigenous and culturally appropriate strategies are developed. Using case studies from Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia, China, Bangladesh, Israel and India, they argue persuasively that Muslim religious traditions do not necessarily lead to conservative agendas but can promote emancipatory standpoints. An intervention to the construction of 'Muslim women' as uniformly subordinate, this collection spearheads an unprecedented wake of organizing around sexualities in Muslim communities.

Women and Politics in Iran: Veiling, Unveiling and Reveiling

Women and Politics in Iran: Veiling, Unveiling and Reveiling
Author: Hamideh Sedghi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2014-05-14
Genre: SOCIAL SCIENCE
ISBN: 9780511296574

Why were urban women veiled in the early 1900s, unveiled from 1936 to 1979, and reveiled after the 1979 revolution? This question forms the basis of Hamideh Sedghi's original and unprecedented contribution to politics and Middle Eastern studies. Using primary and secondary sources, Sedghi offers new knowledge on women's agency in relation to state power. In this rigorous analysis she places contention over women at the centre of the political struggle between secular and religious forces and demonstrates that control over women's identities, sexuality, and labor has been central to the consolidation of state power. Sedghi links politics and culture with economics to present an integrated analysis of the private and public lives of different classes of women and their modes of resistance to state power.

Modernizing Women

Modernizing Women
Author: Valentine M. Moghadam
Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2003
Genre: Muslim women
ISBN: 9781588261717

Extrait de la préface : "The subject of this study is social change in the Middle East, North Africa, and Afghanistan ; its impact on women's legal status and social positions ; and women's varied responses to, and involvment in, change processes. It also deals with constructions of gender during periods of social and political change. Social change is usually described in terms of modernization, revolution, cultural challenges, and social movements. Much of the standard literature on these topics does not examine women or gender, and thus [the author] hopes this study will contribute to an appreciation of the significance of gender in the midst of change. Neither are there many sociological studies on MENA and Afghansitan or studies on women in MENA and Afghanistan from a sociological perspective. Myths and stereotypes abund regarding women, Islam, and the region, and the sevents of September 11 and since have only compounded them. This book is intended in part to "normalize" the Middle East by underscoring the salience of structural determinants other than religion. It focuses on the major social-change processes in the region to show how women's lives are shaped not only by "Islam" and "culture", but also by economic development, the state, class location, and the world system. Why the focus on women? It is [the autor's] contention that middle-class women are consciously and unconsciously major agents of social change in the region, at the vanguard of movements for modernity, democratization and citizenship."

A Most Masculine State

A Most Masculine State
Author: Madawi Al-Rasheed
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2013-03-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1139619004

Women in Saudi Arabia are often described as either victims of patriarchal religion and society or successful survivors of discrimination imposed on them by others. Madawi Al-Rasheed's new book goes beyond these conventional tropes to probe the historical, political and religious forces that have, across the years, delayed and thwarted their emancipation. The book demonstrates how, under the patronage of the state and its religious nationalism, women have become hostage to contradictory political projects that on the one hand demand female piety, and on the other hand encourage modernity. Drawing on state documents, media sources and interviews with women from across Saudi society, the book examines the intersection between gender, religion and politics to explain these contradictions and to show that, despite these restraints, vibrant debates on the question of women are opening up as the struggle for recognition and equality finally gets under way.