Product Description: The academic study of women in the Middle East grew from traditional branches of learning such as history, anthropology, politics, and literary studies. More recently, it has incorporated cutting-edge areas of academic endeavour, including critical theory and new thinking on sexuality, labour, health, media, and material culture...read more

Valentine Moghadam's seminal study of the gendered nature of political and social processes in the Middle East and North Africa has been fully updated to reflect more than a decade of major changes. This new edition reflects an emphasis on the impacts of both globalization and democratization. It also  includes entirely new chapters on the gender dynamics of conflicts in the region, on women and the Arab Spring, and on the achievements of women's rights movements. The result is an indispensable contribution to our understanding of current popular struggles for modernity, democratization, and meaningful citizenship.

Product Description: The images of women in chadors or burqas as contrasted with images of belly dancers which circulate today as representations of Muslim/Middle Eastern women do not fluctuate from the images propagated by Orientalist paintings and colonial photographs which also offer contrasting representations of the veiled thus secluded and the naked or semi-naked thus eroticised Muslim/Oriental woman...read more

Product Description: The chapters in this text revise versions of papers presented at the 1994 International Symposium on the topic sponsored by the Population Council in Cairo. The first chapters deal with political factors including the legal and religious relations...read more

Syrian feminist activist Bouthaina Shaaban revisits Both Right and Left Handed, her widely admired book based on interviews with Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian, and Algerian women (IUP, 1991). Arab women from varied social and economic backgrounds express a wide range of opinions on the traditions and institutions that shape their lives. Themes include the impact of war and the emancipating role of women as freedom fighters, the misinterpretation of Islamic laws and social values that underlies male-dominated institutions in Arab countries, the sacrifices of Arab women to keep the family unit together, and such previously taboo issues as lesbian relationships and premarital sex. In her new introduction, Shaaban recounts the significant progress that Arab women have made in pursuing opportunities for education and professional and political advancement during the last 20 years. Equally passionate is Shaaban's personal account of her journey from childhood in an obscure Syrian village to representing her country as a top-ranking political figure while continuing to fight for female equality.