MER Article Muslim Women and Fundamentalism When analyzing the dynamics of the Muslim world, one has to discriminate between two distinct dimensions: what people actually do, the decisions they make, the aspirations they secretly entertain or display through their patterns of consumption, and the discourses they develop about themselves, more Fatima Mernissi • 10 min read
MER Article Tucker, Women in Nineteenth-Century Egypt Judith Tucker, Women in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). This is more than a general treatise about women in Egypt. It is a subtle and adroit analysis of gender and class during the transformation of Egyptian society in the nineteenth century and it is this un Cynthia Nelson • 5 min read
MER Article Prison, Gender, Praxis Do you, too, believe that I betrayed my motherhood when I left you, against my will, to go to prison?…. I have read an article by the Moroccan writer Hadiya Sa‘id…she expressed a point of view maintained by some of our friends who love me and are concerned about you. She says that I must cease my po Marilyn Booth • 22 min read
MER Article Said, A Bridge Through Time Laila Said, A Bridge Through Time: A Memoir (New York: Summit, 1985). Evelyne Accad • 2 min read
MER Article Books on Women in Iran Guity Nashat, ed., Women and Revolution in Iran (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983). Farah Azari, ed., Women of Iran: The Conflict with Fundamentalist Islam (London: Ithaca Press, 1983). Azar Tabari and Nahid Yeganeh, eds., In the Shadow of Islam: The Women’s Movement in Iran (London: Zed Books, 1 Mary Hegland • 6 min read
MER Article Works on North African Migration Mariarosa Dalla Costa, “Reproduction and Emigration,” Zerowork 3 (1984). Jean Guyot, Ruth Padrun, et al, Des Femmes Immigres Parlent (Paris: L’Harmattan-CETIM, 1977). Michel Oriol, “Sur la dynamique des relations communautaires chez les immigres d’origine Nord-Africaine,” Peuples Mediterraneens 18 David McMurray • 3 min read
MER Article The Wing of the Patriarch The relationship of women’s emancipation to liberation parties or movements raises a number of questions. The basic one is whether or not women are making their own revolution in their own name or being handed it by “another revolution.” [1] Sondra Hale • 20 min read
MER Article No Going Back? During the early stages of national political formation in the Middle East, when crises prevail and mass mobilization is a major organizing strategy, political movements often recruit women and the domestic sector into the political arena. Continuous crises, from which the domestic sector is not imm Julie Peteet • 15 min read
MER Article Political Roles of Iranian Village Women Masses of Iranian women, many of them “traditional,” relatively uneducated and from the lower classes, were politically quite active in the Iranian revolution. Many observers assume this to be without precedent. There is, however, a tradition of political participation and struggle in community poli Mary Hegland • 20 min read
MER Article Insurrectionary Women The study of women and politics has usually focused on the participation of women in the formal political arena -- that is, in politics as practiced by political parties, by people holding political office or, at most, by political opposition movements. In the Middle East context in particular, the Judith Tucker • 16 min read
MER Article Women and Politics in the Middle East How are Middle East women political and how do they participate in states, movements, revolts and revolutions? Few activities of ordinary people are inherently political. How something comes to be seen as political at times and non-political at other times, and who gets to define it as such, are bas Suad Joseph • 11 min read
Molyneux, State Policies and the Position of Women Workers in the PDRY Maxine Molyneux, State Policies and the Position of Women Workers in the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, 1966-1977 (Geneva: International Labor Office, 1982). Joel Beinin • 2 min read
