MER Article Looking Across the Mediterranean "Femmes de la Mediterranée," Peuples Mediterraneens/Mediterranean Peoples 22-23 (January-June 1983). Rosemary Sayigh • 16 min read
MER Article Women and Labor Migration Women are now the heads of between 25 and 35 percent of all households in developing countries. [1] In the Middle East and North Africa, women head about 16 percent of all households. [2] One main reason for the increasing number of households headed by women is male migration to seek work outside t Fatma Khafagy • 13 min read
MER Article Yemeni Workers Abroad In Yemen one often hears the hypothesis that as men migrate abroad in search of work, women move into male economic and political roles, at least within the household. The assumption is that women take over production tasks and decisionmaking which have always been the responsibility of men. While t Cynthia Myntti • 16 min read
MER Article Egyptian Migration and Peasant Wives In the 1960s, Egypt supplied the labor markets of the Middle East with professionals and administrators seconded by the government. Carefully regulated and controlled, the export of labor was consistent both with Egypt’s policies in the area and with its own manpower needs. In the 1970s, government- Elizabeth Taylor • 23 min read
MER Article Women's Organizations in Ethiopia One of the more positive political themes that the exiled students brought back from their studies was a special emphasis on the need for the emancipation of women. A Women’s Committee operated within POMOA. As late as 1977, official state documents were stressing the double oppression of women, as Maxine Molyneux • 1 min read
MER Article Tawil, My Home, My Prison Ramonda Hawa Tawil, My Home, My Prison (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1979). This book is the autobiography of a woman in revolt, but whose revolt is accidental. Although its title suggests a high degree of political awareness, the author conveys very little of the depth and impact of the str Fouzi El-Asmar • 3 min read
MER Article Poems for the Women of Egypt The Future and the Ancestor The dead’s right grain ls woven in our flesh within the channels of the blood Sometimes we bend beneath the fullness of ancestors. But the present that shatters walls, banishes boundaries and invents the road to come, rings on. Right in the center of our lives liberty Nazik al-Mala’ika, Marzieh Ahmadi Ooskwi, Andrée Chedid • 1 min read
MER Article The Cares of Umm Muhammad Nagya Muhammad al-Bakr -- known as Umm Muhammad, mother of Muhammad -- is 37 years old and works as a hospital attendant in the Heart Institute in Imbaba, Cairo. She is married to Bayoumi ‘Abd al-Baqi and has eight children. This interview, excerpted and translated from the Arabic by MERIP editor Ju Nagya Muhammad al-Bakr • 13 min read
MER Article Textile Workers of Shubra al-Khayma Dire material necessity is increasingly forcing Egyptian women to take up wage labor. Job conditions are poor, pay is low and social sanctions are heavy. Women make up 12 percent of the Egyptian industrial workforce, concentrated in textiles, food industries and pharmaceuticals. In textiles, an impo Mona Hammam • 18 min read
MER Article Impact of the World Market on Egyptian Women Published in MERIP Reports 58 (June 1977): • 15 min read
