Routledge Handbook on Women in the Middle East

by Suad Joseph (Editor), Zeina Zaatari (Editor)

Overview

The Routledge Handbook on Women in the Middle East provides an overview of the key historical, social, economic, political, religious, and cultural issues which have shaped the conditions and status of women in the region.

The book is divided into eleven thematic sections, providing a comprehensive guide to understanding the current and historical contexts of women in the Middle East, each giving ground-breaking insights into various aspects of women’s movements:

• The importance of historical context, including pre-Islamic through post-colonial histories
• The importance of politics and the state in understanding women in the ME
• Women’s roles in political and social movements
• The impacts of the formal and informal economies and education on women of the region
• Women’s spaces and the creation of publics and counterpublics
• The effects of war, displacement, and other forms of gendered violence
• Women, family, and the state
• Discourses and practices of religion
• Women and health practices
• Bodies and sexualities
• Women and sites of cultural production

A unique overview of cutting-edge research in the key arenas of pre-Islamic to post-colonial histories, this Handbook will affect the way future generations of scholars engage with and add to the vast repository of socio-political studies of the Middle East. It will thus be of interest to researchers in gender studies, women’s studies, pre-Islamic and post-colonial studies, feminist studies, and socio-political and socio-economic studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032359557
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/13/2025
Pages:	740
Product dimensions:	6.88(w) x 9.69(h) x (d)

About the Author

Suad Joseph is Distinguished Research Professor of Anthropology and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Davis. She founded the Association for Middle East Women’s Studies (AMEWS) and co-founded its internationally recognized Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies. She has edited or co-edited ten books, published over 100 articles, and is the General Editor of the highly esteemed Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures.

Zeina Zaatari is Director of the Arab American Cultural Center and Adjunct Faculty in Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Her research and publications focus on feminist and queer movements in the Middle East and North Africa and feminist and queer subjectivities in Lebanon. She serves as Associate Editor for the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Culture and is co-founder and advisor to the Women Human Rights Defenders-MENA Coalition.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements; Introduction Pre-Islamic Through Post-Colonial Histories 1. Women in the Ancient Middle East; 2. Women in Islamic Middle East; 3. Women of the Middle East in the Colonial and Postcolonial Eras Politics and the State 4. Women and Citizenship; 5. Women’s Political Participation in the Middle East; 6. The Gendering of U.S. Refugee Subjects in the Middle East; 7. Securitized Masculinities: Europe’s Muslims and Middle Eastern Diasporas after 9/11; 8. The Body and Revolution in the Middle East Family, Law, and the State 9. Family and the State; 10. Islamic Family Law; 11. Activism, Gender, Transparency, and Family Law: Linking Efforts in Family Law Reform with Anti-Corruption, Transparency, and Accountability; 12. Women and Marriage in the Middle East Political and Social Movements 13. Women and Revolution in the Middle East; 14. Political Transformations, Protests, (Counter)revolutions, and Body Politics in the Middle East; 15. Women’s Movements in the Middle East: From Feminist Consciousness to Intersectional Feminism and Everything in Between; 16. Women in Middle East Revolutions and States’ Gendered Responses Discourses and Practices of Religion 17. The Religious/Secular Binary In Women’s Islamic Activism: A Critical Feminist Epistemology; 18. Religious Practices of Muslim Women in the Middle East; 19. Middle Eastern Jewish Women and Religion Economy and Education 20. Women’s Economic Empowerment and Development in the Middle East; 21. Women and the Informal Economy; 22. Migrant Domestic Work in the Middle East; 23. Gender and Consumerism in the Middle East; 24. Women and/in Higher Education in the Middle East: Past and Present Counter/Publics 25. Women, Journalism, and Media; 26. The Art of Presence: Middle Eastern Women in the Digital Age; 27. Women’s Participation in Public and Street Art; 28. Egypt: The Vanished Representations of Gender and Graffiti After 2011 Sites of Cultural Productions 29. Art as Material Form and Agent: Becoming ‘Middle Eastern Women’ through Art; 30. Arab Women’s Literature from Anonymity to Global Presence; 31. Women and Performance/ Entertaining: Music, Dance, and Cinema; 32. Comics by Middle Eastern Genderqueer and Women Artists Gendering Health Practices 33. Middle East Women’s Health in the Context of Patriarchy and Social Change; 34. New Reproductive Technologies; 35. Women’s Health and Aging in the Middle East; 36. Women and Mental Health in the Middle East Bodies and Sexualities 37. Masculinity in the Middle East: A Growing Field; 38. Women’s Bodies as Sites of Political Struggle: A History of Unfinished Protests; 39. Sex and Politics; 40. Notes on Sartorial Representations of the Middle East; 41. Middle East Queer Affairs: Concepts, Bodies, and Politics; 42. Gender Nonconformity and Transness in the Middle East Gendered Violence 43. Intimate and Domestic Violence in the Middle East; 44. Sexual Violence in Public in the Middle East and North Africa; 45. Gendered Socioeconomic Consequences of Armed Conflict in the Middle East; List of Contributors

Editorial Reviews

"This Handbook provides an extraordinarily comprehensive study of Arab, Iranian, and Turkish women’s occluded presence and activism from antiquity through European colonial occupations to the recent uprisings across the region. Using a decolonial and intersectional lens, 51 scholars examine the social, political, economic, and cultural dynamics of a region never far from international headlines. Joseph and Zaatari have pulled together an indispensable resource for anyone wanting to learn about women’s education, journalism, fashion, family law, physical and mental health, new reproductive technologies, sexualities, queer sites of political organizing, political graffiti, plastic arts, literature, entertainment, acting, and music, as well as complicating our understanding of Middle Eastern women’s Christian, Jewish and Islamic faith practices. Scholars examine the role of civil wars, protests, and revolutions in driving millions out of their homes, with women suffering the worst consequences, including intergenerational poverty as well as sexual and domestic violence that have sparked movements to criminalize all forms of violence against women. Highly recommended."

miriam cooke, Braxton Craven Professor of Arab Cultures, Duke University, United States

"A volume of stunning breadth and depth, this Handbook on Women in the Middle East will undoubtedly be an invaluable resource for scholars and students for years to come. The editors have brought together a brilliant collection of authors, providing insights into not only chronically important themes in the field, but also the cutting-edge of new research and theory on gender in the region."

Lara Deeb, Professor of Anthropology, Scripps College, United States

"Essays in this Routledge Handbook on Women in the Middle East richly reward researchers and educators in gender studies of the region. They comprise a timely, insightful array of resources —- historical and legal records, archeology, epigraphy, biography, media representations, ethnography and so much more —- that narrate women who are revolutionaries and citizen-activists, symbols and actors of independence movements, poets and artists, teachers, orators, merchants, queens and saints, wives and mothers."

Susan Slyomovics, co-editor Women and Power in the Middle East, United States

"This is an impressive compilation of essays that contributes valuable knowledge in the field of women in the Middle East. It consists of cutting-edge research by distinguished scholars on a wide range of topics and historical periods. The Handbook is a must-read for researchers, teachers and students."

Hoda Elsadda, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Cairo University, Egypt

"The impressive scope of this marvelous collection, drawing on its editors’ immense collective experience, offers a wonderful reframing of the foundational debates in twentieth-century gender studies of the Middle East. The collection is distinctive for its range, depth, theoretical ingenuity and most of all for bringing together diverse contemporary works from different disciplines, professions, national contexts and historical periods."

Livia Wick, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

"A masterful, unique and impressive contribution to gender in the Middle East. Combining works by renowned experts and upcoming scholars, the volume brings together vibrant, cutting-edge scholarship. Sophisticated and provocative in its approach, it is at the same time attentive to history and to recent developments. It captures theoretical, substantive, methodological and empirical breakthroughs. Joseph, Zaatari and their contributors redefine the field. They have produced a landmark."

Mounira M. Charrad, Author of States and Women’s Rights: The Making of Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, and Co-editor of Women Rising: In and Beyond the Arab Spring, United States

From the Publisher