The Study of Women in the Middle East: Some Thoughts

Abstract

From time to time in recent years, the complaint has been voiced that “women’s studies” have gone far enough: panels on women at professional meetings arede rigeur. though the subject matter is becoming somewhat tedious; articles and books on women are proliferating, though they seem to be increasingly repetitive; and furthermore, it is argued, there is nothing intrinsically interesting or problematic about womenper se. As for investigators whose interest focus on women in the Middle East, they have been called opportunistic, capitalizing on the feminist movement in the United States, and have been accused of imposing feminist concerns and sensibilities on Middle Eastern societies.