Women's Role in the Middle East

As Marnia Lazreg (1995) noted, women of the Middle East have been misunderstood by both Western men and Western women for over a century. In some instances their lives have been romanticized, in other instances condemned. But, as Islam and the Middle East itself has been poorly understood, the lives and thinking and aspirations of women in the Middle East has also been filtered through obscuring biases.

The intention in this study is to explore both the historical role of Middle Eastern women and some of the current situations of women in the modern Middle East. As Marilyn Booth (1995) indicated, in order to understand gender systems in such a diverse region, it is important to emphasize the complexity of the situation, and the impact of politics, economics, and historical conditions.

Many Types of Society in the Middle East

The popular perception of women in the Middle East is based on images of harems, belly dancing, and veiled and covered women subordinate to patriarchal sheikhs. This is obviously a distorted image. For one thing, there are several different kinds of society in the Middle East, and within Islamic cultures.

The kind of culture that this image fits most readily is the more fundamentalist cultures, as was reinstituted in Iran and is continually reinforced in Saudi Arabia. Even these cultures vary considerably, however. The ruling

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they gain power, they will become more overtly patriarchal (Schwartz, 1995). Cultures in Transition Algeria. In her discussion of activist women, HelieLucas (Afshar, 1993) talked about the situation of Algerian women who were involved in the nationalist movement almost equally with Algerian men. This is an instance of what AlTarrah (1994) noted: as nationalist movements fade, women tend to lose their power and be forced back into more traditional roles within a resurgent Islam. In Algeria this has been the case, with a revival of fundamentalism and a diminution of women's power. Activist women's rights simply to meet have been curtailed, although there continue to be vital feminist groups existing in small cells to confront and debate the constrictions of Muslim law. The Role of Religion Religion has had a powerful influence on Middle Eastern history in all its aspects. The emergence of Islam and the spread of Islam throughout the Mediterranean world and into Africa has influenced the development of many societies. What is not as clear is how Islam has influenced those countries, and the women of those countries. Early History of Islam Although the written history of women's situation before the emergence of
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