Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-8zxtt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T07:28:36.879Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

War, Resisting the West, and Women's Labor: Toward an Understanding of Arab Exceptionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2012

Michele Angrist
Michele Angrist
Affiliation:
Union College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Countries with Muslim-majority populations often are viewed as places where women are particularly oppressed. To a degree, this perception reflects reality. Fish (2002) demonstrates that, relative to Catholic countries, Muslim countries are associated with larger male–female literacy gaps, higher male–female population sex ratios (which can reflect poorer treatment of females), and lower scores on the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP's) Gender Empowerment Measure, which focuses on political participation, economic influence, and income. Looking at the developing world, Cherif (2010) finds that Muslim countries are associated with inheritance and nationality laws that are discriminatory toward women. Some suggest that Islam itself is responsible for limitations on women's economic, political, and social freedoms. Whether referring to the substance of Islamic (shari'a) law, which treats men and women differently, or to the ways in which politicians defer to conservative interpretations of shari'a law in order to build and/or consolidate their legitimacy, or to contemporary regimes' need to appease (or at least not inflame) important Islamist constituencies who favor a subordinate role for women, many accounts of gender inequality in Muslim countries assert that “prevailing interpretations of Islamic law . . . and the attitudes it informs” are a key culprit (Cherif 2010, 1145).

Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 51 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abu-Deeb, Kamal. 1988. “Cultural Creation in a Fragmented Society.” In The Next Arab Decade: Alternative Futures, ed. Sharabi, Hisham. Boulder, CO: Westview, 160–84.Google Scholar
AbuKhalil, As'ad. 1992. “A New Arab Ideology?: The Rejuvenation of Arab Nationalism.” Middle East Journal 46 (1): 22–36.Google Scholar
Abu-Lughod, Lila. 1998. Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahmed, Leila. 1992. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
al-Braizat, Fares. 2002. “Muslims and Democracy: An Empirical Critique of Fukuyama's Culturalist Approach.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 43 (3–5): 269–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barber, Benjamin R. 1996. Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism are Reshaping the World. New York: Ballantine Books.Google Scholar
Boullata, Issa J. 1988. “Challenges to Arab Cultural Authenticity.” In The Next Arab Decade: Alternative Futures, ed. Sharabi, Hisham. Boulder, CO: Westview, 147–59.Google Scholar
Brandt, Michele, and Kaplan, Jeffrey A.. 1995. “The Tension between Women's Rights and Religious Rights: Reservations to Cedaw by Egypt, Bangladesh and Tunisia.” Journal of Law and Religion 12 (1): 105–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bush, Sarah, and Jamal, Amaney. 2011. “The Experimental Effects of International and Domestic Endorsements on Popular Support for Women's Political Participation in Jordan.” Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Cherif, Feryal M. 2010. “Culture, Rights, and Norms: Women's Rights Reform in Muslim Countries.” Journal of Politics 72 (October): 1144–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahlerup, Drude. 2009. “Women in Arab Parliaments: Can Gender Quotas Contribute to Democratization?” al-raida 126/127 (Summer/Fall): 28–38.Google Scholar
Donno, Daniela, and Russett, Bruce. 2004. “Islam, Authoritarianism, and Female Empowerment: What are the Linkages?” World Politics 56 (4): 582–607.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edgar, Adrienne. 2006. “Bolshevism, Patriarchy, and the Nation: The Soviet ‘Emancipation’ of Muslim Women in Pan-Islamic Perspective.” Slavic Review 65 (Summer): 252–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
El-Said, Hamid, and Harrigan, Jane. 2006. “Globalization, International Finance, and Political Islam in the Arab World.” Middle East Journal 60 (3): 444–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enloe, Cynthia. 2000. Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Fish, M. Steven. 2002. “Islam and Authoritarianism.” World Politics 55 (1): 4–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fish, M. Steven.. 2011. Are Muslims Distinctive? A Look at the Evidence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldstein, Joshua S. 2001. War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Haghighat-Sordellini, Elhum. 2009. “Determinants of Female Labor Force Participation: A Focus on Muslim Countries.” International Review of Sociology 19 (1): 103–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatem, Mervat F. 1992. “Economic and Political Liberation in Egypt and the Demise of State Feminism.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (2): 231–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatem, Mervat F.. 1994. “The Paradoxes of State Feminism in Egypt.” In Women and Politics Worldwide, ed. Nelson, Barbara J. and Chowdhury, Najma. New Haven: Yale University Press, 227–42.Google Scholar
Horne, John. 2004. “Masculinity in Politics and War in the Age of Nation-States and World Wars, 1850–1950.” In Masculinities in Politics and War: Gendering Modern History, ed. Stefan, Dudink, Karen, Hagemann, and Tosh, Josh. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 22–40.Google Scholar
Joseph, Suad. 2000. “Gendering Citizenship in the Middle East.” In Gender and Citizenship in the Middle East, ed. Joseph, Suad. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 3–32.Google Scholar
Kamp, Marianne. 2004. “Between Women and the State: Mahalla Committees and Social Welfare in Uzbekistan.” In The Transformation of Central Asia: States and Societies from Soviet Rule to Independence, ed. Luong, Pauline Jones. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 29–58.Google Scholar
Karatnycky, Adrian. 2002. “Muslim Countries and the Democracy Gap.” Journal of Democracy 13 (1): 99–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keddie, Nikki R. 2007. Women in the Middle East: Past and Present. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lizardo, Omar. 2006. “The Effect of Economic and Cultural Globalization on Anti-U.S. Transnational Terrorism 1971–2000.” Journal of World-Systems Research 12 (1): 149–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moghadam, Valentine M. 2002. “Globalization and Women in the Middle East.” Middle East Women's Studies Review (Fall-Winter): 16.Google Scholar
Moghadam, Valentine M.. 2003. Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East. 2d ed.Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moghadam, Valentine M.. 2005. “Women's Economic Participation in the Middle East: What Difference Has the Neoliberal Policy Turn Made?” Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 1 (1): 110–46.Google Scholar
Moghadam, Valentine M.. 2009. Globalization and Social Movements: Islamism, Feminism, and the Global Justice Movement. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Molyneux, Maxine. 1991. “The Law, the State and Socialist Policies.” In Women, Islam and the State, ed. Kandiyoti, Deniz. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 237–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munson, Henry. 2003. “Islam, Nationalism and Resentment of Foreign Domination.” Middle East Policy 10 (2): 40–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olmsted, Jennifer. 2003. “Reexamining the Fertility puzzle in MENA.” In Women and Globalization in the Arab Middle East: Gender, Economy, and Society, ed. Doumato, Eleanor Abdella and Posusney, Marsha Pripstein. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 73–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pankhurst, Donna. 2008a. “Gendered War and Peace.” In Gendered Peace: Women's Struggles for Post-War Justice and Reconciliation, ed. Pankhurst, Donna. New York: Routledge, 1–30.Google Scholar
Pankhurst, Donna.. 2008b. “Post-War Backlash Violence against Women: What Can ‘Masculinity’ Explain?” In Gendered Peace: Women's Struggles for Post-War Justice and Reconciliation, ed. Pankhurst, Donna. New York: Routledge, 293–315.Google Scholar
Paxton, Pamela. 1997. “Women in National Legislatures: A Cross-National Analysis.” Social Science Research 26 (4): 442–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Posusney, Marsha Pripstein, and Doumato, Eleanor Abdella. 2003. “The Mixed Blessing of Globalization.” In Women and Globalization in the Arab Middle East: Gender, Economy, and Society, ed. Doumato, Eleanor Abdella and Posusney, Marsha Pripstein. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1–24.Google Scholar
Pratt, Nicola, and Al-Ali, Nadje. 2009. “Women and War in the Middle East: Transnational Perspectives.” In Women and War in the Middle East, ed. Al-Ali, Nadje and Pratt, Nicola. London: Zed Books, 1–31.Google Scholar
Rizzo, Helen, Abdel-Latif, Abdel-Hamid, and Meyer, Katherine. 2007. “The Relationship between Gender Equality and Democracy: A Comparison of Arab Versus Non-Arab Muslim Societies.” Sociology 41 (6): 1151–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Julia. 2005. “Female Labor Force Participation in the Middle East and North Africa.” University of Pennsylvania Scholarly Commons (April 1, 2005), posted at http://repository.upenn.edu/wharton_research_scholars/28.Google Scholar
Ross, Michael. 2008. “Oil, Islam, and Women.” American Political Science Review 102 (1): 107–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sarkees, Meredith R. 2000. “The Correlates of War Data on War: An Update to 1997.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 18 (1): 123–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segal, Lynne. 2008. “Gender, War and Militarism: Making and Questioning the Links.” Feminist Review 88 (April): 21–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solingen, Etel. 2007. “Pax Asiatica versus Bella Levantina: The Foundations of War and Peace in East Asia and the Middle East.” American Political Science Review 101 (4): 757–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sonbol, Amira el-Azhary. 2010. “A Response to Muslim Countries' Reservations Against Full Implementation of CEDAW.” Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World 8 (3): 348–67.Google Scholar
Stepan, Alfred, with Robertson, Graeme B.. 2003. “An ‘Arab’ More Than ‘Muslim’ Electoral Gap.” Journal of Democracy 14 (3): 30–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tohidi, Nayereh. 1998. “‘Guardians of the Nation’: Women, Islam and the Soviet Legacy of Modernization in Azerbaijan.” In Women in Muslim Societies: Diversity Within Unity, ed. Bodman, Herbert L. and Tohidi, Nayereh. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 137–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tzannatos, Zafiris. 1999. “Women and Labor Market Changes in the Global Economy: Growth Helps, Inequalities Hurt and Public Policy Matters.” World Development 27 (3): 551–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
UNDP (UN Development Program). 2005. The Arab Human Development Report 2005: Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World. New York: UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States.Google Scholar
United Nations (Department of Economic and Social Affairs), and International Labour Office (Bureau of Statistics). 2009. Handbook on Measuring the Economically Active Population and Related Characteristics in Population Censuses. Studies in Methods Series F, No. 102. New York: United Nations. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sources/census/Entire%20Handbook.pdf (Accessed April 2011).Google Scholar
Villareal, Andrés, and Yu, Wei-hsin. 2007. “Economic Globalization and Women's Employment: The Case of Manufacturing in Mexico.” American Sociological Review 72 (3): 365–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werner, Cynthia. 2004. “Women, Marriage, and the Nation-State: The Rise of Nonconsensual Bride Kidnapping in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan.” In The Transformation of Central Asia: States and Societies from Soviet Rule to Independence, ed. Luong, Pauline Jones. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 59–92.Google Scholar
Yuval-Davis, Nira. 1997. Gender & Nation. London: Sage.Google Scholar