Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East

Citation:

Moghadam, Valentine M. 2013. Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Author: Valentine M. Moghadam

Annotation:

Summary:
The subject of this study is social change in the Middle East, North Africa, and Afghanistan ; its impact on women's legal status and social positions ; and women's varied responses to, and involvment in, change processes. It also deals with constructions of gender during periods of social and political change. Social change is usually described in terms of modernization, revolution, cultural challenges, and social movements. Much of the standard literature on these topics does not examine women or gender, and thus [the author] hopes this study will contribute to an appreciation of the significance of gender in the midst of change. Neither are there many sociological studies on MENA and Afghansitan or studies on women in MENA and Afghanistan from a sociological perspective. Myths and stereotypes abund regarding women, Islam, and the region, and the events of September 11 and since have only compounded them. This book is intended in part to "normalize" the Middle East by underscoring the salience of structural determinants other than religion. It focuses on the major social-change processes in the region to show how women's lives are shaped not only by "Islam" and "culture", but also by economic development, the state, class location, and the world system. Why the focus on women? It is [the author's] contention that middle-class women are consciously and unconsciously major agents of social change in the region, at the vanguard of movements for modernity, democratization and citizenship. (Summary from Google Books)
 
Table of Contents:
1. Recasting the Middle East, North Africa, and Afghanistan
 
2. Economic Development, State Policy, and Women's Employment
 
3. Reforms, Revolutions, and the Woman Question
 
4. Patriarchy, and the Changing Family
 
5. Islamist Movements and Women's Responses
 
6. Iran: from Islamization to Islamic Feminism, and Beyond?
 
7. Afghanistan: Revolution, Reaction, and Attempted Reconstruction
 
8. All That Is Solid Melts into Air

Topics: Democracy / Democratization, Development, Economies, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Livelihoods, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Religion Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa, Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan, Iran

Year: 2013

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