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The Association for Middle East Women's Studies (AMEWs)
SUPPLEMENT To Newsletter No 32 Fall 2001

Greetings from Chicago!

This year, I had the great honor to be elected incoming president of two organizations I deeply care about: the Coordinating Council for Women in History (CCWH) in 2002, and the Association for Middle East Women's Studies (AMEWs) in 2003-2005. I am most grateful to all my colleagues and wish to use this pleasant coincidence for the publication of a special supplement of IFRWH, which will focus on the work of women historians of the Middle East, as well as the contribution of AMEWS, in the hope that we generate a greater international dialogue on the subject.

The field of Middle East Women's History has come a long way since the late 1970s when there were only a handful of articles on the subject. New areas of scholarship have included Islam and gender in the 7th and 8th centuries, the elite women of Ottoman and Safavid states, especially in the 17th century, gender and nationalism, biographies, the history of the women's movement in the 20th century, and finally, the challenges of Islamism in the last two decades, and the reasons for its growth among women (See recent list of publication in this issue).

A recent issue of Journal of Women's History (Vol. 13, no. 1, Spring 2001) gives readers a sampling of some of the debates on this last topic. In her provocative article "Fundamental Misunderstandings: Issues in Feminist Approaches in Islamism?" Brownyn Winter addresses some of the concerns of the field. Feminist historians face three problematic approaches common to the field. An "Orientalist" discourse, which demonizes and essentializes Islam and the Muslim world; a "Multiculturalist" discourse, which sometimes legitimates even fundamentalist expressions of Islam in the name of "cultural difference" and "agency" and a "Pluralist" discourse, which maintains its space from right-wing political uses of Islam, but still acts as an apologist in relation to women and Islam (p. 9).

The range of responses to Winter gives a sense of the current debates. Riffat Hassan completely rejects the secularism of Brownyn, questions the credibility of feminist organizations with similar inclinations, and considers Brownyn's remarks of relevance only to Algeria, the principal area of her research (p. 46). Margot Badran (AMEWS) criticizes extreme right-wing manifestations of political Islam but suggests there are also "progressive Islamisms." She argues that the oppressive policies of many Islamist movements on gender, is causing some women to become more concerned with these issues and eventually to abandon Islamism, without giving up their religious sentiments (p. 50). Val Moghadam, on the other hand, uses the example of Iran to show that so long as women challenge Islamist movements from within, so long as they "remain focused on theological arguments, rather than socioeconomic and political questions, and their point of reference remains the Quran, rather than universal standards, their impact will be limited. Their strategy might even reinforce the legitimacy of the Islamic system and undermine secular alternatives." (45)

Many historians of Middle East women, and in particular AMEWS members, are not only involved in these debates but are also active in the areas of human rights and women's rights. Last year, the board of AMEWS wrote several letters to defend Dr. Nawal Elsaadawi (Medical doctor and Egyptian feminist writer), Mehrangiz Kar and Shahala Lahiji (Iranian historians/ human rights activists) and Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim (Egyptian sociologist and human rights advocate). AMEWS members petitioned the UN on behalf of Afghan women and their treatment by the Taliban, as well as over violence against women and children in West Bank/Gaza/Israel. The organization took up the case of Bariya Mohammad Mogazu, a young Nigerian girl charged with zina (adultery), after being raped by three men. It also defended Samia Mehrez, whose academic freedom was not protected by the American University in Cairo (AUC). This supplement was produced with the help of Amaney Ahmad Jamal (AMEWS secretary/Treasurer), Sherifa Zuhur (AMEWS President), Jennifer Olmsted (AMEWS Editor), and Petra Kleinlein (Graduate Student Assistant). We bring you a sample of the activities of AMEWS and the recent scholarship in the field of Middle East Women's History in the hope of expanding future international dialogue on the subject.

Janet Afary