In the summer of 2008, the Saudi-owned, pan-Arab satellite television network Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) aired a failed Turkish soap opera, Gümü §, as the Arabized Noor, creating an overnight sensation and a media panic. Arab news media attributed a wave of domestic violence and divorce to the series’ handsome lead actor, and his character’s romantic deportment. This article combines content analysis of Noor, examination of online discourses surrounding the series, and interviews with its producers. It explores women’s use of new media forms—satellite television and the Internet— to articulate desire and discontent, and the media panic these expressions induced among social and religious conservatives. Opposition to Noor—and to the idolization of its male lead—invokes older notions of women’s potent sexual desire as a threat to the social order, and justifies their containment and control. The series’ ambiguity, like that of Turkey itself, invokes binaries of East and West, Islam and secularism, tradition and modernity enabling a range of commentary on the state of Arab society in general, and sexual relations in particular. The Noor phenomenon created a forum where conflicting notions of Middle Eastern identity, sexual agency and gender relations vie for dominance.
The Arab Spring seems to represent a new era of emancipation for women in the Arab world. Yet, it remains to be seen whether women will be afforded the opportunity to play substantial roles in the futures of their respective countries, or whether they will be marginalized, secluded and silenced. In this paper, I try to examine and chronicle roles played by Arab women during Arab Spring, the concerns and challenges they face and what strategies women should adopt to ensure their rights, in post-revolutionary periods. The researcher also argues how the new model of young women leaders like Ms. Karman and Asmaa Mahfouz deconstructs the prevalent narratives concerning the representation of Arab women which centers upon notions of women’s sexuality, reductionist interpretations of religion and Orientalist representation of women to justify women’s subordination. Finally, this paper concludes with the fundamental questions which need to be answered and the strategies which should be adopted regarding whether and how Arab women will indeed benefit from the ongoing change in the Middle East.
Second edition of the bimonthly WIIS journal covers aspects of the Arab Spring revolutions, including articles on the revolutionary movements, women’s roles in reconciliation in Rwanda, and women’s leadership in NGOs and activism in Israel. Dalia Ziada, American Islamic Congress Middle East and North Africa Chief is interviewed.
American journalist Lara Logan explained on camera how she endured a sexual assault in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, but countless Egyptian women never have the chance to discuss their attacks. Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi’s security services tried to silence Eman El Obeidy, who claimed that she was gang raped by pro-Qaddafi forces, and her vocal claims and the harsh response of the security services were all caught on camera in the Tripoli hotel where foreign journalists camped out. Women have been in the frontlines of assisting the rebels in Libya, and protesting side-by-side with male counterparts in Syria, Bahrain, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, and also in Iran. With the “Arab Spring” uprisings and revolutions, the issue of women’s empowerment and rights has emerged as a parallel movement in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). What are the implications of the women’s empowerment movements in the MENA for improved political representation and rights, especially with major elections about to take place? What has been the impact of the role of women in the Arab Spring on improving women’s security? Do these developments contribute to long-term socio-political, legal, judicial, and economic reforms that would improve overall human rights, and especially women’s rights in the MENA? This paper is a comparative survey of women’s empowerment and rights, especially in terms of general human rights principles, as well as in terms of political representation in post-revolution Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.
Sondra Hale’s deep and long-term relationship with Sudan has produced a substantial body of scholarship that has transformed the anthropology of gender in the Middle East. She argues in her work that a version of Islamic citizenship was articulated by Hassan al-Turabi’s Islamist government in Sudan in the 1990s to shape society’s notion of the ideal Muslim woman. This essay looks at Hale’s work on women’s citizenship in Sudan to examine the constitution of this notion and how it shapes women’s citizenship in post-Arab Spring Egypt. My aims are to explore the various conflicting powers through which ideals of women’s citizenship in Egypt after the revolution are produced and to problematize Hale’s notion of citizenship to better understand the role that Islamism plays in shaping these gendered political subjectivities.