Gender, Religion, and State in the Middle East

Abstract

This essay discusses the major trends in the study of gender, religion, and state in the Middle East from colonialism to the Arab Spring. Showing how the field started as a critique of colonial representations of women in the Middle East as passive and subordinate, it reviews briefly the foundational studies. It then indicates the major frameworks that scholars have used subsequently to show the complexities of the linkages between gender, religion, and state. Diversity within Islamic law, the role of kinship and states, and the significance of women's agency are highlighted. The essay proceeds with a discussion of cutting‐edge issues raised by the Arab Spring and suggests future directions for research.

The Political Cure: Gender Quotas and Women's Health

“…As a blunt control for gender traditionalism, we created a dichotomous variable that indicates Islamic cultural heritage using data from the Association for Religion Data Archives. Any country with a majority population adhering to Islam is coded as 1 (Fish 2002; see Charrad and Zarrugh 2015 for a discussion of the complex relationships between gender, religion, and the state).…”