[Wigsat-l] Arab Women on the Move: Trends - Countertrends

[Sophia Huyer]

 From Political Islam Online

Arab Women on the Move:  Trends   Countertrends
By: Raouf Ebeid - Editor
Published: November 1, 2009

Women in the Middle East are on the move, but in decidedly different  
directions, depending on
where you look.  In less than forty years, Cairo has gone from a city  
of Western fashion and
tendency toward the secular to a city in which the majority of women
wear the
Hijab
  (head scarf) and an increasing number, particularly in poor
neighborhoods, are wearing the
niqab
, covering their face and body.  Many
attribute this trend to mounting Islamic radicalism, which is often  
blamed
on the brand of Salafism imported from Saudi Arabia.  Yet, in Saudi  
Arabia
the King has just inaugurated a new university in which women will  
study alongside their male counterparts without being forced to wear  
the  Hijab
.  Middle East now find it almost impossible to generalize about  
changing soccommunities in the region or about the causes for these  
transformations.

Full article at http://www.politicalislam.org/embed_doc.php?ArticleID=266
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://list.wigsat.org/pipermail/wigsat-l/attachments/20100103/b93e9ffa/attachment.html>