The Virginity Trap in the Middle East


Book Description

This book is a social critique of the cultural taboo of the female virginity in the Middle East. It highlights the unobtainability of this cultural myth and its multilevel destructive influences on various aspects of social life.




The Virginity Trap in the Middle East


Book Description

This book is a social critique of the cultural taboo of the female virginity in the Middle East. It highlights the unobtainability of this cultural myth and its multilevel destructive influences on various aspects of social life.




Islam and Gender


Book Description

Given the intense political scrutiny of Islam and Muslims, which often centres on gendered concerns, Islam and Gender: Major Issues and Debates is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the key topics, problems and debates in this engaging subject. Split into three parts, this book places the discussion in its historical context, provides up-to-date case studies and delves into contemporary debate on the subject. This book includes discussion of the following important topics: Marriage and divorce Interpretations of the Qur’an and Sunna Male and female sexuality and sexual diversity Classical Islamic thought on masculinity and femininity Gender and hadith Polygamy and inheritance Adultery and sexual violence Veiling, female circumcision and crimes of honour Lived religiosities Gender justice in Islam. Islam and Gender is essential reading for students in religious studies, Islamic studies and gender studies, as well as those in related fields, such as cultural studies, politics, area studies, sociology, anthropology and history.




Women's Activism and New Media in the Arab World


Book Description

Following the Arab Spring events in 2011, a number of important women's social movements, as well as female figures and online communities, emerged to create positive change and demand equality with men. In Women's Activism and New Media in the Arab World, Ahmed Al-Rawi discusses and maps out new feminist movements, organizations, and trends, assessing the influence of new media technologies on them and the impact of both on the values and culture of the Middle East. Due to the participation of many women in the events of the Arab Spring, he argues, a new image of Middle Eastern women has emerged in the West. As a result of social media, women have generally become more effective in expressing their views and better connected with each other, yet at the same time some women have been inhibited since many conservative circles use these new technologies to maintain their power. Overall, however, Al-Rawi argues that social media and new mobile technologies are assisting in creating changes that are predominately positive. Often assisted by these new technologies, the real change makers are women who have clear agencies and high hopes and aspirations to create a better future for themselves.




Execution by Family


Book Description

Across many parts of the world, violence inflicted in the name of family honor is attracting an increasing amount of attention. Family honor violence, otherwise known as honor-based violence, is physical force inflicted primarily on women for conduct defined as dishonorable. This book explores these conflicts of honor, how they are triggered, how they are handled, and why some lead to death. Drawing on a range of case studies and employing Donald Black’s concept of social geometry, Execution by Family incorporates and goes beyond patriarchy, culture, and kinship to develop a unified theory of family honor violence. It discusses the "honor belt," a series of countries stretching from north Africa to southeast Asia, in which similar forms of inequality, patriarchy, group authority, and gerontocracy are prevalent and how, within the confines of this inequality, honor violence flourishes. Reviewing survey data and pointing to a multi-pronged, cross-national social movement, the book also discusses the future of honor-based violence. Given the growing awareness of family honor violence, Execution by Family will be of interest to anybody concerned with family conflict, violence, crime, and popular morality. It will be invaluable reading for academics and students in the fields of criminology, criminal justice, sociology, social psychology, and anthropology.




The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Sex and Sexuality


Book Description

This Handbook covers the most urgent, controversial, and important topics in the philosophy of sex. It is both philosophically rigorous and yet accessible to specialists and non-specialists, covering ethics, political philosophy, metaphysics, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of language, and featuring interactions with neighboring disciplines such as psychology, bioethics, sociology, and anthropology. The volume’s 40 chapters, written by an international team of both respected senior researchers and essential emerging scholars, are divided into eight parts: I. What is Sex? Is Sex Good? II. Sexual Orientations III. Sexual Autonomy and Consent IV. Regulating Sexual Relationships V. Pathologizing Sex and Sexuality VI. Contested Desires VII. Objectification and Commercialized Sex VIII. Technology and the Future of Sex The broad scope of coverage, depth in insight and research, and accessibility in language make The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Sex and Sexuality a comprehensive introduction for newcomers to the subject as well as an invaluable reference work for advanced students and researchers in the field.




Gender, Sexuality, and Diaspora


Book Description

To what extent do women accept, adjust and challenge the intersecting and shifting relations of cultural, political and religious discourses that organize their (sexual) lives? Seeking to expand the focus on changing gender roles and construction of diasporic femininities and sexualities in migration studies, Farahani presents an original analysis of first generation Iranian immigrant women in Sweden. Certainly, highlighting the hybrid experiences of Swedish Iranians, Farahani explores the tensions that develop between the process of (self)disciplining women’s bodies and the coping tactics that women employ. Subsequently, Gender, Sexuality, and Diaspora demonstrates how migratory experiences impact sexuality and, conversely, how sexuality is constitutive of migratory processes. A timely book rich with empirical and theoretical insights on the subject of gender, diaspora and sexuality, it will appeal to scholars and undergraduate and postgraduate students of gender studies, anthropology, sociology, sexuality studies, diaspora, postcolonial and Middle Eastern studies.




Lebano-Pathography


Book Description

This book of autobiographical, autoethnographic illness narratives tackles the intersection between cultural and medical illnesses in present-day Lebanon, in relation to topical issues such as queer home, coming of age, dementia, expatriate trauma, and sexual blackmail, among others. The book’s essays are developed in the backdrop of Lebano-pathography – a dual, potentially adaptable and reusable, narrative intervention (form/method) that does not depoliticise the traumatic subject. Simultaneously, it is a body of writing (text) that seeks to illuminate the different ways one can be ill, and try to recover, in present-day Lebanon. While somatic manifestations of illness and their concomitant patient accounts are central to previous research in narrative medicine and illness writing, Lebano-pathography underscores a more versatile interpretation of illness encompassing cultural practice and/or clinical disease, and exploring in critically informed autobiographical text the two illness categories’ causal interrelationship. In the backdrop of the cadaverous political grid and economic tensions rending the country since the national tragedy of the August 4, 2020 explosion of Beirut Port, this volume unpacks the following thematic clusters: (1) Rewriting Illness: Pathographies of Gender and Sex; (2) The Alzheimer Spectrum: Cognitive and/or Cultural Memory Failure; (3) Walking the City: Medical Malpractice, Pedestrian Injuries, and Claustophobia; (4) The Bones Within: Immigrant Narratives and Vicarious Trauma; and (5) Surviving Trauma: Coping and Mental Health. The chapters in this book were originally published in Life Writing and are accompanied by a new conclusion.




Arabs in Treatment:


Book Description

When I was only starting the therapeutic work with the Middle Eastern patients, I was looking for some kind of guidance to enable my genuine understanding of the Muslim patient cases. However, the material was scarce, haphazardly scattered, and mostly referring to the traditional therapies. That was not helpful and was even more confusing. With time, I managed to amass my own systemized data based on regular observations, practical cases, reflections, and exchanges with the colleagues. This material helped me to approach each case individually while respecting the cultural environment of a patient. Eventually, the book was published. This is the kind of book that I have always wanted to find, and I had to write it eventually by myself. The work contains the systematized knowledge on the evolution of scientific psychology in the Islamic world, which starts with the prophetic times and continues until now. The book reveals the signifiers, which form a structure of a Muslim psyche. It also exposes the recurrent mental health complaints of the Arab patients and investigates their unconscious roots. The book is intended, first of all, for professionals who are directly related to the Muslim mental health-care system. Secondly, it is for anyone who is considering undergoing a personal analysis. And certainly, the edition is for everyone interested in the subject. This book does not intend to bring the answers. It rather continues the dialogue regarding the necessity of creating the psychological-counseling culture in the Muslim world.




Tunisian Women's Writing in French


Book Description

Tunisian women's literary production in French, published or set between the years 1987 and 2011 from Tunisia's second president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's rise to power to the eve of the Tunisian Revolution reveals the role of women, their political engagement, and their resistance to patriarchal oppression. A great deal of media and scholarly attention has focused on the role of women during the Tunisian Revolution itself, yet few studies have considered women's literary and active engagement prior to the uprising. By contrast, this book focuses specifically on the time period leading to the Revolution. The book is structured around three chapters, each focusing on a different form of writing and on a number of contemporary Tunisian writers who have chosen to express themselves in French. Sonia Alba explores the complex ways in which the authors have attempted to deal with those issues cultural, social and political most relevant to them. This is the first study of Tunisian women's writing in French to compare and contrast key themes in three different genres within a single study and within the conceptual framework of subaltern counterpublics. The work is enhanced by the inclusion of extracts from previously unpublished authors interviews. Tunisian Women's Writing in French is essential reading for all Francophone and Postcolonial scholars, and for scholars and students working in Contemporary Women's Writing.