Author Description

This collection of essays sets about exploding the myths created by years of orientalist writings about Middle Eastern women. The romanticised images of these gentle victims of the harems are contrasted with the exacting demands of daily battles for survival and the long-running struggles for political and economic liberation. The chapters of this book discuss the strategies they use to accommodate the edicts of Islam, both in their personal and public lives and the paths they have chosen in their arduous search for peace and progress. The authors, all of whom are actively engaged in this process, offer different solutions and advocate various ways forward. But they all share a common goal. Their chapters in this book help to dispel the image of the undulating perfumed sexual prey that the oriental woman is assumed to be, and carve a rightful place for the embattled Middle Eastern woman in the international arena.