Gender in the Middle East

New centers founded by women in the Middle East incorporate gender in their research publications. In Egypt, scholars of the Women and Memory Forum publish a range of works dedicated to women and the recovery of their place in Islamic society. Every spectrum of ideological affiliation, from feminist to Islamist and positions in between, enriches the scholarship of this collective enterprise. Contributors to annual publications engage heated contemporary and historical problems from varied disciplinary perspectives. Familiarity with the concept of gender, whether applied or rejected, unites disparate ideological and scholarly affiliations.

In the early twenty-first century academic sites on the Internet link and inform scholars of gender and the Middle East around the world. H-Gender-MidEast, a source of announcements for specialists and nonspecialists, features information about conferences, research opportunities, and sources of both general and specialized information. Reviews of books in Western and Middle Eastern languages reach large, enthusiastic audiences. The web site, a collaborative effort based at the American University of Cairo and supported by the Humanities Network at Michigan State University, attempts to eradicate obvious geographical and cultural divisions. These collaborative initiatives equalize and embrace audiences from Western and Middle Eastern societies. H-Gender-MidEast promotes a forum for exchange and debate, which has helped refute the notion that the study of gender is an exclusively Western enterprise.

Senior female scholars now have the editorial power to incorporate gender within major, authoritative reference works on the Middle East. They select their authorities from the expertise of researchers found throughout the world. The definitive English-language Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an (2001), edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe, includes a separate entry on gender's linguistic, legal, and thematic implications for the sacred text and its interpretation. Many other entries featured in this work are informed by gender, challenging the assumptions of older reference collections. The Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures (2003) locates both women's studies and gender studies at their point of Western inception, but underscores the importance of this methodology. This encyclopedia carefully maps the history of scholarly debate over conflicting responses to gender in an effort to avoid the appearance of Western bias and thus avoid the contentious identity politics of the 1990s. The goal of both these magisterial collections emphasizes inclusive rather than exclusive authorship and readership.

Female scholars of the Middle East founded the field of gender studies. They continue to predominate in this area of research. Their work has been acknowledged by male colleagues, who cite their pioneering studies but often appropriate the fruits of their research without mention of gender as a methodological category. This is true of scholars in the Middle East as well, who raise questions present in gender studies without acknowledging the discipline. Popular, accessible works of Middle Eastern studies now include obligatory chapters on women, but they frequently fail to differentiate between the materials they offer and the gendered interpretations that have led to their documentation. Students and the general public thus remain unaware that their understanding of male and female roles in Islamic societies is the product of a form of inquiry that often troubles and provokes male authorities in both Middle Eastern and Western societies. The reason for this marginalization of gender reveals that even scholarship mirrors contests over power and representation. Gender remains a charged category of analysis in process and practice everywhere.