Middle East Project MIDDLE EASTERN WOMEN ON THE MOVE MIDDLE EASTERN WOMEN ON THE MOVE Middle East Project MIDDLE EASTERN WOMEN ON THE MOVE Openings for and the Constraints on Women’s Political Participation in the Middle East ©2003 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. www.wilsoncenter.org WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS LEE H. HAMILTON, DIRECTOR BOARD OF TRUSTEES Joseph B. Gildenhorn, Chair; David A. Metzner, Vice Chair. Public Members: James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress; John W. Carlin, Archivist of the United States; Bruce Cole, Chair, National Endowment for the Humanities; Roderick R. Paige, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education; Colin L. Powell, Secretary, U.S. Department of State; Lawrence M. Small, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution; Tommy G. Thompson, Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Private Citizen Members: Joseph A. Cari, Jr., Carol Cartwright, Donald E. Garcia, Bruce S. Gelb, Daniel L. Lamaute, Tamala L. Longaberger, Thomas R. Reedy WILSON COUNCIL Bruce S. Gelb, President. Diane Aboulafia-D'Jaen, Elias F. Aburdene, Charles S. Ackerman, B.B. Andersen, Cyrus A. Ansary, Lawrence E. Bathgate II, John Beinecke, Joseph C. Bell, Steven Alan Bennett, Rudy Boschwitz, A. Oakley Brooks, Melva Bucksbaum, Charles W. Burson, Conrad Cafritz, Nicola L. Caiola, Raoul L. Carroll, Scott Carter, Albert V. Casey, Mark Chandler, Peter B. Clark, Melvin Cohen, William T. Coleman, Jr., Michael D. DiGiacomo, Sheldon Drobny, F. Samuel Eberts III, J. David Eller, Mark Epstein, Melvyn J. Estrin, Sim Farar, Susan Farber, Joseph H. Flom, John H. Foster, Charles Fox, Barbara Hackman Franklin, Norman Freidkin, Morton Funger, Gregory M. Gallo, Chris G. Gardiner, Steven J. Gilbert, Alma Gildenhorn, David F. Girard-diCarlo, Michael B. Goldberg, Gretchen M. Gorog, William E. Grayson, Ronald Greenberg, Raymond A. Guenter, Edward L. Hardin, Jr., Jean L. Hennessey, Eric Hotung, John L. Howard, Darrell E. 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Small, Thomas F. Stephenson, Norma Kline Tiefel, Mark C. Treanor, Anthony G. Viscogliosi, Christine M. Warnke, Ruth Westheimer, Pete Wilson, Deborah Wince-Smith, Herbert S. Winokur, Jr., Paul Martin Wolff, Joseph Zappala, Nancy M. Zirkin, Richard S. Ziman ABOUT THE CENTER The Center is the living memorial of the United States of America to the nation’s twenty-eighth president, Woodrow Wilson. Congress established the Woodrow Wilson Center in 1968 as an international institute for advanced study, “symbolizing and strengthening the fruitful relation- ship between the world of learning and the world of public affairs.” The Center opened in 1970 under its own board of trustees. In all its activities the Woodrow Wilson Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, sup- ported financially by annual appropriations from Congress, and by the contributions of founda- tions, corporations, and individuals. Conclusions or opinions expressed in Center publications and programs are those of the authors and speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center staff, fellows, trustees, advisory groups, or any individuals or organizations that pro- vide financial support to the Center. | iv | TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Haleh Esfandiari Women, Information Technology, and Human 9 Development Mahnaz Afkhami Zanan:Trials and Successes of a Feminist Magazine 15 in Iran Roza Eftekhari The Art of Female Publishing 23 Mansoureh Ettehadieh Is Reformist Politics Good for Iranian Women? 33 Farideh Farhi From Program to Practice:Towards Women’s 39 Meaningful and Effective Political Participation in Jordan and Lebanon Laurie King-Irani Feminism and Politics in the Maghreb and their 53 Impact on the Family Lilia Labidi Does the Future for Central Asian Women Lie 59 in the Past? An Overview of Current Gender Trends in the Region Kathleen Kuehnast | v | The Female Educational Experience in Iran: 69 A Paradox of Tradition and Modernity Golnar Mehran Globalization and Women in the Middle East 75 Valentine M. Moghadam The Phenomenology of an Experience: On Setting up 81 a Women’s Center at Tehran University Jaleh Shadi-Talab The Women’s Movement in Egypt: Initiatives in Legal, 95 Electoral, and NGO Activism Diane Singerman Women and Civil Society in Palestine 111 Philippa Strum Women’s NGOs as Agents of Change in Iran 121 Sussan Tahmasebi “Islamic Feminism:” Perils and Promises 135 Nayereh Tohidi Biographical Notes of Presenters 147 | vi | INTRODUCTION HALEH ESFANDIARI As part of its series on gender issues in the Middle East, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Middle East Project held, on October 2 and 3, 2001, a two-day confer- ence on “Middle Eastern Women on the Move: Openings for and the Constraints on Women’s Political Participation in the Middle East.” ince its inception, the Middle East Project has devoted a substan- tial number of meetings to issues relating to women’s rights in S Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries. The series hosted speakers from Egypt, Syria, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Afghanistan and Iran to talk on women’s issues in their countries. Thanks to the spread of technology and especially the Internet, the Project was able to communicate with a great number of women in countries of the regions by putting the pre- sentations delivered at the Center on its website. The idea for this two-day conference resulted from discussions we at the Wilson Center had with Pamela Pelletreau from the Center for Global Peace at American University in Washington DC; her input was invaluable. The first day of the two-day October meeting consisted of three pan- els. The first panel examined the impact of globalization on women’s empowerment. Panels two and three examined both the experience of Iranian women over the last two decades and the road that lies ahead for them. The panels on the second day of the meeting looked at women’s issues in a number of Middle Eastern countries. We decided to schedule these alongside the panels on Iran because of the impact the Iranian women’s movement had on other Middle Eastern countries, especially since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. This publication contains some of the presentations made at the con- ference. We left the format of the articles to the speakers, and some added footnotes to their articles. Dr. Azar Nafisi presented comments still a work in progress, and chose not to have her remarks published at this time. | 1 | Haleh Esfandiari ***** Over the last two decades, gender issues have gradually moved to the center of the debate regarding the nature of democratization and civil society in Middle Eastern countries. The debate varies from country to country and society to society. While in Egypt and Iran women have a much longer history of emancipation and enfranchisement, in other regional states, women’s suffrage and election to legislative bodies or city councils are either very recent or the issues are still being debated. In some countries women’s suffrage does not necessarily mean that women are elected to parliament. In Jordan, for example, women were enfranchised in 1952. Yet in the last Jordanian elections not a single woman was elect- ed to parliament. By contrast there are 26 women deputies in the Syrian parliament. In the Iranian parliament 13 out of the 270 members of par- liament are women. In most Persian Gulf states women don’t have the right to vote. Iran’s neighbors, Pakistan and Turkey, have already each had a woman prime minister. But with the exception of Israel, no Middle Eastern country has had a woman prime minister. Jordan and Egypt have women in the cabinet, but Iran, which already had women ministers thir- ty years ago, is yet to appoint a woman to the cabinet under the Islamic Republic. Does this mean the region is lagging behind when it comes to gender issues and women’s empowerment? Are the changes taking place—only very slowly? Despite the efforts of the United Nations and other international agencies to ameliorate the social, legal and economic status of women in developing countries, despite the various United Nations conventions regarding women, and despite numerous international conferences on women which adopted proposals of action, women are still not being treated as equals in most Middle Eastern countries. Women activists in the Middle East, like their counterparts in other countries, have sought to use international conventions dealing with women and the resolutions and platforms of actions regarding women’s rights approved at various inter- national conferences to bring pressure on their governments to alleviate the discrimination against women in their societies. In the last two decades, the change in the nature of the debate over gender issues in Middle Eastern countries is nevertheless striking. We may still be talking about the same issues, but the women’s movements, the | 2 | Introduction leaders of these movements, and the women non-governmental organiza- tions (NGOs) are not the same. On the contrary, the women are much more active, vocal, and fearless.