Women of the Arab world : the coming challenge : papers of the Arab Women's Solidarity Association Conference /

The first publication and translation into English of writings by members of the Arab Women's Solidarity Association (AWSA). The Association represents an ambitious attempt to unite leading feminists from the entire Arab world. This collection, comprising the proceedings of AWSA's first conference, reflects pan-Arab focus and concerns. Nawal Saadawi places contemporary Arab feminism in context, and warns of two dangers. The first is nationalist insistence that feminists must wait for their country's problems to be solved before they advance their own agenda (articles on Palestinian women's roles in the West Bank and in Gaza underscore her argument). The second is degradation of women by fundamentalists under the guise of honoring them (see Fouad Zakaria's article). Fatima Mernissi analyzes the Arab notion of time as resolutely anachronistic and concludes that the women's movements threaten the need for stasis. Iqbal Baraka deals with the influence of male writers on the women's movements, contrasting the profeminist stands of 19th-century thinkers with the misogyny of 20th-century writers. There are also interesting articles on women's work and health. Unlike Women in the Muslim World, ed. by Lois Beck and Nikki Keddie (CH, Mar '79), Elizabeth Fernea's Women and the Family in the Middle East (1985), and Nadia Hijab's Womanpower (CH, Jan '89), this collection is written for Arab women. For libraries at all levels with women's studies holdings. M. Cooke Duke University