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Women and Social Change in Bahrain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

May Seikaly
May Seikaly
Affiliation:
teaches at the Department of History, University of California-Los Angeles, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, Calif., 90024, U.S.A.
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Extract

The number of studies on the status of women and their changing condition in recent times has increased internationally in the past decade, and this is bound to make the development of a comprehensive theoretical methodological framework for the study of women in particular regions or socioeconomic structures easier. In the Arab world, especially the oil-dependent Arabian Gulf states, a concern with the mechanisms of the socioeconomic and political structure of society and the dynamics of its rapid changes has also grown tremendously. A large number of scholars have provided field and theoretical studies on social change and development and its manifestations in the fields of women's studies, labor, education, and industrialization, among others. From this relatively large body of literature, most of it in Arabic, some consensus seems to have emerged. Since research is being done in all regions of the Arab world, from the Maghrib to the Gulf, both the heterogeneity of Arab society and some common denominators have emerged from it.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , August 1994 , pp. 415 - 426
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

NOTES

1 Some examples are al-Hibri, Azizah, ed., Women and Islam (New York, 1982)Google Scholar; UNESCO, Women in the Arab World (London, 1984)Google Scholar; Fakhro, Munira, Women at Work in the Gulf (London, 1990)Google Scholar; UNESCO, Specialists Conference on Population Policies and Arab Woman (proceedings) (Baghdad, 1989)Google Scholar; Keddie, Nikkie and Baron, Beth, eds., Women in Middle Eastern History (New Haven and London, 1991)Google Scholar; Fernea, Elizabeth W., ed., Women and the Family in the Middle East (Austin, Tex., 1985)Google Scholar; Soffan, Linda, The Women of the United Arab Emirates (New York, 1980)Google ScholarPubMed; Beck, Lois and Keddie, Nikkie, ed., Women in the Muslim World (London, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; al-ʿAwaḍī, Badriyya, al-Maraʾa wa-al-qānūn (Woman and Law) (Kuwait, 1990)Google Scholar; al-Waḥīdī, Maysūn, al-Marʾa al-Filasṭīniyya wa-al-iḥtilāl al-Isrāʾīlī (Palestinian Women and the Israeli Occupation) (Amman, 1986)Google Scholar; Ḥijāb, Nādia, al-Maraʾa al-ʿArabiyya—da-ʿwa ilā al-taghyīr (Arab Women: A Call for Change) (London, 1988)Google Scholar; Committee for Women Action in the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula, proceedings of regional conferences from 1975 to 1989.

2 See the work of Mernisi, Fatima, Beyond the Veil (London, 1985)Google Scholar and The Veil and the Male Elite (New York, 1987)Google Scholar; Institute of Arab Unity Studies, al-Marʾa wa-dawruhā fī ḥarakat al-waḥda al-ʿArabiyya (Woman and Her Role in the Arab Unity Movement) (Beirut, 1982)Google Scholar, research and discussions by 15 scholars from all parts of the Arab world. See also a large number of articles by young scholars writing in Arabic, such as Baqir al-Najjar, Haydar AH, and Dalai al-Bizri.

3 al-Saʿdūn, Jāsim, “Al-Mustaqbal al-iqtiṣādi lil-khalīj al-ʿArabi” (The Economic Future of the Arabian Gulf), al-Mustaqbal al-ʿArabi (07, 1992)Google Scholar; also al-Saʿdūn, Jāsim and al-Kawārī, ʿAli, ʿAqil, Risālailā: al-tanmiya fī aqṭār majlis al-taʿāwun bayna ghayr al-mumkin wa-al-Mumkin ghayr al-marghūb (A Letter to a Wise Man: Development in the States of the Gulf Cooperation Council between What Is Not Possible and What Is Possible but Unacceptable) (Cairo, 1990).Google Scholar

4 This term is used here to denote the modern structures that have emerged in the Gulf states and their philosophies of social, economic, and political development.

5 al-Najjār, Bāqir, “Maʿūqāt al-istikhdam al-amthāl lil-Qiwā al-ʿāmila al-waṭaniyya fī al-Khalīj al-ʿArabi wa-imkāniyyat al-Ḥall” (Drawbacks to the Proper Utilization of National Manpower in the Arabian Gulf and Possible Solutions) in Conference of Experts on Policies for Arab Labor Mobility and Utilization (Kuwait: Economic and Social Commission for West Asia [ESCWA] and Kuwait Institute of Planning, 1985), 382, 392Google Scholar; see also al-Rumaiḥī, Muḥammad, “Āthār al-nafṭ ʿalā waḍʿ al-marʾa alʿArabiyya fī al-Khalīj” (The Effect of Oil on the Condition of Arab Women in the Gulf) in al-Marʾa wa-dawruha, 237–38.Google Scholar

6 Al-Najjār, , “Maʿūqāt,” 382. Amal Rassam, introduction to UNESCO, Women, 4.Google Scholar

7 Rassam, Amal, “Toward a Theoretical Framework for the Study of Women in the Arab World” in UNESCO, Women, 135.Google Scholar

8 Allaghi, Farida and Almana, Aisha, “Survey of Research on Women in the Arab Gulf Region” in UNESCO, Women, 16–17.Google Scholar Also see Rumaiḥī, , “Āthār al-nafṭ” and al-Najjār, Bāqir, “Al-Marʾa al-ʿArabiyya wa-taḥawwulāt al-niźām al-ijtimāʿī al-ʿArabī: ḥālat al-marʾa al-ʿArabiyya al-Khalijiyya” (Arab Woman and the Changing Arab Social System: The Case of the Arab Gulf Woman), Majallat al-ʿUlūm al-ijtimāʿiyya 13, 4 (Winter, 1985): 155–66.Google Scholar

9 Najm, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, al-Baḥrain fī ṣadr al-Islām wa-āthāruha fī ḥarakat al-Khawārij (Bahrain at the Dawn of Islam and Its Effect on the Khawarij Movement) (Baghdad, 1973), 42–43.Google Scholar

10 al-Rumaiḥī, Muḥammad, Al-Bitrūl wa-al-taghayyur al-ijtimāʿi fī al-khalīj al-ʿArabī (Oil and Social Change in the Arabian Gulf) (Kuwait, 1984), 15–16.Google ScholarAnother important book on the modern history of Bahrain is Khuri, Fuad, Tribe and State in Bahrain: The Transformation of Social and Political Authority in an Arab State (Chicago, 1980).Google Scholar

11 This classification polarizes the society into those with access to power owing to their racial, ethnic, economic, and political assets and those without those assets.

12 Taqī, ʿAlī, “Al-Marʾa al-Baḥrainiyya fī al-taʿlim wa-al-ʿAmal,” in Proceedings of the First Gulf Women Congress (Kuwait, 1975)Google Scholar. Rumaiḥī, , al-Bitrūl (Oil), 46–48Google Scholar. Many informants who were young at that time said the same thing.

13 Beblawi, Hazem, “The Rentier State in the Arab World,” in The Rentier State, ed. Beblawi, H. and Luciani, G. (London, 1987)Google Scholar. This same theme has been thoroughly discussed in the writings of Saʿdun, Khuri, al-Najjar, and Rumaihi.

14 State of Bahrain, Statistical Abstracts, 1990 (Bahrain, 1991), 16Google Scholar; Ḥammūd, Rafīqa, “Awḍāʿ al-Marʾa wa-al-tarbiya al-sukkāniyya fī al-Baḥrain” (Arab Woman and Population Policy in Bahrain) (Paper presented to United Nations Conference on Population Policy in the Arab Countries, Amman, 09 1991), 2–3Google Scholar.

15 This variety is very clear among the population of Bahrain where various languages, styles of dress, tastes, and habits are mingled and are natural features of the society.

16 One difference between the Arab Qabili Sunnis and the Persian/Arab (Hawala) Sunnis that is not usually mentioned is that the first group adheres to the Maliki and the second to the Shafiʿi school of jurisprudence.

17 This is the background of most of the educated generation now active in the intellectual and economic life of Bahrain. A large number of my interviewees came from this age group and were educated in one or more of these centers.

18 Khuri, , Tribe, 85–133Google Scholar.

19 This information was supplied by women who claimed to have witnessed the event and who were able to name a particular woman who had unveiled.

20 This information was repeatedly given in interviews by people of different socioeconomic levels and ages.

21 Khuri, , Tribe, 218–33Google Scholar.

22 Ibid. This was confirmed by individuals involved in the activities or who at least had firsthand information of the events surrounding these debates.

23 Oral information from women with clear knowledge of the partisan infighting during the deliberations among the groups vying for position in the parliament.

24 State of Bahrain, Statistical Abstracts 1990, 17–18Google Scholar.

25 al-Zayyānī, Fāʾiza, Wāqiʿ al-ʿAmal al-ijtimāʿī fī al-Baḥrain (Condition of Social Work in Bahrain) (Bahrain, 1984), 30, Table 8Google Scholar.

26 State of Bahrain, Statistical Abstracts 1990, 195Google Scholar; the figure was estimated by officials in illiteracy programs.

27 State of Bahrain, Statistical Abstracts 1990, 288Google Scholar.

28 Information from women who were organizing these events and from some of those who had attended them.

29 State of Bahrain, Statistical Abstracts 1990, 29Google Scholar.

30 Ḥammūd, , “Awḍāʿ,” 5Google Scholar.

31 State of Bahrain, Statistical Abstracts 1990, 284–88Google Scholar. Also see al-Najjār, , “Al-Marʾa al-ʿArabiyya,” 161Google Scholar, and Ḥammūd, , “Awḍāʿ,” 13Google Scholar.

32 Ibid., 14, and ʿUsayrān, Nāhid, “Sūrat al-Marʾa fī al-Mujtamaʿ al-Baḥrainī” (Image of Woman in Bahraini Society) (Paper presented to the Fifth Regional Conference on Women in the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula, Bahrain, 1989), 17–21Google Scholar.

33 Al-Najjār, , “Maʿūqāt,” 392–95Google Scholar.

34 al-Sulaiti, Mariam, Development of Girls' Education System in Bahrain 1928–1984 (Bahrain, 1988), 60–61Google Scholar. In this book the author reviews the curriculum at all levels; see also Ḥammūd, , “Awḍāʿ,” 7Google Scholar.

35 Information from firsthand knowledge by individuals and from court cases relayed by lawyers involved in them.