WGST 240 - Arab Women, Islam, and Feminism

Credit(s): 3
Lecture: 3
Non-Lecture: 0
This course is a critical feminist approach to understanding interpretations and effects of both Islam and secularism in the Arab world. Islamic Sharia constructs the private and public lives of Muslim women based on the Qu’ran. Secularism constructs Arab civil society based on international human rights and gender equality. Within and across these approaches, Arabs confront each other from conflicting readings of Islam, secularism, and feminism. This course examines the social and political consequences for girls and women resulting from these different visions for Arab society. Women’s rights are in tension with traditional cultural customs, rising extremist religious movements, and regional poverty. Students will examine the complex nature of Arab women being caught within local and global forces as they struggle to construct an identity of their own and a feminism of their own. Offered spring, even years.