Text
French
ID: <
hdl:/2441/7stvv2lfcn8bgp9tnlpgppn532>
Abstract
Several questions have given rise to this issue of female engagement in the Middle East today. Firstly, a discrepancy between a common vision of women in the region as hidden or even oppressed and the emergence of female figures with a different vision, often seen with curiosity — sometimes with suspicion — in Europe. Secondly, the recent reformulation of feminism in the region in the 1990s (democratisation of movements from the first two waves — 1920-1940, 1960-1980 — the emergence of an Islamic feminism) and the multiplicity of women’s groups and paths that explored other forms of engagement, other avenues beyond clearly feminist concerns. Finally, while ‘religious’ reading tends to make sense — for women even more perhaps than for the rest of society — it was important to consider the links between spiritual engagement and social and political engagement, not only within imposed frameworks — state, parties with religious, secular or secular foundations — but in the constitution of original forms of militant sociability.