Arab Women Research Articles

Betty Shamieh’s The Black Eyed: An Arab-American Woman Playwright Inverts and Subverts Orientalism

Arab-American playwright Betty Shamieh emerged on the contemporary theatre scene in the early 2000s with an artistic voice and cultural perspective that broke new ground on the American stage. Her early plays were personal stories of family that studied the immigrant experience through the eyes of exclusively Arab-American characters. Shamieh’s writing shifted after the events of 9/11 and resulted in her writing “The Black Eyed”, a play that addresses the Middle East conflict through the stories of four Arab women. Shamieh’s play adjusts the lens through which audiences witness the Arab-American experience and confront their Orientalist tendencies. Her cultural investigation rides a razor’s edge of Orientalism; she positions herself as both “us” and “them” within the discourse as she flips the hegemonic power structure. In this essay I use a close reading informed by Edward Said’s theories to examine the ways in which Shamieh inverts and subverts a gendered use of Orientalism in “The Black Eyed’s” themes and characters, using established tropes like the harem, houris, martyrs, violence, and seduction to fuel her project.

The Representation of Arab Women in English-Language Newspapers: A Comparative Analysis of Arab and Western Media Post-Arab Spring

The Representation of Arab Women in English-Language Newspapers: A Comparative Analysis of Arab and Western Media Post-Arab Spring

Saudi women STEM pioneers: penetrating the mud ceiling.

Although researchers actively study women's experiences in STEM fields, few do so from women's perspective. We thematically analyzed life narrative semi-structured interview data (46-item open-ended instrument, 90-120 Min) from eight STEM pioneering Saudi Arabian women careerists (mathematics, medicine, and biology) (convenience sample summer 2023). The objective was to glean their insights to discern self-reported influences (internal and external), struggles, and challenges in launching and advancing their careers. The extremely accomplished participants (all married, most with children) averaged age 65+, had 40+ years of experience and came from the three largest Saudi provinces. Important factors influencing choosing STEM included personality traits (e.g., deep desire to academically succeed; problem focused); secondary school peer/academic learning experiences; and male family member support, especially fathers. Struggles and challenges (often viewed as opportunities) included the mud (not glass) ceiling; male colleagues' harsh, prejudiced treatment; and unsupportive administration. Participants were research driven and willing to relocate, re-educate, and change direction to establish and advance their careers. Implications for future research and policy initiatives are woven into the discussion and recommendations.

Sharing the secret: The effects of sharing mothers’ breast cancer on Arab children’s emotional and behavioral status

A diagnosis of breast cancer implies an emotional burden on the patient’s personal and family functioning, especially in traditional societies. Along with the physical and emotional difficulties that are inherent to cancer, there is also a tendency in Arab society to keep the disease a secret. The present study examined the impact of sharing information about the mother’s illness on the emotional and educational scholastic functioning of children of Arab Israeli women with breast cancer. The sample included 39 Arab women with breast cancer, their school aged children and their children’s teachers, who answered self-report questionnaires. Findings indicated that mothers and children who shared information related to the illness reported more perceived social support, children’s higher academic achievements, fewer emotional and behavioral problems, and higher pro-social behaviors than children and mothers who did not share information regarding the illness. This study underscores the role of sharing information about breast-cancer illness among Arab mothers, on the emotional and scholastic functioning of their children. Further research is needed to provide a way to facilitate the information-sharing process in the community, and to prevent the negative ‘ripple effect’ of concealing the mother’s illness in Arab society.

Arab Women’s Revolutionary Art: A Book Interview with Dr. Nevine El-Nossery

Arab Women’s Revolutionary Art: A Book Interview with Dr. Nevine El-Nossery

Prostitution in the shadow of life-long sexual abuse: Arab women’s retrospective experiences

ABSTRACT The present study uses the life-course and intersectionality perspectives to explore the meaning that aging Arab women attribute to their lived experiences of life-long sexual abuse in the shadow of engaging in prostitution. Interpretive phenomenological analysis was used to analyze the narratives of 10 older Arab women in Israel who were engaged in prostitution. Four themes emerged: experiencing childhood in the shadow of sexual abuse, becoming a prostitute, being entrapped in prostitution, and settling accounts with the native culture. Women aging in prostitution experience a harsh reality of abuse and loss. The present study points to multiple channels of abuse throughout the life course, from childhood until old age.

Predictors and disturbances of sleep quality between men and women: results from a cross-sectional study in Jordan

BackgroundSleep disturbances, a public health concern that may lead to critical physiological conditions, are associated with personal characteristics such as gender. Limited evidence is available from the Middle East population on the gender disparities in sleep quality. Therefore, the current study examined gender-specific differences in sleep quality and disturbances among Jordanian citizens.MethodA cross-sectional design was used to recruit a convenient sample of 1,092 adults from different Jordanian cities. Data was collected using a self-reported questionnaire comprising the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), which was distributed online via social media networks. The participants were categorized according to their global PSQI scores into poor (PSQI ≥ 5) and good sleepers (PSQI < 5). The analysis focused on finding differences between women and men in terms of sleep quality and the effects of demographic, lifestyle, and socioeconomic factors on reported sleep problems.ResultsWomen were revealed to have a higher prevalence of all types of sleep disturbances than men. Women who were over 55 (compared to younger than 20 years), did not smoke, had multiple jobs or part-time employment (compared to unemployed women), and had a monthly income of more than 500 JD (compared to those with an income of < 500 JD) were less likely to experience poor sleep than other women. In contrast, men who neither smoked nor drank coffee, ate no sweets or only one to two pieces daily (compared to participants who ate more than two pieces daily), and worked fixed night shifts (compared to alternating shifts workers) were less likely to experience poor sleep than other men.ConclusionThis study builds a more nuanced understanding of how different demographic, lifestyle, and socioeconomic factors - such as a participant’s age, time of working duty, income, daily sweet consumption, daily caffeine consumption, and smoking - affect the sleep quality of men and women. Thus, promoting a healthier lifestyle for both genders by modifying risk factors - such as smoking cessation, as well as reducing their intake of caffeine and sweets - is the first step toward improving their sleep quality. Further studies are needed to examine how the social role of Arabic women affects their sleep.

Gender negotiation of space in Laila Lalami’s The Other Americans and Susan Muaddi Darraj’s The Inheritance of Exile

ABSTRACT This article examines the gendering of space and the entailed dismantlement of the passivity associated with Arab women in Lalami’s The Other Americans (2019) and Darraj’s The Inheritance of Exile (2007). Drawing on transnational feminism, this article critically examines the agency of the second generation of Arab American females in the space of the diaspora in their claiming of and entitlement to the public space. They are different from their mothers who seek to perpetuate the discursive division and the dual dichotomy of the public space which is that of men, and the private domestic which is that of women, even after their migratory journeys. The submissiveness and passivity that are linked to Arab women are revisited and brought to question as Arab female migrants in the novels negotiate space as independent agents in total oblivion to the biased and ideological division. Their heterogeneous and dissimilar subjectivities, negotiations, and experiences answer back the othering rhetoric which represents them as being isomorphic.

Disordered eating and emotional eating in Arab, middle eastern, and north African American women

Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African (A-MENA) American women are often subject to intersectional discrimination, and they have also not been traditionally recognized as a distinct racial group in disordered eating literature. No study to date has provided descriptive information on disordered and emotional eating A-MENA American women, nor has examined perceptions of widely used measurements of eating pathology in this population. The current study generated descriptive information among A-MENA women on two widely used measures of eating pathology, the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) and the Emotional Eating Scale (EES). Participants (N = 244) were A-MENA adult women were recruited via social media and snowball sampling. Qualitative findings provide potential sociocultural predictors of disordered eating that should be further explored, such as bicultural identity and family pressures/comments toward appearance. Secondly, themes from the EES-R indicate adding emotion of shame and considering identity-related stress. The current study provides prevalence data and future directions of research on widely used eating pathology and appearance attitude measurements for A-MENA American women.

Experiences of Arab Women Leading School Reform Through a School-University Partnership

ABSTRACT This qualitative case study examines the experiences of 10 Arab women educational leaders leading, as part of a school-university partnership, a movement for school reform in the Arab world. An analysis of the findings, guided by the feminist perspective and using the intersection of literature on leadership of school improvement and women’s ways of leading, reveals that participants’ views and practices of leadership align both with best practices for leading school improvement and what the literature found about women’s leadership specially in the Arab World. The results also show that despite alignment between the participants’ experience and the experience of women leading in the Arab region, participants focused their effort on optimizing their assets, such as enabling work conditions, rather than on fighting against the structural constraints that typically hinder women from leading. We argue that the women’s refusal to reflect on their experience through a gendered lens obstructed them from identifying the gendered nature of the enablers and the structural nature of the obstacles they face. This study contributes to the knowledge base on women’s leadership of school-based transformational change in a non-western setting, an understanding necessary if broad-based leadership is to be achieved.

Gestational diabetes and risk of future diabetes in a multi-ethnic population

AimTo investigate ethnic disparities in risk of gestational diabetes-mellitus (GDM) and future diabetes. MethodsA population-based retrospective cohort study of women who underwent a 100-g oral glucose-tolerance-test (oGTT) during pregnancy between 2007 and 2017 in Clalit-Health-Services of the Jerusalem district. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to compare the risk of GDM in Arab versus Jewish women. Further, Cox-regression analysis was used to establish the risk of future diabetes. ResultsA total of 9875 women, 71 % of Jewish ethnicity and 29 % of Arab ethnicity were included. Arab women had a higher incidence of GDM compared to Jewish women (17.3 % vs. 10.6 %, p < 0.001), which persisted after adjusting for age, BMI, and metabolic profile (aOR 1.7; CI 1.48–2.0, P < 0.001). Additionally, Arab ethnicity was associated with an increased risk of future diabetes, even after adjusting for GDM status (aHR 5.9; 95 % CI 3.7–9.4, P < 0.001). ConclusionsWomen of Arab ethnicity have a higher risk for both GDM and future diabetes, a risk that is beyond the initial increased risk associated with GDM. These findings highlight the need for increased focus on preventing diabetes in women of Arab ethnicity, especially those with a history of GDM.

Strangers "par excellence". Arabs in the Neo-Assyrian Royal Inscriptions

The basic questions posed in the article were: what characteristics caused Arabs to be per­ceived by the elites of the Neo-Assyrian Empire as strangers, and whether such classification resulted in their treatment differently from other peoples? Neo-Assyrian royal inscriptions and correspondence with the court were analysed to answer these questions. On this basis, three features that together are unique only to Arabs were distinguished: nomadism, camel farming and the presence of queens. These traits are unique to Arabs, so they are strangers par excellence from Assyria’s perspective. Interestingly, these features generally do not result in exceptional treatment. Only in a situation of conflict and defeat of the Arabs can one perceive their specific treatment, marked by exceptional cruelty even for Assyrians. For example, mainly Arab rulers were chained along with wild animals to the gates of the Assyrian capital. Moreover, only Arab women were subjected to tearing unborn children out of their wombs. This shows that Arabs were treated as half-humans against whom the most heinous crimes could be committed because Assyrians were not bound by the standards applicable to other peoples.

Academic middle leadership: An exploration of Arab women's professional identities in higher education

This study explored the professional identities of four Arab women holding academic middle leadership roles in higher education within the Arab States Region. Employing a narrative inquiry approach and guided by the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity, the research investigates how these women leaders perceived their career trajectories and navigated their role identities. The study sheds light on the multifaceted nature of their identity negotiations, influenced by a complex interplay of circumstances, social processes, critical incidents, key individuals, and opportunities. Notably, the study brings attention to the pervasive challenges faced by these women, not only externally but also from internalized biases ingrained within the system, perpetuated even by fellow women. The intricacies of these identity negotiations are further contextualized within micro-political processes and the inherent asymmetrical distribution of power in organizational hierarchies, marked by androcentric dominance, and lack of trust. Despite these challenges, the narratives suggest that women in these roles actively embrace collaborative and inclusive leadership styles, potentially enhancing their effectiveness in navigating the complexities of higher education leadership.

Exploring Vaginal Birth After Cesarean: Success Rates and Cultural Decisions in the United Arab Emirates.

This study explores the success rates and cultural influences on the decision-making process for vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). An observational cohort study was conducted at a hospital in the UAE accredited by Joint Commission International, enrolling 263 women eligible for VBAC from March 1, 2018, to February 28, 2019. The study focused on maternal-fetal outcomes, the proportions of women opting for trial of labor after cesarean (TOLAC) versus elective repeat cesarean section (ERCS), and the impact of cultural backgrounds on these decisions. The study found significant cultural variations in VBAC acceptance and success rates. Among local Emirati/Omani women, 86% (152 out of 177) opted for TOLAC, with an 83% success rate (126 out of 152). In contrast, lower TOLAC uptake and success rates were observed among other nationalities, such as Egyptian and other Arab women. The study also noted higher VBAC success rates in women with prior vaginal deliveries and those who experienced spontaneous labor. NICU admissions and maternal readmissions were lower in the TOLAC group (1% NICU admissions and 2% maternal readmissions) compared to the ERCS group (8.2% NICU admissions). The study underscores the influence of cultural factors in VBAC decision-making and outcomes, highlighting the need for culturally tailored counseling and care. It also confirms the safety and efficacy of VBAC in appropriately selected cases, advocating for more research into counseling practices and long-term outcomes in culturally diverse populations. Impact statement: This research adds to the understanding of how cultural and ethnic backgrounds influence VBAC decisions and outcomes, offering critical insights for clinical practice, especially in multicultural societies like the UAE. It emphasizes the role of tailored counseling and suggests avenues for future research in this domain.

Dietary Patterns Associated with Breast Cancer in the Middle East: A Scoping Review.

Breast cancer (BC) is the most predominant malignancy in Arab women in the Middle East, and yearly increases in occurrence by 37.5 and mortality rates by 15.2 for every 100,000 in 2019. This review explores the gap in research investigating the role of dietary patterns and BC in Middle Eastern countries. Furthermore, we analyze the evidence connecting these patterns to BC prevalence in the region, discussing implications for public health and preventive strategies. PubMed, ProQuest, and Cochrane databases were searched up to November 2023. Articles published in English from 2000 to 2023 were identified. Our search included dietary patterns (DP), their association with BC and specific to Middle Eastern Regions. The majority of existing research is concentrated in Iran, with limited illustration from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Jordan, and a notable absence of studies from other Middle Eastern countries. We found that dietary intervention is closely related to the occurrence, development, and prognosis of BC. Most DPs such as the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, Mediterranean, Plant-based and Paleolithic diets are identified to decrease the probability of BC by being rich sources of fiber, healthy fats, and vitamins and minerals. However, there are few DPs that increase the risk of BC, because of the existence of foods such as unhealthy fats, low fiber, sugars, and fried foods in those patterns which contribute to increasing the risk factors associated with BC. This review highlights the intricate connection between DPs and the risk of BC in the Middle East, revealing potential protective effects and heightened risks linked to specific dietary elements.

Eating disorders and related psychological features among Arabs and Jews in Israel: Does culture play a moderating role?

Eating disorders (EDs) have been documented in various cultural settings. A continuous increase in ED' rates among non-Western cultures (e.g., Arab cultures and East-Asian cultures) has been reported. We aimed to investigate the relations among culture, ED symptoms, and psychological features that are highly relevant in EDs through a cultural comparison of three groups. The groups included female university students in Israel with varying levels of exposure to Westernization: 118 Jewish students, 132 Arab students studying at a mixed university with a Jewish majority, and 111 Arab students studying at Sakhnin College, a college for Arab students only. The groups differed significantly on the Conservation Value dimension from the Short Portrait Values Questionnaire. Four psychological features were examined as predictors of ED symptoms: Interoceptive-deficits, Ineffectiveness, Asceticism, and Maturity-fear. The results revealed a comparable prevalence of self-reported ED symptoms among Arabs and Jews, with a small exception for bulimic symptoms, which were less prevalent among those in the Sakhnin group, who also scored lower on Ineffectiveness and higher on asceticism than the other groups. Testing the relations between the four psychological features and ED symptoms revealed that culture played a moderating role in predicting the strength of ineffectiveness and maturity-fear. Ineffectiveness was not a predictor among the Sakhnin group, whereas maturity-fear was not a predictor in the least conservative Jewish group. Asceticism and interoceptive-deficits predicted ED symptoms across all study groups. Our findings indicate that the problem of EDs may be similar among Arab and Jewish women in Israel. Moreover, despite some similarities in the relevance of some ED-related psychological features, other features are moderated by culture.

Psychological Capital and Labor Market Participation of Arab Women in Israel

Psychological Capital and Labor Market Participation of Arab Women in Israel

The meaning of abuse for young Arab women in Israel: Gender, social, and cultural mechanisms of control and supervision

Abuse in childhood and adolescence has negative long-term consequences, intensified among young women in Arab society in Israel. The aim of the current study was to better understand the meaning that Arab young women ascribe to abuse experiences in childhood and adolescence and their long-term consequences from a gender, social, and cultural perspective, and how the abuse and its implications affect them as young Arab women. Semi-structured interviews with 20 Arab young women abused in childhood and adolescence revealed two main themes: 1) The meaning ascribed to violence from a social and gender perspective; 2) Emotional, behavioral, and academic consequences enhanced by the gender, social, and cultural supervision and control mechanisms. This study provides a better understanding of the meaning the young women ascribe to abuse and its consequences in the gender, cultural, social, patriarchal, and patrilineal contexts, and can assist policymakers in the development of culturally adapted intervention programs.

Stagnation and De-segregation: The Expansion of Palestinian Arabs Education in Israel

AbstractSince the 1990s, Israel has gone through a significant academic educational expansion. However, the part of the Israeli citizen Palestinian Arab population in this expansion was delayed until the last decade. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of the delayed participation of the Arab population in academic educational expansion. Using age-period-cohort models and labor force surveys from 1995 until 2021, I present the trends in the increasing participation of Palestinian Arabs and Jews in academic education. The results suggest that the primary cause of this increase was a change in gender norms that enabled Palestinian Arab women to engage more fully in educational pursuits. The differences among the Arab population (Muslims, Druze, and Christians) are also discussed.

I'm a 45-year-old woman in the body of an 80-year-old: The multiple losses of living and aging in the shadow of prostitution.

Research on aging women who are involved in prostitution is currently limited, both in terms of the number of studies conducted and their scope. Nevertheless, the available research suggests that women who are aging while involved in prostitution may confront some unique challenges. Thus, the study aims to explore the experiences of aging as narrated by Arab women in prostitution, using Intersectionality as a theoretical framework. Interpretive phenomenological analysis was used, and semistructured interviews were performed with 12 participants. Four themes emerged: "I'm a 45-year-old woman in the body of an 80-year-old:" Loss of physical and mental health; "There is no retirement plan in prostitution: Economic and social losses; As they were taken, my soul went with them too: The loss of the parenting experience and motherhood"; and "I'm going to get older with the disgust clinging to me:" The loss of authentic identity and dignity. The findings demonstrate how aging serves to exacerbate overlapping forms of discrimination and marginalization. Healthcare professionals, including nurses caring for older women in prostitution, should be aware of their unique circumstances, considering the social, economic, and healthcare obstacles they face. By being cognizant of these factors, healthcare practitioners can provide meaningful assistance in their pursuit of improved quality of life.