Gender attitudes remain strongly conservative throughout the Middle East: data from the Arab Transformations Project helps understand that conservatism. The lack of progress on gender equality is the product of internal and external causes, including the systematic repression of political alternatives to Islamism and the often-perfunctory way in which women's equality agendas are treated by autocratic regimes.
Against a gradual rise of support for gender equality and women’s empowerment across the globe, public opinion surveys suggest that Arab citizens are profoundly resistant to promoting gender equality. Islam is often identified as the cause of this resistance. Some even claim that such differences are evidence of a ‘clash of civilizations’ between the West and the Islamic world, often depicting the treatment of women and girls as proof of ‘backwardness’ and ‘barbarism’. Data from public opinion surveys shows that while there are considerable differences between Arab countries, conservative values on gender are clearly entrenched, and may have grown more so after the 2010-2011 Arab Uprisings. Islam is often blamed for such conservatism, but the lack of progress on gender equality is the product of internal and external causes, including the systematic repression of political alternatives to Islamism and the often-perfunctory way in which women’s equality agendas are treated by autocratic regimes.
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Read the full reports here:
Abbott, Pamela (2017) 'Gender Equality and MENA Women's Empowerment in the Aftermath of teh 2011 Uprisings,' Arab Transformations Working Paper n. 10
Pamela Abbott and Andrea Teti (2017) Arab Publics Continue to See Women as Second-Class Citizens, The Policy Space
Other media coverage:
Pamela Abbott and Andrea Teti (2017) Against the tide: why women’s equality remains a distant dream in Arab countries, The Conversation
Pamela Abbott and Andrea Teti (2017) Why Women's Equality Has Made Little Progress Since the Arab Spring, Newsweek