Economic Change and the Redistribution of Power Among Women in Yemen: A Focus on the Treatment of Domestic Workers

A shared female identity does not promise solidarity among women in capitalist society. Exploring the prejudices held by Yemeni women over domestic workers exposes class related inequities among women. Recent economic change in Yemen showcases the crystallization of class while local gender identities morph in accordance to overarching capitalist demands. The presence of marginalized domestic workers in upper-class Yemeni homes demonstrates the mutually informative relationship between class status and gender identity. Paralleling greater Yemeni hierarchical and patriarchal society, Yemeni women assert class privilege over low-income domestic workers. Of extreme relevance to better understanding gender and Islam, I argue that Yemeni women of distinguished class status possess and exercise control over the lives of migrant women, thus challenging perceived Yemeni gender roles that acknowledge men as dominant and women as submissive. Cemented by a preexisting drive to preserve familiar honor and fueled by recent economic change, upper-class Yemeni women problematize the “cultural closeness” of lower-class migrant, domestic workers through the formation of stereotypes

Yemeni Immigrants in Western New York

The country of Yemen came into being in May of 1990 when North Yemen merged with South Yemen. Sanaa, the former capital of the North, became the political capital, and Aden, the former capital of the South, became the economic center. Because of the less-developed economy in Yemen, many Yemenites (predominantly males) have emigrated out of the country seeking employment, often to send money back home. In addition, a brutal police force and government have led to violence and discrimination against people in the country, especially those that have voiced disagreements with the government. Yemeni individuals have been migrating to America since the 1800s with large influxes from the 1970s onward. There are about 5,000 Yemeni residents in Buffalo and thousands more in near Buffalo suburbs, particularly Lackawanna, the heart of the Yemeni community

The worst place on earth to be a woman: violence against Yemeni women in peace and war

In 2011, in common with women in other Arab states, Yemeni women dared to raise their voices in the public sphere and to call for change. Evidence of their revolutionary engagement throws into question assumptions of female powerlessness and silencing in Muslim societies and, by exploring multiple forms of violence against women, my article asks whether and to what extent Yemeni women’s behaviour during the revolution and afterwards was a departure from their previous roles. It will also reflect on more far-reaching processes of change in Yemeni society by asking whether the radical upheaval of 2011 may be capable, in the longer term, of challenging entrenched patriarchal structures in order to create a more genuinely inclusive citizenship. In the article, I contrast Yemeni women’s activism and their presence in public spaces with the various forms of violence that limit their mobility and choices. I will argue that, although they have been able to utilize the limited tools at their disposal in order to demand their rights as citizens, these rights are by no means guaranteed; they are threatened by the violence of tradition and, more recently, the violence of conflict and emergenc

Readers reading practices of EFL Yemeni students: recommendations for the 21st century

This paper investigates the reading practices of forty-five second year EFL Yemeni undergraduate students using the Four Resources Model of multiliteracy practices. The Four Resources Model of multiliteracy practices organizes reading practices into four key practices: code breaking, text participating, text uses and text analysing levels. Quantitative and qualitative methods, designed based on the Four Resources Model constructs, were used to collect data from a sample of students studying English as a Foreign Language at a university in Yemen. Quantitative data was collected through a questionnaire, while qualitative data was gathered using semi-structured interviews guided by the research objectives. The findings reveal that Yemeni students were medium users of the code breaker and text user practices whereas the meaning making and text analysis practices were reported to be used in low usage. On the whole, these early findings suggest that the reading practices and reading abilities of the Yemeni students are still limited even at the tertiary level and have not developed fully with regard to reading in English. This paper reports in detail, the use of the Four Resources Model as a tool to determine reading efficacy while examining the aforementioned findings. Discussion is put forward on the implications for teaching of reading and its approaches in a Yemeni context, especially in view of the students‟ reading needs at the tertiary level in Yemen

The Deterioration of the State Building in Yemen

This article aimed to identify whether the politicized Yemeni tribes after the unification played a negative role in transforming the building of the unified Yemeni state into a failed state during the rule of late President Saleh's period. Although the peoples of Yemen in the north and south were eager to achieve Yemeni unity and get Yemen out of the focus of conflict and strive towards a more stable reality in which law prevails within the modern Yemeni state, the unity failed. Tribal and political leaders were part of the patronage network that weakened the unified state and its institutions, also creating an unstable culture and obscuring the concept of Yemeni unity, especially in southern Yemen after the summer war of 1994. The Yemeni scene today comes to confirm that Yemeni unity was based on politicized tribal pillars, and therefore the status quo cannot be resolved in the absence of the modern Yemeni state and the continuity of politicized tribal forces. So, this study discusses the Yemeni reality and the accumulations that led it to consider a failed state by highlighting the political stability in the light of the Yemeni institutional capacities

South Arabian and Yemeni dialects

It has traditionally been assumed that with the Islamic conquests Arabic overwhelmed the original ancient languages of the Peninsula, leaving the language situation in the south-western Arabian Peninsula as one in which dialects of Arabic are tinged, to a greater or lesser degree, with substrate features of the ancient South Arabian languages. The ancient Arab grammarians had clear ideas concerning the difference between the non-Arabic languages of the Peninsula and Arabic, including the -t feminine nominal ending in all states and -n versus the -l definite article.. Today, however, we read about ‘Arabic’ dialects that exhibit large proportions of ‘non-Arabic’ features. Here I compare phonological, morphological, lexical and syntactic data from several contemporary varieties spoken within historical Yemen – within the borders of current Yemen into southern ‘Asīr – with data from Ancient South Arabian, Sabaean, and Modern South Arabian, Mehri, as spoken in the far east of Yemen. On the basis of these comparisons I suggest that Arabic may not have replaced all the ancient languages of the Peninsula, and that we may be witnessing the rediscovery of descendants of the ancient languages. The Yemeni and ‘Asīri dialects considered are: Yemen: Rāziḥīt, Minabbih, Xašir, San‘ani, Ġaylħabbān ‘Asīr: Rijāl Alma‛, Abha, Faif

Demonstratives in Arabic: Evidence from Taizi Yemeni Arabic and Hodeidi Yemeni Arabic

This study aims at exploring demonstratives in two dialects: Hodeidi Yemeni Arabic and Taizi Yemeni Arabic, and comparing them to Modern Standard Arabic. The description of the demonstratives in the two dialects along with Modern Standard Arabic focused on tracing the syntactic and semantic evidence they are like to exhibit. The model used to undertake the analysis follows Diessel (1999). Although demonstratives attracted considerable scholarly attention, the literature reflects a scarcity of research on the two dialects chosen for this study. The findings reveal that the two dialects somehow differ from Modern Standard Arabic. It is concluded that the differences between Modern Standard Arabic and the two other dialects are confined to a semantic aspect. As for the similarities, the study evidences that demonstratives in Modern Standard Arabic, Taizi Yemeni Arabic, and Hodeidi Yemeni Arabic syntactically belong to two categories (demonstrative pronouns and demonstrative adverbs) and they can occur in more than one syntactic context. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate that Taizi Yemeni Arabic and Hodeidi Yemeni Arabic almost share similar linguistic features as far as demonstratives are concerned. The study ends up recommending further research on more Yemeni dialects

Grammar Translation Method's Effect on Yemeni Advanced Students' English Production in Communicative Situations

In the past and present, the Yemeni government provided free education at all levels of public education. Until the early days, and more precisely until now, the Yemeni government used to send honorary high school students to pursue their university studies abroad, honour university students to pursue a master's degree abroad, and honour holders of a master's degree abroad to pursue a doctorate study. They all obtain special certificates from Egypt, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, and other countries worldwide. EFL was learned at the seventh-grade level. While the Yemeni government has made all these attempts, English for the success of Yemeni advanced students' English production in communication contexts has been unsatisfactory. Several studies in the Arab world, particularly in Yemeni contexts, have shown that the main explanation for this discontent is the method used in Yemeni schools to teach English. Therefore, this research aims to find out the effect of this method on Yemeni students' performance in the English language when they speak English. This study follows a qualitative research method that focuses on secondary sources represented in literature reviews and primary resources expressed in interviews with ten Yemeni English teachers. The study reached many results, the most important of which is that GTM does not necessarily allow Yemeni students to use the English language communicatively. Instead, it allows them to learn about English as a subject. The study makes several suggestions on the basis of the study's findings. In particular, English language teachers should use other effective teaching approaches to help Yemeni students use the English language in communicative contexts, and grammar must be taught in context. &nbsp