Fatima Sadiqi’s edited volume on the relationship between gender and violence in the Middle East breaks down stereotypes and presents innovative ways to judge the issues at hand, as reviewed by Asiya Islam

Islam, Asiya

English

LSE Research Online

blogs.lse.ac.uk http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/2012/01/22/book-review-gender-and-violence-in-the-middle-east/Book Review: Gender and Violence in the Middle Eastby Moha Ennaji and Fatima SadiqiJan 22 2012Fatima Sadiqi’s edited volume on the relationship between gender and violence inthe Middle East breaks down stereotypes and presents innovative ways to judgethe issues at hand, as reviewed by Asiya Islam.Gender and Violence in the Middle East. Moha Ennaji, Fatima Sadiqi. Taylorand Francis. May 2011. Find this book:  Gender and Violence in the Middle East is an edited collection ofessays that explores the relationship between power, gender,Islamism and secularism in the Middle East from variousperspectives. Indeed, the study of gender and violence in the largeand plural region of the Middle East (the term ‘Middle East’ itselfan ambiguous term used in many different ways) is bound to bevery varied and vast. Edited by Moha Ennaji and Fatima Sadiqi,both experts in linguistics and gender studies, the book offers newinsights into the topic, but more importantly it proposes variousinnovative methodological and analytical frameworks to studygender and violence in colonial and post-colonial regions andterritories in conflict.The book begins with a cautious word on conceptualising andunderstanding gender, which is essential reading to those new tothe topic. The chapters then follow thematically, covering theconceptualisation of gendered violence in relation to armedconflict, religious and social violence, legal reform, and languageand media. Such caution and theoretical conceptualisation is necessary in light of thefact that media and public attention mostly go out to events such as the beating of ayoung woman by Egyptian soldiers, and the abuse suffered by a child bride inAfghanistan.An essay entitled ‘Feminist Anthropological Perspectives on Violence’ will be of interestto students of sociology, anthropology and gender studies. In the essay, Patricia Zuckerhutraises the very important question of whether the concept of violence can be universal.Ideas of violence and the judgement of whether an action constitutes violence are not onlydetermined by geography but by many other factors, such as the relationship between the victimand the perpetrator, moral and ethical codes, behaviour pattern of the victim, or site of violence.This is vital to understanding the dynamics of gendered violence and discrimination.Gendered violence is not a rare occurrence in armed conflict, and the conflicts in Palestine andLebanon are no exception. In her essay on gender-based violence in Palestine, Shalhoub-Kevorkian uses the voice of Palestinian women to explore the “politics of fear” that has allowed theahistoricization of the Palestinian “other”. The essay also discusses the “emasculatory” violence orthreat of such violence that victimises men in such conflicts. Along the same lines, Shehadeh’sessay on the impact of armed conflict on gender roles in Lebanon provides an interestingperspective, breaking away from the myth that women are always peace-loving and nurturing whilemen are enticed by war. The essay offers various examples of how women in Lebanon have activelycontributed to upholding the war machinery and how the war in Lebanon has helped to subvertwomen’s conventional societal roles. Both chapters truly benefit from the qualitative methods usedin the research, giving readers the direct voices and opinions of women.The last section of the book on ‘Language, Sexual Harassment and the Media’ will be especiallyinteresting for students of the media and popular culture, and is also significant because it pavesthe way for understanding violence beyond physical acts. As Sadiqi propounds in her essay‘Women and the Violence of Stereotypes in Morocco’, gendered violence often takes the shape ofdenying women and men voice, and instead typecasts them in dominant gender roles, ignoring theplurality of identities. On the other hand, media can also be used to counteract such and other typesof violence. In a case study of Palestinian women making films, Yaqub says Palestinian women,through the use of technology available to them, have been able to respond to and chronicleviolence against them.In sum, Gender and Violence in the Middle East offers the reader a thorough insight into the arrayof issues surrounding gender and violence in the Middle East and North Africa. The range ofperspectives presented is wide and therefore useful in comprehending the plurality of the region, itsproblems, and its issues. It is also a good source for researchers interested in employing variousresearch methods to study the causes, manifestations and effects of gender based violence.——————————————————————————————-Asiya Islam graduated in Gender, Media and Culture from the LSE Gender Institute in 2010 andhas since been working in Equality and Diversity at LSE. Asiya is interested in studyingintersections of race and gender in the media and popular culture. She blogs about feminism andfeminist analysis of various issues on http://www.whyamiafeminist.blogspot.com/. She alsocontributes to the Guardian and Women’s Views on News. She tweets at @asiyaislam. Read morereviews by Asiya.You may also be interested in the following posts (automatically generated):1. Pro-democracy protests across the Middle East and North Africa have exploded the myth ofArab ‘exceptionalism’2. Book Review: The International Handbook of Gender and Poverty: concepts, research, policy3. Book Review: Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence, and the Poverty of Nations4. New conflicts across the Middle East mean that defence strategy making is more importantthan ever. History shows that we cannot afford to think of defence in solely monetary terms.

Book review: gender and violence in the Middle East by Moha Ennaji and Fatima Sadiqi

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