DIALECTS OF WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT: THE INTERNATIONAL CIRCUITRY OF THE<i>ARAB HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2005</i>

Abstract

The ethical and political dilemmas posed by the construction and international circulation of discourses on women's rights in the Middle East are formidable. The plight of “Muslim women” has long occupied a special place in the Western political imagination, whether in colonial officials' dedication to saving them from barbaric practices or development projects devoted to empowering them. In the past fifteen years or so, through a series of international conferences and the efforts of feminist activists, women's rights have come to be framed successfully as universal human rights. Building on the U.N. conferences on women that started in 1975 and led to other initiatives, the appropriate arena of women's rights work has been redefined from the national to the international.