'The eruption of Arab Spring toward the end of 2010 came as a surprise to some observers and policy circles. Arab women and children actively participated in revolutionary efforts to end tyranny in Syria, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Tunisia, and elsewhere. However, their contributions faced the savage fury of state repression. The contributors to these issues examined the impact of Arab Spring revolutions on Arab women and children in particular in several Arab countries.'
'This paper asks whether—and if so, how—Islamic groups such as Hamas that clearly define themselves outside a feminist framework can be studied in terms of women’s empowerment. The material discussed is based on fieldwork conducted with Hamas-affiliated female Islamists, as well as women’s rights activists in general, in the occupied Palestinian territories in 2007. Centrally, this work debates whether it is possible to think of women’s empowerment in non-feminist terms.'