Women Rising: In and Beyond the Arab Spring

Groundbreaking essays by female activists and scholars documenting women’s resistance before, during, and after the Arab Spring

Images of women protesting in the Arab Spring, from Tahrir Square to the streets of Tunisia and Syria, have become emblematic of the political upheaval sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. In Women Rising, Rita Stephan and Mounira M. Charrad bring together a provocative group of scholars, activists, artists, and more, highlighting the first-hand experiences of these remarkable women.

In this relevant and timely volume, Stephan and Charrad paint a picture of women’s political resistance in sixteen countries before, during, and since the Arab Spring protests first began in 2011. Contributors provide insight into a diverse range of perspectives across the entire movement, focusing on often-marginalized voices, including rural women, housewives, students, and artists.

Women Rising offers an on-the-ground understanding of an important twenty-first century movement, telling the story of Arab women’s activism.

Rita Stephan is a Research Fellow at The Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies at North Carolina State University and the Director of the Middle East Partnership Initiative at the U.S. Department of State. She is the co-editor of In Line with the Divine: The Struggle for Gender Equality in Lebanon and the author of several publications on Lebanese women’s movement, social movements, social networks, and Arab-Americans.

Mounira Charrad is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas, Austin and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Baker Institute, Rice University. She is author of the award-winning book, States and Women’s Rights: The Making of Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, as well as the editor or co-editor of Patrimonial Power in the Modern World, Patrimonial Capitalism and Empire, Women’s Agency: Silences and Voices, and Femmes, Culture et Société au Maghreb.