Women's History

Qatari Olympic women athletes spotlight Wahhabi schism

by James M. Dorsey

By James M. Dorsey

The question for Qatari sprinter Noor al-Malki is not whether she will be part of the... more By James M. Dorsey

The question for Qatari sprinter Noor al-Malki is not whether she will be part of the first group of Qatari women to ever compete in a global sports tournament at the 2012 London Olympics but how she will handle the fact that the competition will take place during Ramadan.

The question whether Ms. Al-Malki would be able to compete was resolved when Qatar, alongside Saudi Arabia and Brunei the only nation never to have been represented by women in a global sporting event, decided last year to allow women to compete in the London Olympics.

The decision was the result of Qatar’s concerted effort to become a sports power and mounting international pressure on the International Olympic Committee (IOC), not to allow countries to compete that discriminate against athletes on the basis of gender.

It saved Qatar, already threatened with a global trade union campaign against its hosting of the 2022 World Cup because of the conditions under which it employs foreign labour, from becoming the target of yet another attack on its reputation, already dented by controversy over its successful campaign to win the right to host the World Cup. The bruising debate over the soccer tournament bid contributed to the International Olympic Committee’s decision to eliminate Qatar as a candidate for the 2020 Olympics.

The debate also highlights the major divide among Wahhabis, followers of 18th century puritan warrior priest Mohammed Abdul Wahhab, with Saudi Arabia, the only other country besides Qatar with a majority Wahhabi population, and the IOC still struggling barely two months before the opening of the London Olympics to find a formula that would circumvent the kingdom’s conservative opposition to women’s participation.

A Human Rights Watch report released in February, called on Saudi Arabia to protect women's equal right to sports and urged the IOC to live up to its charter, which prohibits discrimination, or face a ban similar to that imposed on Afghanistan in 1999 partly for its exclusion of female athletes.

For Ms. Al-Malki, the Qatari decision means that she is grappling beyond wanting to perform at the London Olympics with the requirement to fast during the 30 days of Ramadan during which the tournament will be held. If the decision to allow women to compete may have been difficult because of mounting conservative opposition to Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani’s liberal policies designed to position his tiny gas-rich Gulf state on the world map, resolving the issue of Ramadan coinciding with the Olympics is easy.

While Islamic law does not grant athletes dispensation from fasting during Ramadan, it does allow travellers to break the fast during their journey provided they catch up once they return home. Ms. Al-Malki will be travelling during the Olympics.

That is a luxurious position to be in compared to her Saudi counterparts who still do not know whether they will be going to London. Initial Saudi suggestions that the kingdom would for the first time send female athletes to the Olympics were dashed when Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud declared in April that “female sports activity has not existed (in the kingdom) and there is no move thereto in this regard. At present, we are not embracing any female Saudi participation in the Olympics or other international championships.”

The IOC has rejected Saudi suggestions that Saudi women living abroad be allowed to compete under the Olympic flag rather than as part of the official Saudi delegation.

"It's not an easy situation. There is a commitment. We're working steadily with them to find a good solution,” conceded IOC President Jacques Rogge at a recent news conference. "We are continuing to discuss with them, and the athletes are trying (to qualify). We would hope they will qualify in due time for the games."

With few Saudi women athletes likely to qualify for the Olympics, the IOC has gone out of its way to encourage participation by suggesting that they would be exempted from qualifying standards and granted entry under special circumstances.

Saudi women participation appears however increasingly unlikely with conservative opposition making it difficult for the government to back down at a time that it is rallying the wagons to shield itself against the wave of anti-government protests in the Middle East and North Africa that has already sparked increased political activism and mobilisation in the kingdom. At his news conference, Mr. Rogge declined to discuss possible penalties if the kingdom refused to include women in its Olympic team.

The Saudi government has recently employed the clergy to condemn the protests that have already toppled the autocratic leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen and brought Syria to the brink of civil war, which, according to some, are the result of the mingling of the sexes in sports.

Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh denounced the protests earlier this month as sinful. "The schism, instability, the malfunctioning of security and the breakdown of unity that Islamic countries are facing these days is a result of the sins of the public and their transgressions," Sheikh Abdulaziz said.

Such sins include, according to Imam Abu Abdellah of As-Sunnah mosque in Kissimee, Florida, speaking in a video posted on the Internet, the mixing of the sexes at sports events. “In the past it was only men, now it is almost half half (in stadiums). Allah knows what happens afterwards. Either way it is bad. Either people go out, they are sensing and partying and drinking and all that, so that’s negative. And if they don’t, they go out and they demonstrate and they’re angry and they destroy property and they destroy cars and they destroy people’s business. Either way its haram (forbidden), things have to be done in moderation,” Abu Abedallah said.

Sheikh Abdullah bin Suleiman Al Manei, a member of the Gulf Kingdom’s supreme scholars committee and an advisor to King Abdullah warned that “the spread of such (bad) acts on play fields is a clear indicator of a decline in moral values and the transformation of sport from fair competition into bigotry.”

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a consultant to geopolitical consulting firm Wikistrat.

Who Were The ‘Ladies of the House’ in the Assyrian Empire?

by Saana Svärd

Bibliographical information: Saana Svärd & Mikko Luukko: “Who Were The ‘Ladies of the House’ in the Assyrian Empire?” In: Of God(s), Trees, Kings, and Scholars. Neo-Assyrian and Related Studies in Honour of Simo Parpola (eds. Mikko Luukko, Saana Svärd & Raija Mattila), Finnish oriental Society: Helsinki. 2009, pp. 279-294.

'A matter of age: old age, women, and the importance of age as an analytical category'

by Lynn Botelho

Do Not Cite Without Permission.  Draft Only.  Paper read at theSixteenth Century Society Conference, 28 October 2011, Fort Worth, Texas.

Lynn Botelho's paper, 'A Matter of Age', explores the extent of our knowledge about older women in early modern... more Lynn Botelho's paper, 'A Matter of Age', explores the extent of our knowledge about older women in early modern Europe.  It looks at the place, composition, and nature of women past the age of menopause.  It surveys western Europe over two centuries.  Furthermore, it does not confine its investigative sweep to only post-menopausal individuals, but it also seeks to incorporate 'older' women, those who are ageing but not yet truly old.  Central to this study is the awareness that a great deal of women's history is written about the 'Every Woman', one that is neither too young, nor too old, and one that is still firmly identified with her reproductive years.  What emerges from this historiographical reading is the central importance of 'age' as a component in understanding the lived experience and, consequently,  ‘age’ should be incorporated alongside the trinity of academic analysis:  race, class, and gender.

‘„Řekla jsem si, že se prostě musím nějak přizpůsobit:” Mladé české ženy v ghettu Terezín,’ [“I Said to Myself I Simply Have to Adapt One Way Or Another:” Young Czech Women in Terezín Ghetto]

by Anna Hajkova

Soudobé Dějiny 4, 18 (2011): 603-628

Women’s memories tell different stories about Terezín ghetto than men: but which, and what are the mechanisms behind... more Women’s memories tell different stories about Terezín ghetto than men: but which, and what are the mechanisms behind it?
In the center of my research stands the adaptation and coping mechanisms of women in Terezín: How did their everyday life look like? Which roles did they take in? I analyze the gender specific aspects of Czech Jewish women’s lives in Terezín; moreover, I focus on how does it influence their narratives as we know them today. The core of my researched is based on a sample of thirty biographic interviews from the 1990s, combined with various contemporaneous sources. Having experienced the deportation chiefly in their twenties, they represent middle-class, assimilated, emancipated, mostly Czech speaking women.
The young Czech women inmates usually abandoned their pre-deportation individual course of life as a modern, independent woman and shifted towards a strongly gendered, supportive role, focusing on the family and collective. I examine the relationship between the shift in the social role of women, formation of networks and groups and their survival chances. Thus analyzing the position of women in particular and gender in general helps us recognize the power relationships within the enforced community.

Nineteenth-­‐Century Natural Theology, Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology, Russell Re Manning (ed.), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

by Matthew Daniel Eddy

Natural theology came in different varieties during the nineteenth century. It functioned both as a way of seeing... more Natural theology came in different varieties during the nineteenth century. It functioned both as a way of seeing nature but also as a way of being in the world. This essay explores the intellectual and experiential facets of design arguments by focusing on who promoted them and, just as important, why they appealed to so many people on a daily basis. In short, we learn that natural theology was a way of knowing and doing. The essay is structured around three kinds of natural theologians: philosophers and theologians, savants and scientists, priests and pedagogues. Whilst I take care to address well-known names like William Paley and Charles Darwin and classical disciplines like physics and theology, my larger aim is to show the appeal of design to middle class readers and authors (especially women) and to the founders of the emerging human sciences like biomedicine and evolutionary anthropology.

The Intimate Archive

by Sally Newman

This is an edited version of the introduction to The Intimate Archive, a co-authored monograph which examines the... more This is an edited version of the introduction to The Intimate Archive, a co-authored monograph which examines the issues raised in theorising sexuality in archival collections. Maryanne Dever, Sally Newman and Ann Vickery consider the ethical dilemmas that they faced while researching private material, in particular of making conclusions based on material that was possibly never intended by its subjects to be consumed publicly. The introduction is both a contemplation of private affairs and a reflexive meditation on the right to acquire and assume intimate knowledge of historical subjects.

Women before the qāḍī under the Abbasids

by Mathieu Tillier

Published in: Islamic Law and Society, 16 (2009), p. 280-301.

In this article, I examine the appearance of Muslim women before the judge during the Abbasid period... more In this article, I examine the appearance of Muslim women before the judge during the Abbasid period (132-334/750-945), both in theory and practice. The cases involving women found in law books suggest that they came freely to the court, especially for familial or marital purposes, and that the judges employed some women as court auxiliaries. However, a comparison of judicial manuals and the biographical literature shows that a woman's appearance before the judge could create a social disturbance and that not all women were allowed to appear in court. I argue that the social distinction between those who could leave their houses—and thus come before the judge—and those who could not correlated with the social hierarchy.

'We'll Wear Out Great Ones': Maria Pickersgill, Letitia Landon and the Power of the 'Improvisatrice'

by David Moberly

Romantic Textualities, 20 (Winter 2011): 7-23.

Maria Pickersgill, whose largest work, Tales of the Harem, was published in 1827, was the wife of Henry William... more Maria Pickersgill, whose largest work, Tales of the Harem, was published in 1827, was the wife of Henry William Pickergill, the most prominent London portrait artist of his day. Maria's well-connected husband and their London home provided her with several contacts who aided her in her desire to publish. Her first poetic work, “The Oriental Nosegay,” was printed in 1825 as part of a collection of poems in Letitia Landon's The Troubadours. Maria's husband had completed Landon's portrait after several long sittings in 1822 or 1823, at which time Maria likely met Landon and showed her some of her work, which Landon later published. Thereafter, Landon seems to have heavily influenced her work. Landon's poetry, in fact, is Maria's works'closest analogue. Maria embraces Landon’s depiction of the woman poetess’ role as that of an “improvisatrice,” whose poetry flows spontaneously out of emotion in something more like performance than poetry (if one strictly follows Wordsworth’s definition of the term). Maria uses the performances of harem women in Tales of the Harem as a metaphor for the way in which women’s poetry can subvert and “wear out” the patriarchal powers that be. As such, this interdisciplinary paper offers a detailed view of the way in which one London woman negotiated her poetry into publication, and what that negotiation reveals about her poetic style and the place she carved for herself in the London art world.

She's Only A Bird in a Gilded Cage: Freedwoman at Trimalchio's Dinner Party

by Liz Gloyn

Published in Classical Quarterly (2012) 62.1: 260-280.

"sancta mulier nomine Mechtildis". Mechthild (von Magdeburg) und ihre Wahrnehmung als Religiose im Laufe der Jahrhunderte, in: Beginen. Eine religiöse Lebensform von Frauen in Geschichte und Gegenwart, hg. von Marco A. Sorace und Jörg Voigt (erscheint in der Reihe: Studien zur christlichen Religions- und Kulturgeschichte) (in Vorbereitung)

by Balázs J. Nemes

These:
Mechthild von Magdeburg macht Karriere - als Nonne (und Begine?) in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, als... more These:
Mechthild von Magdeburg macht Karriere - als Nonne (und Begine?) in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, als Begine (und Nonne!) in der Moderne

Der involvierte Leser. Immersive Lektürepraktiken in der spätmittelalterlichen Mystik-Rezeption, in: Immersion im Mittelalter, hg. von Hartmut Bleumer (Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 167, 2012) (in Druckvorbereitung)

by Balázs J. Nemes

The article approaches the immersive potential of Mechthild von Magdeburg's “Fließendes Licht“, dispensing the reader... more The article approaches the immersive potential of Mechthild von Magdeburg's “Fließendes Licht“, dispensing the reader from his role as a spectator and turning him into a participant, something which has frequently been claimed by the new German medieval studies. This particular kind of recipient is, certainly, an ideal-typical reader, a literary construct with the function to display the strategies of persuasion in “Fließendes Licht“ and the special literacy or the functional inclusion of the text. It should be all the more interesting to have a look at a specific historical recipient as this allows making the text's calculated aesthetic impacts plausible or outlining them with regard to the history of receptions. The instructions by Heinrich von Nördlingen from the first half of the 14th century, addressed to Margareta Ebner and the Dominican nuns of Maria Medingen near Dillingen, which told them how to incorporate and read „Fließendes Licht“ will be the centre of my analysis. This particular example and the recourse to circulating thoughts about the phenomenology of immersion shall show which requirements have to be fulfilled in a special religious context of reception to obtain the effect of immersion. Heinrich's directives are perfectly suitable for this line of questioning as they create the model of an involved reader, amounting to the requirement to get into the diegesis of the text and to identify with the literary figure.

Im Beitrag geht es um das in der neueren germanistisch-mediävistischen Forschung vielfach behauptete immersive Potential des „Fließenden Lichts“ Mechthilds von Magdeburg, den Leser seiner Rolle als Beobachter (spectator) zu entbinden und ihn zu einem Teilnehmer (participant) der textuell entworfenen virtuellen Realität zu machen. Freilich handelt es sich bei diesem Typ vom Rezipienten um einen idealtypischen Leser, ein literaturwissenschaftliches Figurenkonstrukt also, dessen Funktion darin besteht, die im „Fließenden Licht“ verfolgten Persuasionsstrategien und damit die besondere Literarizität bzw. funktionale Einbindung des Textes sichtbar zu machen. Umso interessanter dürfte es sein, den Blick auf einen konkreten historischen Rezipienten zu lenken, ermöglicht er doch, die von der Forschung beobachteten kalkuliert wirkungsästhetischen Effekte des Textes zu plausibilisieren bzw. rezeptionsgeschichtlich zu perspektivieren. Im Mittelpunkt meiner Untersuchung stehen die an Margareta Ebner und die Dominikanerinnen von Maria Medingen bei Dillingen gerichteten Anweisungen von Heinrich von Nördlingen aus der Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts, wie sie das „Fließende Licht“ aufnehmen und lesen sollen. An diesem Fallbeispiel und im Rückgriff auf die kursierenden Überlegungen zur Phänomenologie der Immersion gilt es zu zeigen, welche Voraussetzungen speziell in einem religiösen Rezeptionskontext erfüllt werden müssen, damit es überhaupt zum Effekt der Immersion kommt. Heinrichs Direktiven eignen sich für diese Fragestellung insofern bestens, als sie das Modell des involvierten Lesers entwerfen, laufen sie doch auf die Forderung hinaus, sich in die Diegese des Textes zu begeben und sich mit der Textfigur zu identifizieren

Not Confined to the Village Clearings: Indian Women in the Fur Trade in Colonial New York, 1695-1732 (2008)

by Kees-Jan Waterman

Saudi imams warn against mixing of sports, politics and protest

by James M. Dorsey

By James M. Dorsey

Saudi and ultra-conservative imams have warned in separate statements against the mixing... more By James M. Dorsey

Saudi and ultra-conservative imams have warned in separate statements against the mixing of sports and politics and protests against autocratic regimes, which, according to some, results from of the mingling of the sexes in sports.

The warnings come against the backdrop of Saudi efforts to shield the Gulf from the wave of popular uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa, renewed focus on the role of militant soccer fans opposing military rule in Egypt and pressure on the kingdom to allow women to compete for the first time in an international tournament during the London Olympics.

Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh quoted in the kingdom's Al Watan newspaper warned that the protests that have already toppled the leaders of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen and brought Syria to the brink of civil war were sinful. "The schism, instability, the malfunctioning of security and the breakdown of unity that Islamic countries are facing these days is a result of the sins of the public and their transgressions," Sheikh Abdulaziz said.

Such sins include, according to Imam Abu Abdellah of As-Sunnah mosque in Kissimee, Florida, speaking in a video posted on the Internet, the mixing of the sexes at sports events. “In the past it was only men, now it is almost half half (in stadiums). Allah knows what happens afterwards. Either way it is bad. Either people go out, they are sensing and partying and drinking and all that, so that’s negative. And if they don’t, they go out and they demonstrate and they’re angry and they destroy property and they destroy cars and they destroy people’s business. Either way its haram (forbidden), things have to be done in moderation. These are the things that are associated with sports that the believers have to be careful with,” Abu Abedallah said.

“So there is nothing wrong with watching and practicing your favourite sport as long as you adhere to the norms. When it comes to the way you dress and the way you behave, where you’re going to be, what are you going to be listening to; are you going to be mingling in crowds you are not supposed to be mingling with? All of those things do matter when you are practicing or you are watching your favourite sport,” the imam said.

The clerics’ statements came as Saudi Arabia prepares for a summit of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in which it hopes to foist closer political and military cooperation on its largely reluctant co-members Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and the UAE. Bahrain, which last year brutally squashed with Saudi assistance an uprising against its minority Sunni Muslin rulers, is likely to be the only GCC state to fully endorse the notion of a political union.

The statements also come as International Olympics Committee president Jacques Rogge is under pressure to make good on his pledges earlier this year to stand for gender equality by banning Saudi Arabia from this year’s London Olympics if it fails to field women athletes. A Human Rights Watch report released in February, called on Saudi Arabia to protect women's equal right to sports and urged the IOC to live up to its charter, which prohibits discrimination, or face a ban similar to that imposed on Afghanistan in 1999 partly for its exclusion of female athletes.

With Qatar and Brunei expected to have women athletes for the first time this year in their delegations, Saudi Arabia would be the only country in the world that still refuses to allow women to compete. The kingdom has recently hinted that it would not stand against Saudi women living abroad competing, but would not field athletes from the kingdom itself.

In separate statements, two Saudi religious scholars admonished soccer players that bad behaviour could lead to a ban on public attendance of matches. It was not immediately clear what incidents of bad behaviour they were referring to.

Sheikh Abdullah bin Suleiman Al Manei, a member of the Gulf Kingdom’s supreme scholars committee and an advisor to King Abdullah warned that “the spread of such (bad) acts on play fields is a clear indicator of a decline in moral values and the transformation of sport from fair competition into bigotry. The continuation of these bad phenomena which pose a threat to the ethical values of our sons makes the attendance of these matches a hateful thing. This means that going to these matches could become prohibited because what is happening there has a strong negative impact on the society.”

In a statement of his own, Sheikh Abdullah Al Mutlaq, another member of the supreme committee, denounced players for allegedly faking incidents in a bid to get a referee to award a penalty in their team’s favour. “These are acts of deception, which is hated and forbidden in Islam…..the sin becomes worse when the player swears by Allah falsely…players should refrain from such wrong acts as they have become a bad example for the young generation,” Sheikh Al Mutlaq said without reference to specific incidents.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a consultant to geopolitical consulting firm Wikistrat.

Ritratto di una cortigiana del Cinquecento: Caterina de Medici da Verona e le sue vicende (1518-1582). In: Ritratti. La dimensione individuale nella storia (secc. XV- XIX), Hg. Seidel Menchi, S., Pierce, R. (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2008), 147-176.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Interacting with Images: Female Accomplishment, Fashionability and the Embellishment of Prints 1750-1820

by Serena Dyer

Dressing the Elite: Fashion, Intimacy and Business in Eighteenth-Century London and Yorkshire

by Serena Dyer

Between 1783 and 1785 Mrs Ann Charlton, a society milliner of Holles Street, London, kept up a regular and detailed... more Between 1783 and 1785 Mrs Ann Charlton, a society milliner of Holles Street, London, kept up a regular and detailed correspondence with her client, Lady Sabine Winn of Nostell Priory in Yorkshire. This abundant collection of both written passages and sumptuous fabric and ribbon samples, provides a unique and unprecedented insight into fashion dissemination amongst the provincial elite, the centrality of sociability and the season to the London fashion trade and the complex relationship between female client and supplier. The correspondence contains fashion news, pecuniary bargaining, offers of gifts, and discussion of personal health, combining intimate and personal details with the formalities of a professional relationship. These two vocabularies are continually at variance within the text of the letters, the consequence of a relationship which both transcends and abides by social boundaries. Neither friend nor servant, this singularly feminine association, maintained beyond Lady Sabine’s move north, demonstrates both the mercantile methodology of an eighteenth-century businesswoman and the continued reliance of the provincial elite on London traders. Mrs Charlton’s other clients included the infamous Countess of Strathmore, for whom she gave evidence at the trial of her husband. Her statement, which substantiated claims of domestic abuse, both physical and mental, as well as declaring the existence of unpaid bills, again merges the deeply personal with the pragmatism of business. The unrivalled depth of the previously untapped evidence provided by Mrs Ann Charlton facilitates a crucial step in developing our understanding of both women in business and networks of fashion consumption amongst the eighteenth-century elite.

הושע הפמיניסט

by Amir Ashur

Díaz-Andreu, M. and Sanz Gallego, N. 1994. Women Issues in Spanish Archaeology. In Nelson, M.C. et al. (eds.), Equity Issues for Women in Archaeology. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 5. Washington, American Anthropological Association: 121-130.

by Marga Díaz-Andreu

This article explores the role of women in Spanish archaeology. Three different perspectives have been chosen. First,... more This article explores the role of women in Spanish archaeology. Three different perspectives have been chosen. First, we analyze the professional situation of women, paying special attention to the question of when and how they began to work in archaeology. Second, we are concern with the attitudes of women in Spanish archaeology towards situations in which they had to compete with men, such as publishing and participation in conferences. Third, we consider interpretations of gender in the study of the past in relation to the historical context in which the research was carried out. Finally we discuss the role women have played in Spanish archaeology in light of these three perspectives.

Women and poverty in seventeenth-century Waterford

by Greg Fewer

Published in: Teachers' Union of Ireland/Aontas Múinteorí Éireann Congress Journal (2012), pp. 35-44.

NOTE: Due to considerations of space, the footnotes and one illustration were cut from the printed version of the article.

Hildegarda de Bingen (1098-1179). La necesidad de un lenguaje

by Josemi Lorenzo

published in "El Libro de la 50º Semana de Música Religiosa [5 artículos]” (2011), Cuenca, Fundación Patronato Semana de Música Religiosa de Cuenca, pp. 85-121.

La imperiosa necesidad de decir guió la larga e intensa vida de esta abadesa benedictina, conformando una de las... more La imperiosa necesidad de decir guió la larga e intensa vida de esta abadesa benedictina, conformando una de las autorías musicales más importantes de toda la Edad Media.Varias categorías guiarán el acercamiento a su figura en el plano musical: el monasterio como “comunidad de canto”; la búsqueda de un lenguaje que entroncase con el de Adán antes de la Caída; y la centralidad del cuerpo femenino, una somaticidad musical que se plasma en una sonoridad románica singular, que todavía hoy sorprende. En definitiva, una teología musical vertida en una obra insólita, que impugna la manera de pensar la propia historia de la música, así como el llamado “Renacimiento del siglo XII”, alumbrando puntos de fuga imprevisibles para la Historia de las mujeres.