Arab Feminism

Arab people are identified as such by their language, geography (Arab countries include Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, the Palestinian Authority, Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Western Sahara, and Yemen), and/or cultural identity. The term feminist, for the purposes of this article, refers to women who do something to change expectations for women, their roles, and their responsibilities. A term connoting feminism first appeared in the Arab world in 1909 with the publication of Al-Nisaiyat, a book collection whose title signifies something by or about women. By the 1990s, niswiyya, an unequivocal word in Arabic for feminism, began to circulate.