Cbrl Sound

Based on personal narratives of women activists of different generations in Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan, this lecture explores the history of women’s activism in the Arab world from the 1950s onwards. It demonstrates the ways in which this activism has changed over time and what this tells us about the gendered dimensions of geopolitics in the region. The lecture highlights the significance of women’s activism and women’s rights within radical political projects that resisted Western influence from the 1950s until the 1970s and the gendered consequences of the defeat of radical popular movements by the West and its local allies. The lecture argues that the demise of radical, secular movements has led to a decoupling of secular women’s rights agendas from local popular projects, paving the way for their cooption and instrumentalization by authoritarian regimes and international actors and undermining the credibility of secular women’s rights agendas. Nicola Pratt is Reader in the Politics and International Stud