ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book demonstrates that more attention needs to be paid to the harms caused by family laws that leave women disempowered and vulnerable. It explores the question about how women, especially women in Muslim-majority societies, are faring in the life-determining intersection of culture and law at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The book discusses what factors in culture and law, especially gendered legislation, both religious and secular, have moved one forward and which ones have kept him/her back; and what women can/should do–strive to do–to bring about positive change. It reviews that politicization of religion, whether by those with some level of commitment to a faith such as in Turkey and Iran, or by leaders who have shown no such commitment, is a common route to the reversal of rights for women.
