ABSTRACT
This chapter examines two cases, Turkey and Iran, in which Western example hit home early but in which reactions ultimately differed profoundly. Contact with the West helped promote changes in the conditions of Turkish women, though the results were uneven. The Turkish part of the Ottoman Empire was crisscrossed by Western contacts. Iran entertained some of the same kinds of commercial contacts with the West as the Ottoman Empire indeed, the government welcome foreign investment but the cultural interaction was less intense. Educated urban women retained close economic and cultural ties with their Western counterparts. Western cultural models were fundamental both to major changes in gender relations in the Middle East-in education, law and dressand to major statements of resistance. Gender issues receded, public violence against women probably increased. The results of the Arab Spring remain inconclusive, on the whole the movement reflected continued tension and debate, and sometimes real bitterness, over gender issues and the relevance of "international" standards.
