ABSTRACT
One of the topics of greatest interest to our students about the Middle East is the status and life experience of women. If there is anything that our students know from the mass media about contemporary culture in the Middle East it is that, in the Middle East women are oppressed. Islam condemns women to a subordinate role. Women must wear veils, headscarves (hijab), and full coverings (chador). They are forced to marry against their will. They are dominated by men, who are allowed to marry more than one wife. In some countries women can’t drive cars or even leave their homes. Some are subject to barbarous acts of female circumcision and others, still worse, to “honor killings” by their own family members.
