ABSTRACT
Western travellers were often shocked by the treatment of women in Near Eastern tribal societies. Burckhardt (1830: 199) is very clear about how, in his opinion, Bedouin and Arab tribes viewed the “weaker sex”:
Buckingham, too, pitied the women:
Although fewer woman travelled in the region than men, they were by no means an exception. However, most women travelled in company, and on short holiday journeys, so that they rarely had a chance to become acquainted with local society. eir encounters with local women could be interesting, particularly because it was a territory not accessible to most male travellers; but most women travellers did not speak the language and therefore their observations remain supercial.2 Exceptions, such as Hester Stanhope and Gertrude Bell, were as dismissive of the local women as were the men.
