Women in Lebanon: Living with Christianity, Islam, and Multiculturalism

Combining insider and outsider perspectives, Women in Lebanon looks at Christian and Muslim women living together in a multicultural society and facing modernity. While the Arab Spring has begun to draw attention to issues of change, modernity, and women's subjectivity, this manuscript takes a unique approach to examining and describing the Lebanese "alternative modernities" thesis and how it has shaped thinking about the meaning of terms like evolution, progress, development, history, and politics in contemporary Arab thought. The author draws on extensive ethnographic research, as well as her own personal experience.

Marie-Claude Thomas is a visiting professor of Arabic at Oberlin College, where she teaches courses on women and gender in the Modern Arab World and Arabic language and culture. She holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Paris I, Panthéon, Sorbonne.

PART I: SAGHBINE, A CHRISTIAN VILLAGE: WOMEN, RELIGION, AND SOCIETY

Geography and Religious Spaces

The Childhood and Adolescence of Young Girls

Marriage and the Condition of Married Women

Adulthood, Married Life, and Women's Work

Interview - Christian Discourse

PART II: MUSLIM LEBANESE WOMEN AND AN ISLAMIC MODERNITY

Islam in Lebanon: An Overview

Struggle in Modern Islam, Women in Tradition, and the Discourse of the Veil

Veiling and Divergent Feminism Voices

Personal Status Laws in Islam, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah's Tafsir, and Hizbullah Lebanese Women

Interview - Individual and Communal Perspectives: Muslim Discourse

PART III: TRANSFORMATION WITHIN A MULTICULTURAL LEBANON

Modernity, Multiculturalism, and Lebanese Women

Christian-Muslim Relations, Women and Religion

Lebanese Women in all their Diversity: Convergence and divergence

En Route Toward a More Inclusive Civil Society

Conclusion