pecially Suad Joseph, Mervat Hatem, Judith Tucker, Julie Peteet, Mary
Hegland, Erika Friedl, and Leila Ahmed), Feminist Focus on Middle East
and Africa (among them Nancy Gallagher, Sherna Gluck, Sherifa Zuhur,
Sherry Vatter, Nayereh Tohidi, Tsion Gad, Cheryl Dandridge-Perry, Am-
ina Adan, Pat Kabra, Monhla Hlahla, and Soraya Altorki), UCLA's Inter-
national Gender Study Group (among them Nikki Keddie, Ned Alpers,
Jasamin Rostam, Lloys Frates, Christine Ahmed, and Sandy de Grijs), and
the Center for the Pacific-Asian Family (especially Linda Ikeda-Vogel), to
name only a few. Valentine Moghadam, whose work has been important
to my own, invited me to Helsinki for a breakthrough workshop on iden-
tity politics and women that resulted in a provocative volume.

For support networks, in addition to the above I want to acknowledge
Emily Abel, Sharon Bays, Carole Browner, Sandra Harding, Katherine
King, Valerie Matsumoto, Karen Sacks, and Miriam Silverberg--my
UCLA family--which also includes a group of very smart and creative
graduates and undergraduates in Middle Eastern/African and women's
studies.

The recognition of my intellectual and political indebtedness to my
two teachers, Hilda Kuper and Leo Kuper, now deceased, would fill a
separate volume. I remember them often in my daily life and in my work,
as I do my late close friend, Linda Hackel.

The manuscript itself benefited from very close readings by Sherna
Gluck, Ellen Gruenbaum, and Victoria Bernal. Sherna's feminist insights
combined with her knowledge of women's resistance movements in-
formed this book, as did Ellen and Victoria's knowledge of Sudanese
women's studies. My dear friend, Mary Beth Welch, read an early draft
and made many useful suggestions, and Sandy de Grijs assembled the
bibliography. Ed Corey was the final copy editor and helped beyond my
expectations to raise the level of the work. I am deeply indebted to him
and to Alison Hamilton, who worked with us. The very patient Westview
Senior Editor Barbara Ellington took an early interest in the manuscript,
and guided me through the publishing process. As usual I am indebted to
Gerry Hale, this time for suggestions on chapter 5 and for helping me sur-
mount a "writer's block," and to Mohamed Omer Bushara, one of my
longtime collaborators, for the cover artwork.

Like all extensive research agendas, this one was funded by a number
of different agencies and units, and I thank all of them for their support:
Fulbright-Hays, American Research Center in Egypt, The American As-
sociation for University Women, the National Endowment for the Hu-
manities, California State University, Northridge, UCLA Center for the
Study of Women, the Gustave E. von Grunebaum Center for Near East-
ern Studies, and the James S. Coleman African Studies Center.

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