Book Launch: COVID and Gender in the Middle East & North Africa

The Wilson Center’s Middle East Program is pleased to host the book launch of COVID and Gender in the Middle East. Edited by feminist and scholar Rita Stephan, this book includes a compilation of articles from MENA scholars, activists, and policy experts. The book zooms into the COVID-19 pandemic in MENA and its impact on the region’s economy, security, and human rights through a gendered lens. 

The book examines a range of national and localized responses to gender-specific issues around COVID’s health impact and the economic fallout and resulting social vulnerabilities, including the magnified marginalization of Syrian refugees, the inequitable treatment of migrant workers in Bahrain, and the inadequate implementation of gender-based violence legislation in Morocco, as well as whether masculinity in MENA impacted mask wearing.

Join us to hear from the editor Rita Stephan as well as a group of authors who have contributed to this groundbreaking body of work.

SPEAKERS

Dr. Lina AbiRafeh

Executive Director, Arab Institute for Women at the Lebanese American University

Valentine M. Moghadam

Former Fellow;
Professor of Sociology and International Affairs, Northeastern University

Rita Stephan

Division Chief of Continuing Education Training, U.S. Department of State; Former Regional Coordinator, Middle East Bureau, USAID; Visiting Researcher, North Carolina State University 

Mounira Charrad

Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas, Austin and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Baker Institute, Rice University

INTRODUCTION

Haleh Esfandiari

Distinguished Fellow; Director Emerita, Middle East Program 

MODERATOR

Merissa Khurma

Program Director, Middle East Program