In August 2001, a conference on the state of Middle East women's studies took place at the Rockefeller Foundation Center in Bellagio, Italy. Apart from the gorgeous surroundings, the conference was memorable for the breadth and scope of the high-quality papers presented by scholars teaching in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Many participants were active in the Association for Middle East Women's Studies. Some went on to establish the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, Hawwa, and Brill's women and Islam monograph series. Most of us also publish in disciplinary journals and present papers at a variety of conferences.

The field has blossomed since its beginnings in the 1970s, with the pioneering works of Fatima Mernissi, Nawal Saadawi, and Nikki Keddie. It has made a mark on the broader field of gender and women's studies and has shaped feminist scholarship as well as perceptions of gender and of the Middle East in specific disciplines (e.g., anthropology, history, literature, political science, and sociology). Possibly the greatest impact is seen within the interdisciplinary field of women's studies, especially in North America and Britain.

Transformations within women's studies programs and departments as a result of Middle East feminist scholarship are highly visible. Across the United States, for example, curricular offerings typically include courses or readings on the Middle East, and introductions to the region's rich literary works are now a staple of women's studies. Departments granting PhDs in gender and women's studies—for example, at Emory University or Ohio State University—include the works of Middle East scholars in their curricular offerings. It helps, of course, that a not insignificant number of Middle East scholars direct or have appointments within women's studies programs and departments. This is bound to influence the generation of young scholars currently making their way through women's studies as well as the traditional disciplines.

In considering how Middle East scholars have made a difference in the broader study of women and gender, I should note that my view is colored by my location in sociology, albeit with knowledge and participation in some of the other social science disciplines. It seems to me that the most significant contributions relate to the following conceptual issues:

• • the state, including nation-state and identity formation, revolutions, women and development, and gender policies;

• • the family, including cultural representations, symbols and meanings, demographic transitions, and family law; and

• • intersectionality and complexity, including the nexus of gender, class, ethnicity, age, and religion; the structure–agency dialectic; and the influence of history.

Space considerations prevent me from elaborating, and in the interest of impartiality I will refrain from naming scholars and studies. Instead I offer some summary statements.

On the first set of issues, the centrality of the state in the Middle East has been the subject of many studies. Scholars have theorized and described connections among women, the nation-state, and modernity in Egypt, Iran, the Maghrib, and Turkey, with outstanding results. Feminist research on development—with its focus on the link between the oil economy and female employment—has provided a corrective to broader claims that Third World industrialization has been as much female led as export led. Feminist research on the Iranian Revolution has resonated widely outside of Iranian studies and Middle East studies, with the result that no one can think of the Iranian Revolution—or indeed any revolution—without considering its gender dynamics.

Research on family law has been quite influential. Family law is often seen as a reflection of a country's culture, as much a cultural institution as a legal norm. However, it is also an element of public policy, of the state's gender policy, and of legal, policy, and regulatory frameworks. Moreover, the study of family law is intimately connected with the study of citizenship and human rights. Law is an institution that reflects—and reinforces—gender ideology and women's status. As such, research on Middle East family laws has been of interest to legal scholars, sociologists, and political scientists working in such areas as critical legal studies, gendered social policy, women's human rights, and political culture. Even if these scholars do not always incorporate Middle East findings into their own research, they tend to invite Middle East scholars of women and gender to participate in conferences, edited volumes, or anthologies.

Through a diversity of disciplinary approaches, feminist scholars of the Middle East have underscored the complexity of women's lives and the differentiation within the region. In addition to having had a corrective effect on stereotypes in the academy, this emphasis on complexity has influenced the feminist triad of “race, class, and gender.” However, here the effects have not been entirely satisfactory. In some contexts—such as within postcolonialist and postmodernist frameworks—the complexity of women's lives has been translated into a conceptualization of “agency” as almost any action or behavior of an individual woman. The projective, future-oriented nature of agency, as well as its collective dimension, is muted, if not studiously ignored, in such analyses. (The emerging literature on women's movements and feminist organizations in the Middle East and North Africa exemplifies an alternative approach to agency.) Nonetheless, by drawing attention to the diversity of social location, consciousness, and action, Middle East scholars of women and gender have contributed to broader feminist inquiries into the intersections of gender with other social fault lines, and into the capacity of women in general, and Middle Eastern women in particular, to take action within structures of constraint by “bargaining with patriarchy.”

Until recently, the study of the Middle East was marginal to the social sciences. Attention has picked up partly because of 9/11 but mainly, in my view, because globalization has forced changes in disciplinary frameworks and foci. The region is rich terrain for testing and refining many theories and for elaborating the gender dynamics of nationalism, religious politics, citizenship, law reform, cultural expressions, and social movements. We can do a better job of informing gender analysis in those areas and in international relations. More could be done to contribute to the analysis of conflicts and wars—not in short supply in our region—by showing how gender ideologies, masculinities, state interests, and world-systemic factors intersect in the emergence or perpetuation of conflicts. Likewise, we have a potentially significant role to play in analyzing gender and democratization, including the role of women in the region's democratic transitions. Also needed are more feminist economists with expertise in the Middle East and North Africa who can contribute to the growing literature on gender and globalization (including trade, foreign direct investment, and migration), as well as to regional policy debates.

All of which can be the basis of another marvelous conference at Bellagio.