About this item
Over the centuries and throughout the world, women have struggled for equality and basic rights. Their challenge in the Middle East has been intensified by the rise of a political Islam that too often condemns women's empowerment as Western cultural imperialism or, worse, anti-Islamic. In Paradise Beneath Her Feet, Isobel Coleman shows how Muslim women and men are fighting back with progressive interpretations of Islam to support women's rights in a growing movement of Islamic feminism. In this timely book, Coleman journeys through the strategic crescent of the greater Middle East - Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan - to reveal how activists are working within the tenets of Islam to create economic, political, and educational opportunities for women.
About the Author
Isobel Coleman is Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, where she focuses on the Middle East and South Asia. She also directs the Council's Civil Society, Markets and Democracy Program. Her areas of expertise include democratization, economic development, gender issues, educational reform, and the political economy of the Middle East. She is the author and co-author of numerous publications, including Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East (Random House, 2010), Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President (Brookings Institution Press, 2008) and Strategic Foreign Assistance: Civil Society in International Security (Hoover Press, 2006). Her writings have also appeared in publications such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor, and regularly in online venues such as CNN.com and TheAtlantic.com. She is the author of the blog "Democracy in Development," and is a frequent speaker at academic, business, and policy conferences. In 2011, Newsweek named her one of the "150 Women Who Shake the World."Prior to joining the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. Coleman was CEO of a healthcare services company and a partner with McKinsey & Co. in New York. A Marshall Scholar, she holds a DPhil and MPhil in international relations from Oxford University and a BA in public policy and East Asian studies from Princeton University. She serves on several non-profit boards, including Plan USA and Student Sponsor Partners, and lives in the New York area with her husband and children. You can follow her on Twitter @Isobel_Coleman.
