Includes bibliographical references.

Growing up in Egypt at the Turn of the 20th Century -- The Mother of the Bride Frantically Prepares: Egyptian Wedding Customs -- I Want a Solution: Films and Social Change -- I Light Ten Candles: Women and Vow-Making -- "A New Vision of the Veil," / Iqbal Barraka -- "Women in the Discourse of Crisis," / Nasr Hamid Abu-Zeid -- Nabawiyya Musa and al-Tahir al-Haddad in a Virtual Debate / Anwar al-Guindi -- Al-Sitt Hoda: A Comedy in Defense of Women -- Modern-Day Shahrazads -- Ambiguity and Relevance in the Works of Khannatha Bannuna -- Images of Women in North African Literature: Myth or Reality? -- Masculine Ideology or Feminine Mystique: A Study of Writings on Arab Women -- Women, Love, and Sex in Yusuf Idris's City: An Existential Dilemma -- A Compromise on the Road to Happiness: Love in Naguib Mahfouz's Repetoire.

How are Arab women seen by others? How do Arab women see themselves? New York University professor Mona Mikhail's new collection of essays casts a wide net over literature, film, popular culture, and the law in order to investigate the living, often rapidly changing, reality of Arab women and their societies.