Women and Social Change in Bahrain

The number of studies on the status of women and their changing condition in recent times has increased internationally in the past decade, and this is bound to make the development of a comprehensive theoretical methodological framework for the study of women in particular regions or socioeconomic structures easier. In the Arab world, especially the oil-dependent Arabian Gulf states, a concern with the mechanisms of the socioeconomic and political structure of society and the dynamics of its rapid changes has also grown tremendously. A large number of scholars have provided field and theoretical studies on social change and development and its manifestations in the fields of women's studies, labor, education, and industrialization, among others. From this relatively large body of literature, most of it in Arabic, some consensus seems to have emerged. Since research is being done in all regions of the Arab world, from the Maghrib to the Gulf, both the heterogeneity of Arab society and some common denominators have emerged from it.