Victims and Heroines

"Poverty and inequality are on the increase in developing countries like Egypt struggling with economic stabilization. But though the poor are the victims of almost all governments carrying out liberalization, women suffer in particular. In this book Iman Bibars looks at women in charge of female-headed households, now comprising 15 to 30 per cent of urban Egyptian families. She investigates how these women cope with poverty and seek to extract benefits from both state agencies and religious welfare organizations. She finds that women forced by circumstance to head their own households encounter a serious gender bias." "Giving insight into the gendered nature of the state and the consequent effects on service delivery, Victims and Heroines shows women's responses to an oppressive system and their strategies for changing their subordination to men."--BOOK JACKET.