The twentieth century witnessed major eco-
nomic, political, and social transformations in the
Middle East. The formation of new nation-states,
policies of radical nationalism, homogenization,
and centralization in Arab countries, Turkey, and
Iran as well as more recently Islamist movements
and governments such as that of Iran, political
instability, civil wars, and so forth, had and con-
tinue to have special implications for women. This
is especially true but not exclusively so in regard to
the reforms and policies that directly targeted
women’s status and roles in society. It is very likely
that such transformations also affected Armenian
women; however, with the lack of primary and sec-
ondary literature on the impact of such changes on
minority women, in particular Armenian women, it
is at this point in the history of the field difficult to
draw conclusions and provide a cogent analysis.
This dearth and the significance of the impact of
twentieth-century developments does, however,
point to great possibilities in terms of future direc-
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