The Veil and the Male Elite by Fatema Mernissi

The controversial aspect of her work derives both from a deep critique of received ideas and a polemical approach in her assessment that outrages the more conservative elements in society and even perturbs numerous relatively moderate academics. Mernissi is deliberately provocative in the hope of effecting social change. Since 1973, she has published numerous books in French, English, and Arabic on women in the Islamic world. As of 2007, she was a professor there in the Depart-ment of Sociology. in sociology (1973) with a thesis titled 'Effects of Modernization on the Male-Female Dynamics in a Muslim Society.' After her dissertation, Mernissi joined the faculty at the University of Rabat, and in 1980 began teaching at Muhammad V University in Rabat. She went on a fellowship to France to study at the Sorbonne but soon moved on to Brandeis University in the United States, where she received a Ph.D. She studied at length in Qur'anic schools as well as at state schools and received a bachelor's degree in political science from Muhammad V University in Rabat. Mernissi was born in 1940 in Fez, Morocco. She has gained prominence in part by critiquing key concepts, such as the veil and the seclusion of women from public space and participation in the public sphere, which conservative elements in many Islamic societies consider fundamental to Islamic morality. Mernissi has focused her career on expanding the ideas and general topics broached first in her dissertation. Fatima Mernissi is a world-renowned Moroccan sociologist who has written numerous books on the misogynistic way women are viewed in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The Veil and the Male Elite by Fatema Mernissi