Isobel Coleman shows how Muslim women and men are fighting back with progressive interpretations of Islam to support women's rights in a growing movement of Islamic feminism.

It is time for multinational corporations to come to the same realization -- funding education and training female business leaders is good for business.

It is time for multinational corporations to come to the same realization -- funding education and training female business leaders is good for business.

Efforts to provide the world's women with economic and political power are more than just a worthy moral crusade: they represent perhaps the best strategy for pursuing development and stability across the globe.

This module features teaching notes by CFR Senior Fellow Isobel Coleman, author of Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women Are Transforming the Middle East, along with other resources to supplement the text. Dr. Coleman demonstrates how influential Islamic feminist thinkers are driving social change in the Middle East to create economic, political, and educational opportunities for women.

Isobel Coleman writes that while it is widely recognized that food and fuel subsidies in Egypt are expensive and inefficient, Egyptian leaders do not want to touch the political third rail of subsidy reform. But they also realize that the country's fiscal situation is untenable without it. Sooner or later, serious subsidy reform is inevitable, and a well-planned process is preferable to the alternative.

In response to systemic sexual assaults on women in Egypt, activists have initiated well-organized campaigns to protect women's right to participate in the political sphere and to move in public spaces without fear for their personal safety. Isobel Coleman warns that politically motivated violence against women has still not crested.

Isobel Coleman writes that increasingly, women's rights activists in some of the most religiously conservative communities recognize that they ignore religion at their peril and that they are using religious arguments to generate support – among men and women – for an expansion of female educational, social, economic, and political opportunities.

Isobel Coleman says that while President Obama's State of the Union address focused on domestic policies, unpredictable events in the rest of the world are unlikely to allow his second administration to stay above the fray in its foreign policy.

Women in the Arab world have certainly played a prominent role in their countries' transition, writes Isobel Coleman, but cannot take for granted that their activism will translate into political influence or legal gains in the emerging systems.

Isobel Coleman writes about the mixed record that quotas for women's political participation in the Middle East have had, but notes that at least quotas ensure that women's perspectives are represented in government.

Isobel Coleman argues that the rise of Islamist groups in North Africa may threaten women's rights, but women's participation in the economy and in political movements has set them down a path that will be difficult to reverse.

Isobel Coleman and Ashley Harden discuss the impact of mobile telecommunications technology on the developing world and its access to financial services.

Isobel Coleman discusses the role of women in the Arab Spring.

Isobel Coleman and Gayle Tzemach Lemmon argue that U.S. investments in midwifery programs in Afghanistan promote sustainable development in Afghanistan and allow the United States to keep its promise to bring a responsible end of the war.

Isobel Coleman explains how to tap into the burgeoning power of women in the global marketplace.

Isobel Coleman discusses an emerging movement of Islamic feminism.

Isobel Coleman discusses her visit to Rwanda, and the prospects for democracy in the nation.

Isobel Coleman reviews Yemen by Victoria Clark and I Am Nujood, Aged 10 and Divorced by Nujood Ali.