Gendering the millennium: globalising women

Overview

As the century has just changed for the Western calendar it should be borne in mind that for a vast part of the world the centuries are rolling at a different time and under different conditions. So, although we live and trade in a ‘global village’ we are yet divided by time, space, and ideologies. The hope is that the twenty-first century will enable us to have a closer look at each other and that the global networks, the Websites, and the electronic mailing systems, will work as a bridge rather than as a new means of widening the gaps. This article is a plea for a better understanding of the different priorities and views that Islamist women have of themselves, of their place in history, and what it is that they need to fight for. It is also a call for the universality of sisterhood and a wish that the solidarity that was forged in the latter part of the twentieth century will not be fragmented into smithereens in the new millennium.