DIANE SINGERMAN is Associate Professor in the Department of Government, School of Public Affairs, at the American University. She is the author of Avenues of Participation: Families, Politics, and Networks in Urban Quarters of Cairo. HOMA HOODFAR is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal. She has carried out research on the impact of development and social change on the lives of Muslim women in Cairo, Teheran, and Montreal.