February 23, 2026Program, PublicationsFellowship Alumna Publishes UN Women Discussion Paper on Gender Norms and Muslim Family Laws
Egyptian scholar and activist Dr. Marwa Sharafeldin, an alumna of the Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World Visiting Fellowship, has published a new discussion paper entitled How Does Change Happen? Social Norms, Religion and Muslim Family Laws in the Middle East and North Africa Region. The paper was written during her Fellowship at the Program and formed a central component of her research in residence.
Part of the UN Women Discussion Paper Series, the publication offers a socio-legal analysis of how discriminatory gender norms are produced, institutionalized, and contested across the Middle East and North Africa. Bridging feminist theory, the study of religion, and legal analysis, it advances a “multi-layered institutional approach” to understanding how gender norms operate at the intersection of religious discourse, legal frameworks, state power, and lived realities. The paper examines how patriarchal interpretations of Islamic law gain authority, while also highlighting reformist readings and activist strategies that engage religious knowledge, legal reform processes, and courts to advance gender equality.
In February 2025, Dr. Sharafeldin was invited by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee) to present the paper during its general discussion on its proposed General Recommendation 41 with respect to gender stereotypes.
Dr. Marwa Sharafeldin holds a PhD in law from the University of Oxford and is the senior technical advisor and MENA region expert at Musawah.