How does the raging global debate on security in this insecure world affect the understanding and enhancement of the security of Arab women? This question remains largely unanswered and the relationship between gender and security analyses seems to be still a terra incognito.

Basically security is the empowerment to cope with threats. The focus of this inaugural paper is: a) the definition and application of the concept of security ; b) analysis of its transformation: from ‘national security’ to ‘human security’; c) the impact of such transformation on Arab women ; and d) after reviewing the symptoms and reaching a diagnosis , what is to be done ?

In both conventional analyses of International Relations and belief-systems of most policy-makers, security is ‘national’, i.e. the defense of the state’s territory against an external military threat in a world of anarchy. It is both highly state-centered (as the works of Hobbes or Ibn Khaldun show) and territorial or geopolitical (this paper's part I).

As a counterpart, the recent and widened concept of ‘human security’ is people-centered. In the globalization context, it aims to guarantee two freedoms: from want and from fear. Threats are no longer military but multiple (Parts II & III). Two diagrams and a comparative table clarify the differences between the two visions/conceptual lenses (10 more tables are added in the annexes). Despite the advantages of widening/deepening the security concept by ‘humanizing’ it, the paper still submits it to a thorough critical assessment. Bearing in mind the Arab context, three main drawbacks are emphasized: e.g. polarization between state-centered and people-centered security, an “either…or…” approach of overkill; political abuse of human security concept for “humanitarian intervention (e.g. a modern version of the white man’s behavior of the 19th century?)

But given the focus of our conference, attention is given to what we can call the concept’s “gender-blindness.” Inventory of three research enterprises on Arab women is succinctly content-analyzed, (Parts IV and V). While most of the findings of Arab and international research on women security emphasize the priority of health and/or education to women empowerment, this paper's trump card is given to the primacy of the political sphere. Data show flagrant Arab lag. Consequently, the paper’s Part VI aims to be more policy-oriented. It suggests seven areas of women empowerment to make the needed concept of human security both truly comprehensive and equally applicable.