Between the hammer of fundamentalism and the anvil of superficial orientalist theses, Arab women stand threatened. Therefore, their security – as we will show later – needs further strengthening of cultural foundations. Indeed, the firm establishment and integration of values of emancipation are, in our opinion, likely to constitute a safety valve for all movements for the advancement of women.

For that reason and so that we do not break with the accumulated pioneering experiences of the Arab world regarding women's emancipation, we will begin this paper with an analysis of the reformist progressive discourse in general, concerning its stance on the issue of women's liberation. This beginning is not meant to be an expression of gratitude to the symbols of women's emancipation –though gratefulness is an ethical and intellectual duty –but a way of appreciating the achievements of this thought, many of which have not been followed through and are still apt to constitute a cumulative basis especially as the subsequent successive theories have totally obliterated the reformist heritage. We will then proceed to explain the specificities of the orientalist discourse on women in the Arab-Islamic world, a discourse which has been adopted by many Arab women's movements. This discourse, however, has appeared to drift more than ever before from the supposed scientific sobriety, sometimes into a decadent and strained ideological discourse mobilized by a totally unscientific strategy which is based on interests: strategic and circumstantial political interests, hostile civilizational and religious interests, etc…Perhaps the writings of Edward Said to that effect are both profound and useful. We have tried as best we can to break up this discourse and to disprove its assertions or at least put them into perspective, first on the basis of the theoretical field of the discourse and, second, on the basis of the social realities of Arab women.

After reviewing different approaches ranging from Orientalism, to the Gender approach, we used anthropological and demographic data to demonstrate the extent to which we can speak of modernization of the Arab family; and how compared to Chinese and Indian societies, woman condition has improved. But while the status of women has markedly improved it still requires more than elites and feminist efforts to proceed ahead.

It is our proposition that the State should be regarded as the principal guarantor of women's security. It is our belief that the State is more prepared than any other social actor to protect women's security and to take women to the status of modernity. Indeed, current experiences have shown that failed States lead women to a condition in which they are the first "to foot the bill" for terrible downfalls. The political and social cost of such failures is always borne by women.