“Women-managed businesses are witnessing growing acceptance in Arab societies. Religiously, Arab women have a powerful role model in Prophet Mohammad‟s first wife Khadija, who was a successful trader and businesswoman. A study by the Syria Trust for Development in 2010 revealed that forty percent of men and eighty percent of women held positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship as a career option for women. Around 65 percent of female owned firms were actively managed by the female owner in Syria. Female entrepreneurship is also gathering support at the ministerial level in governments.

“During the recent uprising in Egypt, the city of Alexandria witnessed fierce violence including the burning down of the provincial government building and state security headquarters. However a rare point of agreement between anti-regime protestors and the government security apparatus was to protect the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA). The images of a human barricade shielding the BA during the protests highlight the importance of this institution.

Growing religious fundamentalism in Southeast Asia is pushing women further into traditional roles. According to Noviscape, "among Muslim communities in Southeast Asia, there has been a rise in conservative Islamic forces, delimiting women’s freedom by reinscribing a strict dress code, prohibiting conversion, and placing restrictions around marriage across religious groups."

"In Indonesia and Malaysia, limits have been placed on movement of women through legislation. The influence of religion on government policy, particularly on sexual rights, has also been strong."

Governments in some countries in Asia are turning to immigrant labor to meet the needs of their aging populations. According to Noviscape, traditionally, migrant labor in the region was predominantly male, "the supply has increased due to farm mechanization and the lack of available jobs in their home countries. As a result, large numbers of young rural women have been forced out of their home villages to take unskilled or low-skilled work in cities in their own countries, or overseas."

"In Jordan, Bedouin women are consulting doctors via mobile phones. These women are not culturally empowered to seek help without their husband‟s permission. Therefore, mobile phone has provided them access, although limited, to health care."

Implications from SFG:

The latest census data shows that Indians are aborting more female fetuses now than at any other time in India’s history. According to the data, there are now 914 girls for every 1,000 boys under the age of six. Female feticide is not isolated to the poorer classes. Factors for this trend in feticide can be attributed to easier access to ultrasound technology, as well as the reluctance of India’s growing middle class to pay dowries. “…As a family gets wealthier, it is unwilling to part with a share of its property to its daughters,” says Dr.

"The Government of Pakistan is committed to empowering women in conservative tribal areas of the country with cash welfare payments that can only be accessed by the female head of household. The government is earmarking US$750m to provide women with allowances for food, health and training. Eligible women will receive a monthly payment of about US$12 per month. “This is the first time that there’s been the creation of a social net for women and, in particular, women that live below the poverty line,” says Dr. Samina Ahmed of the International Crisis Group in Islamabad."

“…cultural norms that in part prohibit women from seeing male doctors and many prefer herbalists and practitioners of traditional medicine.

A shortage of skilled reproductive health specialists in Africa is leading to serious geographic health gaps and desperate (and potentially unsafe) health practices.

The South Africa Node writes,

New health marketing techniques directly tailored to the social environments of their beneficiaries helps spread sex education in Zimbabwe.

The South Africa Node writes,