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Social change doesn't happen in the Arab region through dramatic confrontation, beating, or indeed, baring of breasts, but rather through negotiation.

In the nineteenth century, in part because a ton of American men moved west, in part because of the Civil War, and in part because of trepidation about marriage, which was then a very confining institution, there was a big population of women - mostly middle-class white women on the East Coast - who didn't marry.

The 1890s was a decade when life began to change in urban America. Modern conveniences that we now take for granted came into use; women's roles became less restrictive; and San Francisco, a port city with influences from all over the world, was a lively place in which to reside.

There's a certain kind of behavior in the Arab world that, to me, resembles the way young men behave when there is no significant influence from women in their lives.

Arab civilizations had been of an abstract nature, moral and intellectual rather than applied; and their lack of public spirit made their excellent private qualities futile. They were fortunate in their epoch: Europe had fallen barbarous; and the memory of Greek and Latin learning was fading from men's minds.

I came from a traditional family, and it was an exciting but challenging transition to move to America and live on my own. The world around me was suddenly so different.

I grew up in a conservative household. That was the life of the time in Egypt: a conservative, middle-class household.

Arab society features apartheid of women, apartheid of homosexuals, and apartheid of Christians, Jews, and democracy.