The massive urbanization process transforming the Arab world over the twentieth century has created pervasive problems of overcrowding, affordable housing, transportation, crime, and pollution. The implications of this swelling of cities for health and domestic space clearly oncern women. Yet the development of formal women's organizations addressing urban ills has been hampered by the non-participatory regimes governing much of the region. This is particularly true of Baʾthist Syria and Iraq, w…