The protests and upheavals that erupted in the Arab world since 2010 were the starting point in 2019 to look at issues of gender in political and social crises. Since the beginning of 2020, gender imbalances are criss-crossing the global coronavirus crisis, imbalances that turn against wo*men and their role in contemporary societies. This goes for Europe as well as the Middle East and North and South America.

The articles in the 14th issue of the journal Middle East – Topics & Arguments (META) deal with how gender and gender relations are affected in times of crisis and upheaval. They bring to the fore a series of patterns that seem to occur in such times, namely: the strengthening of and the return to a conservative and highly essentialist understanding of family, accompanied by stable delineations of masculinity and femininity; the negotiation of uncertainty about the female body; and the high relevance of intersectional expulsions.