Elizabeth (B.J.) Fernea has died. I never met her but we spoke on the phone a few times. Everybody who knew her or who studied under her spoke so highly of her. They all agreed that she was such a nice person. In my class on Gender and Sexuality in the Middle East, I always begin by dissecting her Guests of the Sheik, which is often used as an example of a cultural sensitive work of anthropology or ethnography. Personally, I think it was a horrible work with examples of cultural insensivity parading as cultural sensitivity. Worst, the book is quite sexist, and she has no feminist sensibilities what so ever: not about the natives and not about her own marriage as it is portrayed in the book. I once shared with her my critique of the book: and she got very defensive especially when I asked her whether she was aware how sexist her husband Bob comes across in the book. You see the book was about how this American couple can go and judge those Iraqi natives: but I asked the students to examine also (and judge) Bob and B.J. Fernea as they come across in the book. In fact, in her later book, the Arab World (which she wrote with her husband Bob Fernea) she tells the study about how she and Bob meet years later the Sheik's son in Texas, and how he told her that people in the village were also examining and judging them. He alos bluntly told Bob--as was told in the book--how sexist and disrespectful to his wife he was. Furthermore, B.J. did not know Arabic well in the book, and it was clear, and this explains so much about the miscommunication and misunderstandings in the book. Also, it was quite amazing how the couple in an Iraqi village thought that they could blend in when they A) affiliated themselves with the Sheik (of all the people in the village), B) when they acquired for themselves during their stay: 1) Muhammad the dishwasher and servent; 2) unnamed people who washed their clothes; 3) unnamed person who cleaned their bathrooms; 4) an armed guard; 5) a person who took care of the horse. And they had no kids mind you. This is Western anthropology at its worst. But I am sure that B.J. will be missed by those who knew her and loved her.