In 1985, as AMEWS was formed, Suad Joseph was elected the first president, and Kathleen Howard Meriam the Treasurer (1985-1987). The newsletter (AMEWS NEWS) was founded with editors Margot Badran, Susan Schaefer Davis, Margaret Mills, Valentine Moghadam, Lucie Wood Saunders, and Annabelle Sreberny- Mohammadi. AMEWS established regional representatives to hold regional meetings and report regional news to the newsletter: Diane Tehrani, Northwest; Susan Schaefer Davis, Philadelphia; Aida Aamia, Southeast; Elizabeth Fernea, Southwest; Judith Tucker, Washington, DC; Mine Cinar Chicago and Midwest; Valentine Moghadam, New York; miriam cook, South; Leila Ahmed, Boston. Volume I ofAMEWS News had five issues from June 1986 to October 1987.
The newsletter evolved into a more literary publication under the leadership of Eleanor Dumato and later Jennifer Olmsted, leading to the founding (under the leadership of miriam cooke, Suad Joseph, and Sondra Hale) of the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies in 2005, first published by Indiana University Press 2005-2013, then by Duke University Press since 2014.
AMEWS has met in conjunction with the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) annual meeting, organizing panels and an annual dinner or reception. Since 2020, AMEWS has developed a collaboration with the Arab American Studies Association, the Association for Middle East Anthropology, and the Association for Middle East Children and Youth Studies to co-sponsor a reception at the annual MESA meeting. AMEWS established a number of member-run committees, including the Program Committee in 1985, the Graduate Student Committee in 2015, the Human Rights Task Force and the Palestine Committee in 2023. The Mentorship Committee, established in 2020 as part of the Graduate Student Committee, was launched as a separate committee in 2025. AMEWS has organized two conferences on women’s studies—one at Duke University in 2008 (organized by miriam cooke) and another in Beirut, Lebanon in 2022, jointly co-sponsored by the American University of Beirut and the Lebanese American University. Louise Cainkar led the work to formally establish AMEWS as a non-profit 5013c in 2023.
