This October the Fourth International Congress on Islamic Feminism was held in Madrid, Spain.
The conference hosted over 1,500 globally represented attendees and lecturers who discussed topics on Islamic Feminism, including: problematics in defining Islamic Feminism, Qur’anic hermeneutics and feminist readings of the Qur’an, gender equality in the Middle East and Feminist Activism, and gender rights justice in the construction of male superiority over women in Islam.
One of the goals of these continued conferences is to validate Islamic Feminism as a growing phenomenon by providing a forum for intellectual discourse. Aiming to celebrate and support women’s rights groups and organizations around the world as they work toward reinterpreting scripture, giving women an educated voice and challenging patriarchal systems that use religion to subjugate women.
Two weeks after the conference closed, Saudi Arabia was voted onto the executive board of UN Women.
Saudi Arabia. Where women cannot drive it is illegal for women to drive, vote, or leave the house without a niqaab and where there is strong, enforceable social pressures to cover. Saudi Arabia. Where some women cannot visit a doctor, travel, go to university, work or leave their homes without the expressed consent of their male guardian. Saudi Arabia. Ranking 130th out of 134 countries for gender parity. Saudi Arabia. Where Saudi UN officials defend polygamy by saying it’s required to help satisfy the sexual urges of men. Saudi Arabia. Where there are no laws protecting against child marriage and where rape victims are routinely punished for being alone with a man and charged as adulterers. Saudi Arabia. Home to Islam’s most holiest sites, the birthplace of the Prophet, and the main source of petrol-funded, political Islam.
The Goals of the UN Entity on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women includes advancing global gender equality by helping inter-governmental bodies formulate global policies and standards and helping Member States implement these standards. The controversy over Saudi Arabia joining this executive board is clear: how on Earth does the UN expect to enforce these global standards on a Member State who clearly has a horrendous record of violating women’s rights, and who falls back on a politicized religious interpretation to bypass any Western global standard of equality? As activist and liberal Muslim Mona Eltahawy so aptly points out in her special to the Toronto Star:
In 2000, Saudi Arabia ratified an international bill of rights for women but stipulated that the country’s interpretation of Islamic law (Sharia) would prevail if there were conflicts with the bill’s provisions. So why sign in the first place? Especially as that interpretation is where so much discrimination against women originates — polygamy, half inheritance allotted to a man, little access to divorce and child marriage among them.
Talk about completely undermining the Islamic Feminist movement.
What many Islamic (and some Muslim) Feminists will argue is that the Qur’an and teachings of the Prophet are filled with proofs supporting women’s rights and social justice. The society that the Qur’an was revealed to regarded women as little less than chattel, and it was changes to this patriarchal system that the Prophet attempted to bring about.
The Qur’an prohibits violence toward women and expressively condemns female infanticide; it provides women with inheritance rights, the right to testify, to divorce, to own property and assets; and requires both women and men to equally fulfill religious duties. Historically, women were teachers of some of Islam’s most treasured male and female scholars, passed down prophetic traditions required in the formation of Islamic law, were key translators, led armies on the battlefield and ruled kingdoms. Women are afforded the right to be active participants in all aspects of religious and social spheres.
Part of the problem that we face today is in the interpretation of these sacred sources, and a complete revisionist history of women’s roles and rights in society. Islamist parties have interpreted the Qur’an and prophetic traditions according to their cultural worldview of women existing as second class citizens (or worse). This culture of female subjugation and constructed male authority has become so ingrained in people’s daily life and traditional expressions, that divine religious authority becomes conflated with the human constructed state. So speaking out against misogynist state policies is like speaking out against Islam.
According to Mona Eltahawy, the fact that Saudi Arabia has been voted onto the UN Women is less about truly effecting change in the country and more about the power of “generous contributions” and the benefits that “membership on a powerful agency” could one day bring the Kingdom. Like Eltahawy, I really can’t see how Saudi Arabia will do anything but rubber stamp and possibly gain a few extra points on the gender parity scale.
Some believe that their membership will put Saudi Arabia on the spot and that increased international attention will actually help women’s rights organizations gain more ground. I’m not holding my breath. While they won’t exactly have the power to shape global standards on women’s rights according to a politicized Islamic worldview, they will donate. And the money going to help promote women’s rights will come from one of the world’s worst offenders of these rights.
I really don’t know how to feel about that.
Unless of course, in some brilliant irony, the money coming from Saudi will go toward empowering Muslim women in their objective to reinterpret scripture, and God willing, help them challenge patriarchal systems that use religion to subjugate women.
Image Credit: Paul Schmid / The Seattle Times
Cross-posted at Womanist Musings.
November 21, 2010 at 9:48 am
Really? Many “Islamist” groups are lead by women and indeed get alot of female votes (much like women tend to vote Conservative more than men in the UK)
Saudi women are not allowed to drive; they also are not allowed to do housework as they invariably have a legion of foreign maids doing it for them and the percentage of Saudi women getting a University degree is very high. Because of oil wealth Saudi women lead a life millions of women (and men) around the world would envy. So the issue is more complex than the author makes out
November 21, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Well, let’s make this issue really complex.
I think you’ve read assumed gender into my analysis. I haven’t made the assertion this is an issue stemming only from male domination. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts on subjugation, women can absolutely aid in the construction of male authority, or in the abuse of other women. FGM comes to mind. It’s not Islamic, but Muslim populations practice it in the name of religion and domination of a female’s sexuality which is perpetrated by women as much as men.
That said, you cant ignore the political Islamic (Islamist) reality of the KSA, that the overwhelming majority of lawmakers, lawyers, scholars, teachers, and imams are men.
If you want to talk religio-political Islamist groups, I’d say that a few (not many) are led by women. Those that have sisters’ branches, like the Tablighi Jamaat for example, teach women that the best place for them is within the home, practicing purdah and discourage them going to the mosque based on a cultural standard of female participation. When we know that the religion does not forbid mosque participation or encourage seclusion. (But if women are happy participating in this and no one gets hurt, then more power to them.)
As for Saudi women’s participation and envious global model: Nationals make up what, 75% of the population? How many of those are among the truly wealthy elite? Don’t make the mistake of assuming that oil realities benefitting Riyadh, Mecca/Medinah, and Jeddah also wholly benefit the rest of the country. Poverty and unemployment certainly exists. And the realities for women in these areas are absolutely oppressive.
Now I can’t speak for the other millions of women and men who would love a comfortable lifestyle relying on a classist system of indentured servitude, sitting around the house unable to leave or see a show on my own, but I certainly don’t long for that lifestyle.
Granted, wealthy women get to go to university. And a percentage of them can own their own clothing line (specialty date and sweet stores, make up line, jewelry, real estate, etc), and maybe even become doctors, activists or teachers — but were not talking millions of women here. A mere handful is more like it. They still can’t vote (unless they become an American citizen while attending school in NYC), drive their own car, or be alone with their unmarried partner without getting into serious trouble if caught. In fact, some may be told who they can marry (choosing from among other Saudi nationals), and might get to share this husband with his other wives. And if they’re in the wrong family and are raped, they may be subjected to 100 lashes for committing adultery. Luckily there’s hymen reconstruction surgery for those who can afford it.
The KSA has some terrible human rights violations that cannot be explained away by the few women who enjoy special freedoms.
So yes, it is indeed more complex.
November 23, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Please note that I’ve altered parts of this post based on comments elsewhere that I’ve made unfair generalizations.
Thanks.