|
Some Western feminists are increasingly looking at issues that
do not directly involve them, such as the place and role of women in Islam. For some
time now the applicability of some aspects of Western feminism
has been in question.
The modern feminist movement had its roots in England in the
second half of the 19th century. It was promoted by women who
sought property rights denied them under British law. Even after
the British Parliament approved the first Married Women's Property
Act in 1882, women continued to be denied property in their own
right, independent of their husband's -a right that was granted
Muslim women in the 7th century, in the time of the Prophet Muhammad.
Western feminism was conceived from the outset by middle-class
white women who have tended
to judge other cultures in a critical way. Today it is recognized
within the feminist academy that, in many cases, their efforts
to liberate their peers in the Third World have been marked by
classist and ethnocentric prejudices. They also recognize that
their standards for judging the rest of the world have ignored
their own status and position of privilege as citizens of countries
that were colonizing states (or
which today are neo-colonialist).
As a counterweight, there are many female academics of the South,
including Muslim women, who emphasize that the Northern feminists'
critical perspective of patriarchy in the non-industrialized
world often lacks contextualization. In the specific case of
Islam, Muslim women
academics say that the lens through which Westerners see them
is colored by androcentric, ethnocentric and colonialist preconceptions,
and also by the West's exoticization of Islam in general. In
his book Orientalism, Palestinian academic Edward
Said
explains that this perspective denies Islam its historic reality,
that it is perceived in the light of a past of splendor and a
present that is invariably disappointing with respect to that
history.
The
battle over interpretation
In
addition, Western feminists sometimes do not appear to perceive
the existence of discourses within each culture that fall into
socially constructed categories of man and woman and the status of
women. These discourses are usually controlled by men or favor
men. In the particular case of the ideological and activist struggle
of women within the Muslim world, one discourse includes the
interpretations of the Qur'an. A large part of the oppression
of Muslim women is not the fault of the writings of the Qur'an,
but of its interpretation. Because this sacred text also serves
as a normative guide in the social and political spheres, it
has been the ulemas (scholars
of the Qur'an),
over the centuries, who have jealously guarded its interpretation.
They
have imposed social norms that are not necessarily in keeping
with what the Prophet said. Taking Muhammad's words that the
pursuit of knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim, male or
female, Muslim women activists have made the sacred book a battlefield,
claiming an interpretation of the text that favors the liberation
of women. They
have recalled the heroines named in the Qur'an, beginning
with the wives and daughter of Muhammad, some of whom
participated in battles and even led armies. They also point
out that Qur'anic prescriptions are not limited to men; already
in Muhammed's era women participated in the spheres of knowledge
and education.
Many female Muslim academics have reacted to certain interpretations
that they believe are too orthodox as examples of how the discourse
is manipulated by men. These women cite the standard claims that
the Prophet, by recognizing women's rights previously denied
them (such
as the right to property and the power to dissolve the marriage
through Khula' - that is, by giving up some of her property to
her husband)
had completed the women's revolution in the 7th century. As a
result some Muslim leaders believe that there is no need today
to advocate new rights for women. Although many women agree that
the Qur'an brought with it certain reforms, like the prohibition
of infanticide, the payment
of a dowry to the bride, female inheritance and women's property
rights, nonetheless they point out that the Qur'an upholds
divorce as an exclusively male prerogative. One reason for this
is that the institution of Khula' -besides forcing women to give
up property- specifies that a wife must dislike her husband enough
to deny him conjugal rights which is virtually impossible for
her to do.
Writer Leila Ahmed, for example, has said that the message of
Islam, as instituted
by the teachings and practices of
Muhammaed, contained two strands that were at odds with each
other. On the one hand, it preached patriarchal matrimony and
the dominance of the man, while, on the other hand, it preached
equality. This ambiguity casts doubt on what is Islamic and what
is not. There are even some clothing-related institutions, such
as the wearing of the veil, which should not be considered
necessarily Muslim because it is not clear that this was obligatory
in the Prophet´s day.
Muslim women argue that times have changed. They say that scrutinizing
the Qur'anic verses to evaluate their true or original meaning
is no longer useful. The entry of some Muslim women into the
workforce, which has enabled them to earn an income and a degree
of independence, has made obsolete the prescriptive nature of
the Islamic testament. In the face of such change, the repeated
question about a woman's place in Islam would lose its relevance.
New
economic and social conditions, the dismantling of the traditional
roles of men and women, would force a rethinking of the situation.
For them, this is a global problem. They insist that the horror expressed
by Muslims, men and women alike, about the
breakdown of the family caused by the impacts of industrialization
is not exclusive to Islam. In their view, the entry of women
into the labor market has begun to dismantle not the family,
but the patriarchal system (and
not just the Islamic one). This concern about the breakdown of
patriarchy is also evident in the West, where some Christian
groups continue to press for women to stay at home and forget
about work. To sum up,
for these activists the situation of Muslim women should be
studied in two ways: on the one hand taking into account the
specific Islamic context; and on the other, within the context
of industrialization, where women's entry into the labor market
has helped break up patriarchy.
*Published in The World
Guide
|
|
