Haleh Afshar

Feminisms, Islamophobia and Identities

There has been a tendency of late to conflate all Muslims as belonging to a single nation and aspiring to a single political aim. This effect has been achieved by some authors so as to accommodate Islamophobia, but by others to generate a sense of inclusive unity that encloses all Muslims. We contend that in the post 9/11 climate of Islamophobia women wearing the scarf, the mohajabehs, are making a political choice. They are publicly branding themselves as Muslims at a time when such a label carries the potential fear of making them vulnerable to open hostility. But the Islam that they embody is distinct and different from the stark, gendered divides envisaged by protagonists on both side of the Islamophobic divide. The unity demanded by some of the highly vocal and visible Islamic groups marginalises the contestations posed within these groups by women who may be described as feminists. The specificities demanded by those who envisage Islam primarily as an antagonistic political force in the UK are very different from the flexibility that many women envisage. They aspire to belong to the Umma or people of Islam, conceptualised as crossing ethnic, racial, geographical and political boundaries, an identity that is primarily inclusive rather than exclusive. The multiplicities of identities of many mohajabehs sit more easily within the permeable unbounded umma than the constrained gendered boundaries of the combative male political Islamism.

Can I see your hair? Choice, agency and attitudes: the dilemma of faith and feminism for Muslim women who cover

Abstract This paper argues that the current climate of Islamophobia has burdened Muslim women who cover with additional problems in terms of their politics, their lived experiences and their life chances. It is the contention of this paper that the myths about the hijab have created a modern-day form of Orientalism that objectifies the women who cover and otherizes them as oppressed, perhaps exotic and possibly dangerous. Such stereotypical views, at times articulated by Western feminists, create stumbling blocks that bar the way to the feminist ideal of respect unity and community of goals.

Education: hopes, expectations and achievements of Muslim women in West Yorkshire

ABSTRACT It is the contention of this paper that Muslim women in West Yorkshire, like their male counterparts, place an inordinate trust in the ability of the educational system to act as a means of delivering their children from the drudgery of poverty. Although in practice there is not enough evidence to support their optimism, women of all backgrounds, regardless of their own levels of educational achievement, seek to promote their children within the school and further educational systems and are increasingly doing so for their daughters as well as their sons. In a three generational study carried out by the author, it is evident that daughters of Muslim immigrant families, though aware of intense racism and poor prospects, are doing their best to comply with these parental wishes.

Gender roles and the 'moral economy of kin' among Pakistani women in West Yorkshire

Abstract This paper is concerned with the structure of female authority within Pakistani households in West Yorkshire. It is based on a three‐generational study discussing the life experiences and social and economic aspirations and opportunities of women who have lived and brought up daughters and granddaughters in Britain. It is argued that despite their access to better educational facilities, the youngest generation of women have not necessarily fared better than their grandmothers. On the whole the cultural ties and the moral economy of kin have proved remarkably firm and succeeded in maintaining a degree of familial control despite the relative wealth and economic independence of the younger generation.

Gender and ethnicity at the millennium : from margin to centre

Three decades of feminist academic work have led to claims about its maturity and “coming of age”. This article offers a critical evaluation of feminism’s success, particularly in the context of “race” and ethnicity awareness. Feminism has challenged mainstream thought by making women and gender central concerns, by opening up new fields for study and by breaking down disciplinary barriers. However, the global hegemony of Western feminism means that the range of women’s issues tends to be narrowly and parochially conceived. Women of different ethnicities have had an uphill struggle to redefine feminist terms, benchmarks and understandings. One particular difficulty involves the use of ideas and concepts which are not easily translated into English. Drawing on debates between Western women and Islamist feminists, the article explores some of the problems in understanding terminologies and deciphering definitions about cultures and languages. It argues that the views of non-Western and ethnic minority women must be moved from margin to centre stage.

Women and Work in Iran

The post-revolutionary government in Iran presents its approach to women as a template for other Islamic nations to follow. By reconstructing the Koranic laws to meet the demands of time, it argues that Muslim women have secure and eternal independent economic and social rights. This is not so. Since the revolution Iranian women have systematically lost out in the formal labour market. But in recent years they have made a concerted effort to capture the Islamic discourse to contest the legitimacy of some of the formal obstacles placed on their access to paid employment.

The politics of fear: what does it mean to those who are otherized and feared?

Abstract Islamophobia has, of late, created a tendency to conflate all Muslims as belonging to a single nation of Islam that does not recognize and respect boundaries imposed by western geopolitics. This has been done by some to create and by others to generate a sense of exclusive unity that would separate all Muslims and make them into ‘others’ within western societies. It is the contention of this paper that such calls both embody and ignore the diversities of Islam as understood and practised by its adherents. Furthermore by ‘otherizing’ the entire community of Muslims in the West, the singular label of ‘Islamism’ marginalizes and may even silence the vibrant contestations among Muslims about their faith and its teachings; these include questions posed by women who may be described as feminists. The attributes of Islamism, ascribed to the faith by public, the media and politicians in the West and adopted by some Muslims primarily as a politically unifying force, are very different from the fluidity and flexibility that has been a historic part of lived Islam. Many Muslims may well aspire to belong to the umma: people of Islam conceptualized as crossing ethnic, racial, geographical and political boundaries. But Muslims in general and Muslim women in particular do not wish to do so at the expense of being otherized and conforming to the negative stereotypes ascribed to them that mask their fluid identities and, in the case of ‘white’ women, their close ties with their kinship networks. The multiplicity of Muslims identities sits more easily within the permeable unbounded umma applicable to the global as well as the local without necessarily always privileging one or other identity.

Introduction: Women, Globalization and Fragmentation

Changes in the global political economy since the 1980s have had a dramatic effect on the lives of women, who have become increasingly integrated as players in the world’s production and consumption processes. Women have been affected by globalization in the most diverse aspects of their lives and in the furthest reaches of the world. The effects have been multiple and contradictory, inclusionary and exclusionary. This book explores gendered implications of globalization at the grass roots in developing countries. It considers the conflicting interactions between the global and local political economies, cultures and faiths. Our main focus is to explore the very specific effects of increased global integration on women in developing countries, and how they have had to negotiate complex and rapid changes in diverse and contrasting circumstances.

Gender ethnicity and empowerment in later life

Studies of later life are increasingly emphasising its positive aspects as a time which is not necessarily linked to decline and dependency. Gender is also accepted as an important variable in the experience of advancing years. However, the significance of ethnicity is less often emphasised. Based on preliminary analyses from research with older women from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, this article focuses on what they identify as important in terms of living their later years. The article emphasises migration and cultural differences in perceptions of ageing. It concludes with a discussion of the meanings of empowerment.

Development Studies and Women in the Middle East: The Dilemmas of Research and Development

It is always difficult to engage in pioneering work, as feminists have long since found out. For women, part of the problem has always been the absence of information and the invisibility of their activities. For women in the Middle East this problem has been intensified by the imaginative and misleading literature describing their lives and experiences that in the past century has been presented in the West in lieu of research.