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Do Muslim Women Need Freedom? Traditionalist Feminisms and Transnational Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2016

Serene J. Khader
Serene J. Khader*
Affiliation:
Brooklyn College
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Abstract

The idea that Muslim women need to be liberated from religion and tradition has animated feminist support for imperialist projects. The idea that tradition itself is women's oppressor prevents Western feminists from perceiving cultural and religious destruction as potentially harmful. In this article, I make conceptual space for traditionalist feminisms by showing that feminism does not require any particular stance toward tradition as such. What should matter to feminists is whether the content of a given tradition is oppressive—not whether it belongs to a worldview that places a high value on traditional adherence. I show this by arguing that, contra some liberal feminists, opposition to sexist oppression does not entail value for what I call “Enlightenment freedom.” I draw on Islamic feminisms to demonstrate the possibility of opposition to sexist oppression grounded in worldviews that value traditional adherence, and even ones that hold certain traditional dictates to be beyond question.

Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , December 2016 , pp. 727 - 753
Copyright
Copyright © The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2016 

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