Religious Agency and Gender Complementarity

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-207
Author(s):  
Maria Jaschok
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Expressive Culture ◽  
Gender Complementarity ◽  
Changing Times ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Context Specific

The aim of the article is to probe the unique tradition in central China’s Hui Muslim community of women-only, female-led mosques and their enduring, expressive culture of chanted worship, learning, and celebration as trans/local translations of Western feminist core notions of “agency” and “gender equality.” Women’s agency—here understood as entailing the capacity for informed and purposeful choice from context-specific options and resources—is framed by a religious faith-infused subjectivity, by women’s aspirations to reach their full potential as Muslim women. A broad outline of the evolution of women’s mosques from inward-oriented and assigned facilities to outward-oriented institutions provides historical context for both the institutionalization of an intense gendered piety and for mosque-based facilitation of educational and development needs. Moreover, the popularity of rediscovered Islamic chants among Hui Muslim women has ignited heated debates surrounding the propriety in Islam of performed, publicly audible female sound. It is the contention of the article that global references and values, such as “gender equality,” continue to matter as references for local translations. The changing nature of “gender complementarity” as a vernacular version of “gender equality” is seen by Hui Muslim women as testifying to changing times and opportunities.

Secularism, Feminism and Race in Representations of Australianness

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly Randell-Moon
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Women's Autonomy ◽  
The Government ◽  
And Gender ◽  
John Howard

In 2005 and 2006 members of the John Howard led Coalition Government, including the Prime Minster and Federal Treasurer Peter Costello, questioned whether Muslim dress, such as the hijab, conformed with ‘mainstream’ Australian standards of secularism and gender equality. In doing so, Howard and Costello used a feminist-sounding language to critique aspects of Islam for purportedly restricting the freedom and autonomy of Muslim women. I argue that race is implicated in the construction of Islam as a “threat” to secularism and gender equality because an unnamed assumption of the Australian ‘mainstream’ as Anglo-Celtic and white informs the standards of normalcy the Government invokes and constructs Islam as a ‘foreign’ religion. Further, whilst the demand for Muslim women to conform with ‘mainstream’ norms potentially contradicts the Government’s commitment to women’s autonomy, such a contradiction is not peculiar to the Howard Government. Using the work of Jean-Luc Nancy and Stewart Motha, I place the ‘hijab debates’ within the tension in liberal democracies between fostering autonomy and requiring a universal civil law to guarantee (but exist above) individual autonomy.

Delivering WPS Protection in All Female Peacekeeping Force

2018 ◽  
pp. 450-460
Author(s):  
Sabrina M. Karim
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Mainstreaming ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Peacekeeping Missions

The UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) has been touted as one of the most successful UN Missions when it comes to providing peace, but also when it comes to gender equality. The mission was home to the first all-female–formed police unit and was one of the first to incorporate gender in its peacekeeping mandates. As such, it stands out as an example for other missions. Upon closer inspection, however, UNMIL still suffers from many challenges associated with implementing gender balancing and gender mainstreaming. This chapter explores the mission’s successes in increasing participation among female peacekeepers, as well as the protection roles that female peacekeepers occupied. It also highlights some of the existing challenges that UNMIL and other peacekeeping missions more broadly must overcome to better achieve the goals of the women, peace, and security agenda. While, UNMIL’s mandate noted the importance of WPS, female peacekeepers experienced restrictions to their mobility and interactions with locals that may have prevented them from reaching their full potential in providing protection and preventing violence.

scholarly journals European Muslim Youth and Gender (in)Equality Discourse: Towards a More Critical Academic Inquiry

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
Colleen Boland
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Religious Fundamentalism ◽  
Structural Inequality ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Religious Difference ◽  
Muslim Youth ◽  
Or Practice ◽  
And Gender

In Europe, gender equality can be framed as a secular value, juxtaposed against affiliation with and practice of Islam. Academic and public debate has either given special attention to the spread of religious fundamentalism in Europe, or to the way Muslim women dress, citing how both purportedly jeopardize gender equality. This is despite findings that a link between gender equality and religiosity or practice of Islam is neither inherent nor circumscribed. Moreover, it is possible to demonstrate that such discourse rests on implicitly racialized conceptualizations of the Muslim “other”. Meanwhile, Muslim youth in particular are benchmarked against these imagined standards of gender equality, as compared with non-Muslim peers. This work examines ways in which normative secular frameworks and discourses, taking ownership of gender equality narratives, have shaped Europe’s academic inquiry regarding Muslim youth. It notes what is absent in this inquiry, including intersections of race and class, which remain divorced from the limited conversation on gender and religious difference. A reflexive, intersectional approach to this discussion, conscious of the importance of embedded racial or structural inequality and what is absent in current inquiry, better serves in understanding and navigating power relations that ultimately contribute to multiple exclusion of these youth.

Neoliberalism and Gender Equality: Canadian Newspapers’ Representations of the Ban of Face Coverings at Citizenship Ceremonies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivana Previsic
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Full Text ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Newspaper Coverage ◽  
Gender Oppression ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
The Press ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Canadian Citizenship

In late 2011, Canada’s Conservative government banned face coverings for those taking oath at citizenship ceremonies. The ban was unequivocally interpreted by the press to be targeting veil-wearing Muslim women. This paper analyzes newspaper coverage in the month following the announcement of the policy. It argues that most commentators conceptualized citizenship to be a neoliberal tool of rescuing veiled Muslim women from their male oppressors and making them more like the equal/neoliberal “us” and/or as a reward for those who already are or will become equal/neoliberal. Most non-Muslim commentators constructed gender oppression as the reason for which veiled women should (not) become citizens. Gender equality in Canada was represented as a key national value and inequality was erased or minimized and presented as a Muslim problem. In attempting to deflect these arguments, most Muslim commentators silenced gender inequality among Muslims by arguing that veiled Muslim women choose the practice and by relegating gender oppression to Western societies, thereby constructing veiled Muslim women as ideal neoliberal subjects worthy of Canadian citizenship.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v11i1.253

scholarly journals Union framing of gender equality and the elusive potential of equality bargaining in a difficult climate

2021 ◽  
pp. 002218562110036
Author(s):  
Gill Kirton
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Gender Mainstreaming ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Social Movement Theory ◽  
Women's Issues ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Movement Theory ◽  
And Gender

This article explores why equality bargaining appears to remain underdeveloped despite its widely acknowledged potential for tackling workplace inequalities. The concept from social movement theory of ‘framing’ is utilised to assess the prospects of moving from ‘where we are’. Findings from a study of UK-based union equality actors discuss unceasing efforts on their part to shift equality from the margins to the centre of union bargaining activity. As regards ‘where to next’, Equality Officers’ strategic deployment of the longstanding union equality frames of ‘women’s issues’ and ‘gender mainstreaming’ challenges taken-for-granted social practices within unions, offering some optimism that creative strategies can help to inject equality frames into traditional union frames, thus producing an expanded and inclusive notion of union solidarity. However, this framing activity occurs within existing opportunity structures with all their facilitative and inhibitive factors, including resistant union officers and reps, which previous research has highlighted. Therefore, a less optimistic vision is that the weight of union tradition that has long privileged male interests, combined with contemporary hostile bargaining conditions, are just too great for equality bargaining to reach its full potential.

scholarly journals Neoliberalism and Gender Equality: Canadian Newspapers’ Representations of the Ban of Face Coverings at Citizenship Ceremonies

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivana Previsic
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Newspaper Coverage ◽  
Gender Oppression ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
The Press ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Canadian Citizenship

In late 2011, Canada’s Conservative government banned face coverings for those taking oath at citizenship ceremonies. The ban was unequivocally interpreted by the press to be targeting veil-wearing Muslim women. This paper analyzes newspaper coverage in the month following the announcement of the policy. It argues that most commentators conceptualized citizenship to be a neoliberal tool of rescuing veiled Muslim women from their male oppressors and making them more like the equal/neoliberal “us” and/or as a reward for those who already are or will become equal/neoliberal. Most non-Muslim commentators constructed gender oppression as the reason for which veiled women should (not) become citizens. Gender equality in Canada was represented as a key national value and inequality was erased or minimized and presented as a Muslim problem. In attempting to deflect these arguments, most Muslim commentators silenced gender inequality among Muslims by arguing that veiled Muslim women choose the practice and by relegating gender oppression to Western societies, thereby constructing veiled Muslim women as ideal neoliberal subjects worthy of Canadian citizenship. 

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document