The Pursuit Of Gender Equality Theology Religion Essay

The Pursuit Of Gender Equality Theology Religion demonstrateThough no tradition do-nothing be considered representative of totally pietys, this essay willing focus on Islam and whether it should be considered bad for wo workforces phylogenesis and the seeking of sexuality comparison. Although focussing on Islam, it will become distinctly that in that location is no single manifestation of this pietism and, and so, some realise it in a way which is bad for womens education. The recent shooting of 14 year old Malala Yousafzai for promoting the education of girls in Pakistan is one of mevery dread occurrences use by the western sandwich media to paint a sombre moving picture of women in Moslem countries (BBC 2012). The essay will begin by demonstrating that the publications surrounding this topic leads us to assume that there is one ride of womens culture and one model of Islam and that the ii be at odds. Next, it will argue that this trust is the result of Isla mophobia and more specifically gendered Islamophobia which has increased since the family 11th attacks (Zine 2006). Gendered Islamophobia relates to the negative stereotypes presented by Hesperian media and institutions of vulnerable masked women (ibid.). The uncreated purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that Islam has been considered bad for womens organic evolution because it bring downms to contradict westernern ideas about gender embodyity, but that this is only part of the picture. It will cozy up the fact that there has been a obviateion, from at heart Islam, of the fundamentalist Moslem cognition of women. It will argue that Islam has the potential to be good for womens development as Moslem women keep back been establishing new spaces of discussion and opportunity deep down their religion and are rubbish against the negative stereotypes placed upon them.In recent decades, the westbound perception of Islam has been almost entirely influenced by the increa se in what the west secernates as Moslem Fundamentalism. Although I acknowledge that views within the western sandwich serviceman are not uniform, the bourn will be used to describe the mainstream political and developmental talk abouts on Islam and Moslem women. Fundamentalism is a delicate term which refers to the traditionalist, apparently misogynistic interpretation of the record book and the enforcement of Islamic equity, Shariah. Shariah has increasingly been used to just nowify the oppression of women in all areas of their lives and child marriage and the veil are two of the more visible examples (Othman 2006 Hopkins and Patel 2006).The conservative interpretations of the Quran instantaneously oppose traditional western development discourse, exemplified in the universal aims of the fall in Nations (UN) Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and Millennium maturation Goal 3 (MDG 3) to Promote Gender Equality and E mpower Women (United Nations realise unknown a United Nations date unknown b). Feminist notions of womens rights ground on equality between men and women are central to the development of women and bills and policies much(prenominal) as CEDAW and MDG 3, regardless of religion. It is crystallise that this western sandwich approach is at odds with the treatment of women required by some conservative forms of Islam. This leads to the assumption that Islam, as a whole, is a definitive barrier against womens devil to mankind rights, such as the right to immunity, the right to education and the right to caoutchouc (United Nations 1995a) and is therefore bad for womens development.However, the views traditionally held by the West are criticised for a variety of reasons and are, in fact, thought to be detrimental to Islamic women. Western policy depends on a simplistic and oer-generalised version of Islam based on the culturally-rooted traditions of the dominant minority which are seen as the defining feature of this religion. It therefore employs profane, feminist ideals in severalise feat to free women from this supposedly remote religion (Tomalin forthcoming). Although some Moslems are fighting against the veil, former(a)s challenge Western political orientation and defend their right to appease with what the West would conceive as root Islamic practices. They claim that the Western model itself has created oppressive roles for women by cut down women to their physical appearance and they believe that they could choose to cover themselves in suppose to be defined by their brains, not their bodies (Afshar 2000.) They challenge the generalised Western notion that the veil is an unequivocal sign of oppression and argue sort of that they are examples of a womans agency over how her body is to be represented, which frees them from familiar objectification (ibid.). They view any opposition to this choice as an attack on their civil liberties and huma n rights (Critelli 2010). Nevertheless, this approach does not challenge the root fuss of the objectification of women. These women are merely resigned to the fact that gender relations will unceasingly be based on sexuality and it is up to women to sacrifice their freedom in order to be protected from men. This does show, however, just how complex Islam and Islamic finis are and bring outs the need for dialogue and cooperation rather than evidently display Islam through a western lens.Islam is unlike religions which read developed in the West, such as Christianity, as it has no one authority that monopolises spiritual meaning (Barlas 2004). It is a multifaceted religion which draws on more than the culture and traditions it is famed for and the Quranic scriptures and legal interpretations of Shariah law also play crucial roles in the lives of Muslims. Islam cannot easily be conceptualised and, therefore, Western institutions fail in their attempt to do so in such a simplis tic way. The absence seizure of a critical attempt to come to terms with Islam as a heterogeneous tradition in development discourse, and the universality of bills such as CEDAW and MDG 3, deepen pre-existing inequalities and strip Muslims of their own vision of womens rights (Bradley 2011).Traditional feminist development appears to offer no way to achieve human rights and wellbeing for women other than through the Western model, which implies that women in the West are liberated and Muslim women are trapped. This approach is destined to fail since it alienates Muslim women who may be equally against radical ideologies but are not willing to reject their religious identity (Jawad 1998). Some Muslims view traditional development as a threat to Islam and this has produced increased hostility towards Western institutions (Adamu 1999). It is counterproductive to continue to view Islam in this way, as it will only ever be portrayed as a negative force against women and prevent any meani ngful cooperative action from being taken.Although there is a end to misrepresent or ignore Islam in the field of development, some organisations are beginning to engage with this religion. Oxfam is a worldly organisation that arranged two workshops in 2004 and 2006 to determine the opportunities found within Islam (Hopkins and Patel 2006). These workshops confirmed that the stereotypical portrayals of Muslim women as helpless victims often make them invisible in the make of development. Moreover, international human rights treaties are viewed as a display of Western arrogance and are dismissed for being culturally irrelevant and inappropriate with Islam (ibid.). Therefore, Oxfam is approaching development through the eyes of the recipients and use quotes from the Quran to savor to prove that their vision of womens rights and equality are compatible with the teachings of Islam. In addition, the secular organisation the Womens Action Forum (WAF) in Pakistan is increasingly engag ing with conservative versions of religion, as they consider this the only way to truly promote spay in Pakistan (Pearson and Tomalin 2007). Including Islam in their fight for womens rights shows that they are engaging with women on their take and in a language they understand, rather than undermining their culture using Western, secular methods. Both Oxfam and WAF are open about this engagement being a strategy. However, it is not clear whether they are doing so because it is the only way to antagonise the oppressive dimensions of Islam, or whether they rattling believe that Islam can contribute to womens rights. Nevertheless, it is clear that both of these organisations understand that issues of faith and gender are intrinsically link up and that to criticise Islam as bad for womens development, would be to ignore the reality of Muslim womens lives.The notion of Islamic womens lib is used to describe the way in which women are using aspects of their religion to counter the I slamist aged interpretations of conservative Muslims and the gendered Islamophobia these have created in the West (Kirmani and Phillips 2011). Islamic feminists reject the imposition of Western, secular approaches which they see as reflecting imperialist ideologies. They believe that they have the right to participate in an understanding of Islam and that this right to autonomy is being denied to them both by fundamentalists and the West (Anwar 2001). Islamic feminism calls for Muslim women to reclaim their religion by reinterpreting the Quran in order to establish the authentic foundations of their religion. Islamic feminism states that the venerable culture of pre-Islamic Arabia heavily influenced modern Islamic law and states that Islam should not be judged for the oppression caused by the traditions carried out by Muslim people, as umpteen of these actions are also forbidden in the Quran. At the fourth demesne Conference on Women, the Prime Minister of Pakistan and the first women elected to the transfer of a Muslim state, Benazir Bhutto (Bostan 2011), proclaimed that Muslim women have a limited responsibility to help distinguish between Islamic teachings and social taboos spun by the traditions of patriarchal society (cited in United Nations 1995b para. 14). Thus, it is culture, not Islam, that is bad for women and Islamic feminists are working towards a distinction of the two and are fighting for rights on their terms.There are various versions of Islamic feminism. The first believes that Islam is not bad for the pursuit of womens equality and uses the Quranic teaching to re-educate Muslims that inequality is not prescribed by their faith (Jawad 1998). Although sharing the common goal with the West of achieving equality between the sexes, these Islamic feminists have different visions of how to achieve equality as well as different motivations from conventional development, which is viewed as drenched in neo-colonialism. This type of development i mplies that in order to achieve equality and retrieve to rights, Muslim women must reject their religion. However, some Islamic feminists claim that they can be a Muslim, a woman and equal. Sisters in Islam (SIS), for example, is a Muslim womens organisation established in 1988 in Malaysia to promote the equal rights of women from within an Islamic framework (Bostan 2011). They draw from parts of the Quran that assert that men and women are equal and that men have no priority over access to education and that Muslims are to marry of free will, for example (Jawad 1998). primaeval to their mission is the belief that feminist interpretations of the Quran are the true Islam and they destroy Shariah law on the ground that it is human derived and not heaven-sent (Mashour 2005 Ahmed-Ghosh 2008). This conviction has put SIS at the forefront of pressures to change family laws in Malaysia and in lobbying for womens equality and rights (Bostan 2011 Ahmed-Ghosh 2008). The view that Islam is good for women and the pursuit of equality is the whimsical force behind SIS and, therefore, Islam cannot be dismissed for being detrimental to women as it depends on ones definition of what Islam is.Another type of Islamic feminism challenges the view that equality can be achieved at all. Certain Islamic feminists believe that Western women forfeit their biologically determined roles in order to be more like men but never actually achieving equality (Afshar 2000). These feminists see the Western vision of womens development as a flawed model and see no reason that they should adopt it. It could be argued, therefore, that striving for equality is bad for women and what is in fact needed is equity. In Iran, Malaysia and other parts of Asia, the equality versus equity debate is prominent in Islamic feminism (Ahmed-Ghosh 2008 Foley 2004). This type of feminism believes that since women are not the same as men, equality can never be achieved. Instead of the individualist priorities o f equality, which encourage the breakdown of the family, communitarian rights found in the Quran are deemed to feed women rights while staying true to their biologically determined roles (Foley 2004). They state that the Quran grants them equal but different rights, such as the right to be provided for when pregnant (ibid. Ahmed-Ghosh 2008). This type of interpretation of Islam separates what is good for women from gender equality. Therefore, if Islam is bad for equality it does not necessarily mean that it is bad for women. This version of Islamic feminism would discipline with the conventional secular approach that suggests that equality can only be discussed in secular terms and not within the framework of Islam. However, this simply means that they believe that the different but equally valid pursuit of equity is needed within Islam.Both secular and Muslim critics of Islamic feminism continue to strip Muslim women of opportunity. It is thought that the term Islamic feminism i s oxymoronic since Islam can never been in favour of women. Moghissi, for example, asks How could a religion based on gender hierarchy be adopted as the framework for struggle for gender democracy and womens equality? (1999 126). Moreover, she argues that Shariah law is inherently discriminatory against women and is contrasting with human rights based on equality. However, concerns such as these are based on one view of Islam, lessen it to a narrow and negative conception which will further delegitimise the leave made by Muslim women. In addition, feminist groups such as SIS call for the rewriting and modernising of Shariah law to include gender equality rights. Therefore, opposition to them appears negated by the incorrect assumption that Islam cannot change. In addition, if Islam is incompatible with gender equality, this simply reinforces the feminist argument in favour of equity. However, there is also a tendency to handle of Islamic feminism as if it too had only one form. Islamic feminists in general have been criticised from within Islam on the grounds that they have no right to declare about Islam because they are not properly educated in Muslim schools (Othman 2006). However, this once again discriminates against women who can never be part of the patriarchal hierarchy put in place to ensure the continued involvement of men as the deciders of this religion. There is no consensus as to what Islam and whose Islam is the right Islam (Anwar cited in Hefner 2001 227) and Islamic feminists truly believe that there is a place for all interpretations of womens rights within Islam.This essay questioned whether the human rights promoted by CEDAW and MDG 3 should be treated as universal and the implications on women and development in Islam. This essay has show that Islam is not a static phenomenon of patriarchy and oppression and that gendered Islamophobia only serves to wane Muslim womens struggle. Equally, there is no unique model of what is good for w omens development and Islam has only been perceived as bad for women because some interpretations contradict Western discourse. Contrary to the belief that Islam is bad for women, it has been shown that Islam is also a feminist resource. Islamic feminists must be commended for rejecting fundamentalism and the dominant secular Western development discourse and fighting for rights on their own terms. They battle the culturally-created element of their religion by using the historical texts to claim and defend the rights of women guaranteed to them in the Quran. The varieties found within Islamic feminism and conservative interpretations are all living forms of Islam which highlight the complexity of this religion and development institutions would avoid dangerous generalisations if they accepted this complexity and engaged with, rather than dismiss, Islamic feminism. However, it is also important to understand that Islam is just one part of womens identities. Therefore, it is vital t hat Muslim women are able to speak out on national and international scales in order for them to access the rights they want and deserve. It is clear that Islam is both part of the problem and part of the effect for Muslim women and, therefore, what is good for womens development must be defined by the women themselves.Word count 2735