In Search of Islamic Feminism
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
An acclaimed Arab Studies scholar and bestselling author offers a groundbreaking new interpretation of the status and vision of Muslim women—and challenges our own sense of the meaning of feminism.
"Islamic feminism" would seem a contradiction in terms to most Westerners. We are taught to think of Islam as a culture wherein social code and religious law alike force women to accept male authority and surrender to the veil. How could feminism emerge under such a code, let alone flourish? Now, traveling throughout Central Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as Islamic communities in the United States, acclaimed Arab Studies scholar and bestselling author Elizabeth Fernea sets out to answer that question.
Fernea's dialogue with friends, colleagues, and acquaintances prompts a range of diverse and unpredictable responses, but in every country she visits, women demonstrate they are anything but passive. In Iraq, we see an 85 percent literacy rate among women; in Egypt, we see women owning their own farms; and in Israel, we see women at the very forefront of peacemaking efforts. Poor or rich, educated or illiterate, these women define their own needs, solve their own problems, and determine the boundaries of their own very real, very viable feminism.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fernea's impressionistic, overly optimistic report on what she sees as an emerging Islamic feminist movement and consciousness is based on her two-year journey (1994-1996) through Uzbekistan, Morocco, Kuwait, Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Palestinian settlements. She found that Islamic feminists employ strategies that often differ from the confrontational approach of their counterparts in the West, building instead on indigenous traditions. For example, in Turkey, the kabul, an at-home day for women, is now used for grass-roots networking and attracting voters to women's causes. Other substantive advances seem promising, as in Egypt, where medical, governmental and human rights groups have joined forces in a campaign to eradicate female circumcision, or in Iraq, where support for maternity leave, child care and universal literacy leads the author to guarded praise for Saddam Hussein's pro-women policies. Nevertheless, readers who wonder whether "Islamic feminism" is an oxymoron may not be dissuaded by this overlong travelogue. Fernea (Guests of the Sheik) also includes an interesting chapter on American Muslim women's drive for economic and legal egalitarianism.
