Women and/in Organized Religions

Having spent the first few weeks of the semester reading and talking about why we should study issues for women globally and how, we’ve now moved on to the second part of our course, which is entitled “Controlling Women’s Bodies and Behaviors.” We started this part of the course on Tuesday by reading and talking about women’s lack of participation in FORMAL POLITICS globally and, by contrast, their hefty involvement in INFORMAL POLITICS.

Since we started this semester, we’ve been reading and discussing the various ways in which our everyday, “normal” social institutions are PATRIARCHAL in that they were originally created by men and continue to focus on and value (white, straight, middle/upper-class) men’s lives, experiences, and perspectives rather than those of women and other marginalized peoples. So, the title of this second part of our course is meant to refer to the many ways in which these institutions are the structures that constitute PATRIARCHAL SOCIETIES.

A good example of an PATRIARCHAL SOCIAL STRUCTURE that perpetuates gender inequality can be found in the education system, which, given the enormous gender gap in literacy and education that we read about and discussed last week, is clearly skewed toward boys and men.

Another, as we discussed on Tuesday, is FORMAL POLITICS. In my 2 PM section, I mentioned by way of an example of the ways in which law is dynamic (one of the reasons why we should care that women aren’t able to participate in formal politics in larger numbers) a bill currently before the U.S. House of Representatives that would, effectively, redefine the meaning of “rape.” If passed, opponents argue, the law would not only permanently cut off federal funding for abortions—allowed already only in very rare cases where, for example, the mother’s life is in danger or in cases of incest—but also “alters the definition of rape, permitting coverage for the procedure only in cases in which the rape is considered ‘forcible’” (Somashekhar, “Legislative proposal puts abortion rights supporters on alert"). You can access the full text of the bill here.

The point is not to get embroiled in the heated controversy over the limits of reproductive health care in the U.S. What’s important is that law and legal systems are dynamic; they can change unexpectedly depending on who's making them, so the fact that women’s lives and experiences don’t often make it into FORMAL POLITICAL discussions about issues that, in this case in particular, are very much about them, is just one of the many reasons why it matters that women’s voices globally are being excluded for FORMAL POLITICS.

Religion as a Patriarchal Social Structure
Organized religions are also patriarchal institutions that perpetuate gender (and other sorts of) inequalities, and this is what you’ll be reading about for Thursday’s (tomorrow’s) class. In chapter 8, Burn discusses the connection between women’s low social, economic, and political status (see chapter 2) and religion as a patriarchal social institution. She argues that religion is one of the primary cultural agents shaping our conceptualizations of GENDER (i.e. how to most appropriately “act like a lady” and “be a man”) and points out the various ways in which FEMINIST THEOLOGIANS have attempted to reform the most sexist aspects of the world’s major religions. The terms and first set of questions on Worksheet #5 will guide you through this chapter and help you to identify the most important concepts.

Some Context for Thinking about Women in Islam
As you all know from our reading earlier this semester, one of our central goals as we study issues for women globally is to avoid ETHNOCENTRISM. We’ll have our first challenge with this approach on Thursday, because we’re going to use women’s role in Islam as a case study through which to examine organized religion not only as a PATRIARCHAL SOCIAL STRUCTURE, but also as a source of strength and a site of feminist activism. This is one of the overarching themes of Under One Sky, the documentary that you’ll be watching before you come to class tomorrow.

In this quite difficult project of avoiding ethnocentrism, we can learn from Kristoff’s experiences in Afghanistan: He arrived thinking he knew what was going on, but he learned quite quickly that he only thought he knew. As he finally came to realize, those of us who live in the West who feel sorry for Muslim women “not only come across as patronizing but also often miss the complexity of gender roles in the Islamic world” (154).

Avoiding ethnocentrism is, admittedly, a tricky goal to achieve, especially when so much media coverage tells a very specific story about the oppression of Muslim women and the alleged misogyny of Islam. For example, one issue that shows up constantly in the Western media is veiling, and the logical argument that’s put to “us” “Westerners” here in Canada is that

No veil = (supposedly) “Western,” “modern”
Veil = “Traditional,” adherence to the teachings of Allah.

This false dichotomy is at the center of the recent public debates over veiling going on in France and Quebec. In France, laws have been passed preventing Muslim women from covering their faces, while in Quebec, the same sort of legislation is currently being debated. Both, as you can imagine, have been quite controversial. For more info on this debate, the history of veiling, arguments by supporters and retractors, and analysis, check out the Feminist Sexual Ethics Project's special focus on women in Islam. There’s also a fantastic new anthology entitled The Veil: Women Writers on Its History, Lore & Politics that unpacks all the debates and conversations around the history and practice of veiling.

You can also check out this video by photojournalist Diana Matar, whose pictures of Muslim women in Cairo reveal the various ways in which young women are reclaiming and redefining the veil as a symbol of political dissent, piety, and fashion in contemporary Egypt:

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So, we’ll have our first exercise in avoiding ethnocentrism this week, keeping in mind not only the ways in which organized religions are, as you’ll read in Burn, a way of controlling women’s bodies and behaviors, but also the ways in which they can be a source of strength and activism for women.

Administrative Stuff
Just a reminder about a few things:
1. Several of you have yet to sign up for your presentation of your assignment “Women Lives in the News,” so you need to contact me about that before the end of this week.
2. The formal assignment for the Term Project is now available on our blog, and, as you saw yesterday, I’m going to be asking you over the next week or so to make some decisions about the organization you’d like to research this semester. If you’d like to do some brainstorming about possibilities, please come on by to chat during my office hours.
3. With regard to the Term Project, don’t forget to use your textbooks and other course materials as informational resources. There’s lots of valuable information provided by Burn, Seager, and the other authors we’re working with this semester, and you should be taking advantage of that information when you can!

Remember that my favorite part of being a professor is getting to know my students, so come on by during my office hours if you have any questions, want to brainstorm about your Term Project, or just want to chat!

Happy reading, and I’ll see you in class tomorrow!