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Roxanne D. Marcotte
Studies in Religion, The University of Queensland
'Feminism and Muslim Women in Cyber Space'
The web offers unlimited opportunities for religious groups to display electronic stalls in the global market. Each religion proposes its own reading of the place of women in the society. One positive sign of this development is the increase of number of Muslim women who have now found a voice in cyber space. These women propose their own understanding of women's role, rights and duties within the broader Muslim community. On the web, articles about women, feminism and Islam have become more prevalent. Muslim women, mostly living in Western countries or writing in western languages, use the web to promote their own vision and version of Islam. These articles are not only hosted on non-religious sites, but many sites belonging to religious associations and organizations display articles on women's issues and feminism, most of which are written by Muslim women. In a sense, Muslim women themselves have begun to re-appropriate religious interpretation of matters that affect their own personal lives. These women use terms such as feminism which they understand it in a number of ways. In a sense, these women have become Islam's new interpreters. Their interpretation may, at times, be reiterations of century old concepts. Increasingly, however, their feminist exegesis of the Islamic tradition appears to propose interpretations that appear to challenge official Islam and reading of the Qur'an. This is not a mere cyber phenomena, but one that has already occurred in places such as Iran where feminism does not appeal to equality, but to the Islamic notion of 'gender complementarity' that pays full respect to 'housewifery' and motherhood, while they insists that women need to have unlimited access to both education and jobs.
In the West, some women have now attained preeminence as advocates of Islamic feminism. Women such as Yamani (1996) who has edited a work on feminism and Islam, and Webb (2002) who has collected a number of articles by Muslim women scholar-activists living in North-America, believe that Islamic feminism is able to guarantee both women's rights and women's equality in the framework of Islam.
A study of how these authors construe new interpretations of women in Islam can show how they truly understand the concept of Islamic feminism and its relation to the concept of feminism. An analysis of a number of their articles, where they are hosted, and their intended public can offer many clues as to the values that these women hold and promote. We would like to argue that these values, however, are those of educated, upper- or middle-class women that are, at times, complacent about the Islamic culture that informs the harsh realities of Muslim women living in Muslim countries (where only the privileged access internet). These women's feminism may be labeled utopian, in that they are describing an ideal situation for women in society, from where they are situated. Their unique vantage point, e.g., university campuses or Islamic organizations in the west, moulds their particular understanding of the Islamic tradition, and which they seek to promote a vision of Islam that may be an 'ideal type' quite distinct from the reality of the lives of millions of women. Islamic feminism may, however, have positive effects in spearheading traditional understandings of Islam. Muslim women who write about women's issues frame their understanding of feminism in a manner that attempts to reconcile Islamic values with universality-claiming western values. Islamic feminism is, therefore, forced to find strategies that enable the reconciliation of different ideals. While Islamic feminism seeks to retain the spirit of the Islamic tradition, it cannot avoid the introduction of extra-Islamic elements; by the same token, this inadvertently transforms the nature of feminism. Islamic feminism may be at the heart of a new phenomenon in the on-going debate over the interpretation of the Scriptures in modern times. It will become apparent that there is not one concept of Islamic feminism, but that different groups of individuals define the concept of feminism in a variety of ways. Kay S. Hymowitz argues that 'Islamic feminism can affirm the dignity of Islam while at the same time bringing it more in line with modernity,' but she also cautions against outright optimism on the grounds that (i) polygamy and male domination are enshrined in the Qur'an and that (ii) Islam is unfriendly to the separation of church and state. Trying to define Islamic feminism in view of the latter reservations remains a major difficulty. A study of posted articles found in a number of sites on women, Islam and feminism written by people like Riffat Hassan, Amina Wadud, Mai Yamini, Lois Lamya al-Faruqi, or Maryam Jamila will enable us to identify the concerns of Muslim women, their positions vis-à-vis western feminisms and vis-à-vis traditional understandings of religion, the relations (explicit and implicit) that they establish between Islam and feminism, and their definitions of what constitutes an Islamic feminism.
Bio: Dr. Roxanne D. Marcotte, Lecturer, Studies in Religion, The School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, The University of Queensland, Australia. Studies undertaken in Canada: B.A., Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), M.A. and Ph.D., McGill University, Institute of Islamic Studies. Five years living in Tunisia, Jordan, Syria, and Iran. Articles on women and Islam: 'How Far Have Reforms Gone in Islam,' Women's Studies International Forum (forthcoming); 'Islamic Concept of Women's Emancipation: A Qur'anic Exegesis of Bint al-Shati'?' in Festschrift in Honor of Professor Issa J. Boullata, eds. Andrew Rippin and Khaleel Mohammad; 'Émancipation de la femme et exégèse qur'anique - Bint al-Shati,' Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses, 30.3-4 (2001): 277-292; 'Shahrur, the Status of Women, and Polygamy in Islam,' Oriente Moderno, 20 (2001): 313-28; 'Le réformisme islamique revisité: l'interprétation de Shahrur (1938- ) et la condition feminine,' Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses, 28 (1999): 437-464. Also, numerous articles on contemporary and medieval Islamic thought.
<r.marcotte@uq.edu.au>