Katherine's entry, Islamic feminism
I enjoyed Arat-Koc's article about veiling in Turkey and her position speaking about it as an emigre feminist, and I hope everyone gets a chance to read it as it seems to address really well an issue that several people have brought up, that is, the idea that woman can choose to wear the veil as a symbol of cultural identity and/or a feminist strategy, " a way for women to maintain public presence and active public lives, while avoiding sexual objectification of their bodies and sexual harassment in the public world" (175). I hope we can talk about this in class, and discuss in what conditions this can truly be a choice -- Is it a choice if everyone in your family uses it? Is it a choice if not wearing a veil sets you up for sexual objectification and sexual harassment?
Her writing about class, politics, and the desire to make Turkey a "civilized nation", as well as Kris's friend's experience in Somalia, reminded me of some of the earlier readings about colonialism. Feminist movements in a lot of countries, especially European countries, seem to have been tied up with colonialist projects, wanting women to be educated in order to be a good colonizing nation, for example. What kind of position should feminists take in this situation?
Arat-Koc, Moghissi, and Mojab all seem to say that a lot of well-meaning Western feminists have gone too far in their desire not to be racist, not to collaborate with colonialism, and so on. They've adopted a cultural relativism that says it's all right for other societies to work out gender relations in their own way, and so they've bought into a kind of propaganda of "Islamic feminism" that is really not feminism, according to these authors, and is not in the interests of Muslim women.