Saba Mahmood

This week included two readings from Saba Mahmood. The reading entitled the Subject of Freedom began with an interesting sentence.  She states, “[two opposing sides] both share the assumption that there is something intrinsic to women that should be predispose them to oppose the practices, values, and injunctions that the Islamist movement embodies.” (2) This idea goes along with the previous readings and class discussions revolved around Muslim women and if they need to be ‘saved.’ She then goes to write about the women’s mosque movement in which women met and educated each other about Islam and ways in which to live according to the religion.  She speaks of how this movement was/is not popular with Muslim feminist because it draws upon tradition and within those traditions women are second to men, taking us back to the state of needing to be saved. The movement went against everything that the feminists are working toward.

She in parts of her article label those who are shy, quiet, and reserved (to summarize) as being as a proper Muslim woman should be. We learn through her text the opposing sides that Muslim women face. The first side is that of the shy and modest woman she speaks of above, ones that stick to tradition and don’t question their subordinate status in comparison to men. While on the other side, there are these feminist that are being born who question their ways of living. Who embody what a Muslim women should be but with a voice speaking of equality. The tumblr previously linked to this blog demonstrates just that. A Muslim woman modest, but speaking for her rights, seeking to be an equal.

Week 5: Sara Mahmood. Modernity, Emancipation and the Western Liberal Subject

This week’s readings written by Sara Mahmood discussed the women’s mosque movement which is a part of the Islamic Revival. The women’s movement arose twenty-five to thirty years ago as women started to organize religious lessons at each other’s homes or in mosques. The movement came together as a result of the increasingly secularized surroundings of their country and as a way to educate Muslim women how to live their everyday lives with principles of Islamic piety and to perform religious duties and acts of worship. To live a life of piety involves subordination to feminine virtues: shyness, modesty and humility, and the donning of the veil. Mahmood’s work is an attempt to challenge and dismantle normalized assumptions about human nature: that all have an innate desire for freedom (a specific liberalized freedom), that we all seek to attain our autonomy and that human agency consists of challenging social norms as opposed to upholding them. Mahmood is also challenging the common feminist accounts of this movement which have reduced women’s issues to those of submission and patriarchy.

Often feminist accounts of the non-liberal mosque movement are analyzed from a liberal perspective, one where freedom is an innate desire of all humans, and free will cannot be expressed through actions of custom, tradition or social coercion. Feminism offers both a diagnosis and a prescription for changing the situation of women who are understood as marginalized and oppressed. Those who do not abide by the prescription set out by feminists, which would be to challenge male domination and relations of subordination, are seen as being tied down to the patriarchy of their society and if given the chance would seek freedom (Mahmood 5). The women’s mosque movement challenges this assumption as the women involved in this movement not only live a life of piety by their own free will, but are challenged in both their public and private lives to uphold these standards. The women are actively participating and reproducing, what in a Western context would be viewed as female subordination. There is an “overwhelming tendency within feminism to conceptualize agency in terms of subversion of social norms, to locate agency within those operations that resist the dominating modes of power” (Mahmood 15). Thus as Mahmood argues, the political subject remains a liberatory one, “whose agency is conceptualized on the binary model of subordination and subversion” (Mahmood 16). The women from the mosque movement do not identify with this “liberated” subject. The concept of free will in this context is challenged under the liberal definition of freedom, which states in order for an individual to be free, actions must be consequence of own free will rather than of custom, tradition or social coercion (Mahmood 11). While women in the mosque movement are following the rules of their religion, they are doing so out of their own accord. 

This week’s readings challenged some notions I myself have in regards to the little I know about the women’s mosque movement. The duties ascribed to women under Islamic tradition are not duties I myself, as a woman, identify with or think any woman should be confined to. What I found most challenging was that the concept of piety involved women behaving in there “assumed” gender roles, even if they didn’t feel these were qualities they naturally possessed. For example, one woman “created” her shyness as she naturally lacked this quality. Though this was not the focus of Mahmood’s piece, and her work challenged my notions by providing perspectives of women who abide to these roles because it was seen as the right thing to do in the path of God. The women’s mosque movement is aimed toward goals whose sense is not summarized through black and white binaries like obedience verses rebellion or compliance verses resistance. As a result of working with these binary models, analyses on the subject tend to leave out crucial aspects of the mosque movement. I found these articles compelling, and also quite difficult to fully grasp. As belonging to the “West”, many of the points she raised were things I rarely consider, and yet I can see how these Western ideals play out in how I relate to myself and to others. 

Week 5: Readings by Saba Mahmood

            Saba Mahmood examines the challenges Muslim women’s involvement in the Egyptian mosque movement poses to feminist scholarship and secular-liberal politics. Due to the growing secularization within Egyptian society, many women felt as though it was necessary to form a movement that would enable Muslim women to engage in religious practice and more specifically, to cultivate a practice of personal piety. Because piety has been accorded such a valuable position within Islam, the participants believe by training themselves through embodied ethical rituals, they can become pious subjects. Some of these practices include cultivating shyness, modesty, humility, and donning the veil. According to Mahmood, feminist scholars are particularly critical of Muslim women's involvement in the mosque movement because of their willingness to position themselves into traditionally male-dominated spaces (mosques) and participate in religious traditions and practices that uphold principles of female subordination; not to mention, the qualities and embodied actions participants seek to cultivate have been associated with feminist ideas of female passivity and submissiveness.

            Mahmood explains how feminist scholarship tends to scrutinize Islamist movements because of its assumed associations with social conservatism, cultural backwardness, fundamentalism, women's subjugation and all other supposed oppressive means that seek to limit women's freedom and agency.  Mahmood argues that  feminist scholarship, which is embedded in ideas of universalism, suffers from an 'analytically and politically prescriptive project' that basically claims because society is structured to serve male interests and desires, the result will almost always create a universal outcome for women, that which consists of an oppressed and dominated female figure. Furthermore, it concludes that women must unceasingly resist male domination by refusing to comply to authority in order to enact agency and be free. It's quite evident that feminist scholarship narrowly constructs the normative subject as one who should oppose structures of domination, not adhere to them. Mahmood explains how this simple binary of subordination/resistance creates a rather rigid understanding of agency; suggesting that resistance against authority is really the only significant form of agency. A critical aspect Mahmood focuses on throughout her reading is how agency can also be located within structures of power. Simply understanding agency as resistance against power relations or male authority in this case, fails to recognize the other various forms and modalities of agency.

            Mahmood examines the cultivation of piety among members of the mosque movement in terms of agency. In one of her examples, Mahmood tells us of Abir, a mosque participant who decides to pursue da'wa work despite her husband's disapproval. Mahmood explains the consequences Abir may face in failing to obey her husband's wishes including the threat of divorce or Jamal finding a second wife, which is permitted for a Muslim man. In spite of these threats, Abir continues to attend the institute and uses her training in da'wa to challenge her husband on matters of proper Islamic conduct and informs him that his disapproval would be a rejection of her moral arguments; thus a denial of God's truth. For Abir, in order to live piously, the practice of Islamic virtues was put first; however, this example cautions us to not misinterpret Abir's refusal to obey her husband's wishes as a form of rebellion or resistance against male authority, but more so as an individual commitment to religious duties with the desire to attain higher moral ground. In this example, agency can be understood as a "capacity for action that specific relations of subordination create and enable" (Mahmood 18).

            In this reading I enjoyed how Mahmood problematizes the liberal and progressive concept of the universalization of the desire for freedom. She argues that all human beings have their own innate desire for freedom and it cannot possibly be a universally shared assumption. There are also different ways of thinking about human agency, religion and freedom and these understandings cannot be solely conceptualized within a normative liberal account of politics but must consider  the specific   historical  and  political conditions in which these  understandings came   to   be  significant.

Week Five: Saba Mahmood

The Subject of Freedom

I was very glad to have read Chandra Mohanty’s piece before beginning Saba Mahmood’s, especially due to the passage when Mahmood discusses “liberal assumptions about human nature”. Mohanty’s explanation of liberal humanism was a useful tool, particularly regarding the assumptions that “human beings have an innate desire for freedom” and that “human agency primarily consists of acts that challenge social norms” which Mahmood discusses. These assumptions, particularly the latter, are further explored when Mahmood tackles Judith Butler and the concept of power and norms. According to Butler (and Foucault) power, while used to dominate specific individuals or entities, is not exclusively an agent of domination. Power is also inherent in forming the subjects who become part of the “operations of power”. This production of subjects and subsequently “norms” is socially perpetuated, but Butler argues that the very creation of subjects and norms can be used as an agent to destabilize the system. Mahmood however, provides an interesting argument by suggesting that Butler’s perception of agency is limited to acts that contest norms.

Mahmood criticizes the concept of agency earlier in the article too, when a woman’s agency is mentioned. More specifically, the problematic undertone of a woman’s agency, in the perception that it is only powerful if it is resistant to a male dominated system, particularly in country that is seen as politically stagnant or backwards.

Gender, Agency, and Embodiment

            In the second reading, Mahmood again encourages the reader to reflect on agency in an alternate or additional way. As opposed to thinking of agency as pushing back against subordination, Mahmood has the reader examine agency as a “modality of action”. An example of female mosque participants is given, and Mahmood dissects the complicated nature of performativity and gendered actions. Mahmood explains that when a woman is working toward piety, the traits she may learn (like shyness and modesty) and the way she participates in the mosque is not mean to destabilize the structure of the mosque like Judith Butler would suggest, but is to consolidate the mosque. A mosque participant would want to ensure that her exterior self and interior self are aligned, both for piety.

          These readings made me think of an article by José Esteban Muñoz called Disidentifications. In it, he argues that there are three main modes of identification to power. One can have identification, counteridentification, or disidentification. Disidentification can be viewed as how a minoritarian exists in a majoritarian world. Disidentifiying does not assimilate to nor strictly oppose dominant ideology. This concept of alternative relationships to power was something I thought of as I read the two chapters from Mahmood's book.
          Both of these chapters were an excellent example of why it is important to consider agency as a mode of action that can be varied and not limited to those being subjugated by men. It is easy to categorize agency as pushing back against a structure, or trying to destabilize a system. Mahmood provided thoughtful (and wordy!) arguments that push the reader to ask for a deeper understanding of power, agency, and gender. 

molly nevius

Teju Cole - The White Savior Industrial Complex

Hey everyone, here is the link to Teju Cole's The White Savior Industrial Complex piece I brought up the other day. In case you'd like to have it as a reference, or read the piece in its entirety.

#LifeofaMuslimfeminist

Hi everyone,

I mentioned a trending twitter hashtag in class on Tuesday. Here is a link to a couple highlights- feel free to check out the whole tag on twitter.

http://faineemae.com/post/76804775596

An interesting discussion about what feminism is and who gets to claim it...

Week 4: Readings by Chandra Mohanty and Lila Abu-Lughod

            In Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses, Chandra Mohanty is critical of the concept of 'women as a category of analysis' which has been used in western feminist discourse to universalize the assumed shared oppression of 'third world women.' The portrayal of non-western or 'third world women' as a homogenous group suggests they all share identical goals, dependencies, oppressions and struggles. Western feminist narratives are highly contested by Mohanty as she claims these representations fail to account for the varied identities, histories, cultures and experiences among women that uniquely shape and determine the conditions of their individual lives.This framework suggests that gender is what distinguishes women as a group instead of the multitude of factors including one's socio-economic status, culture, history, ethnicity, etc. 

            The astounding ignorance toward ‘third world women’ and societies is prevalent in the some of the texts written by certain western scholars in the series, 'Women in the Third World.' These authors construct a monolithic image of 'third world women' as exploited, victimized, and subjugated which suggests their assumed lack of agency too. Mohanty mentions how these over-generalizations of third world women are destructive to the potentiality of solidarity and coalition work among western and non-western women.While western feminist narratives write about 'third world women' not only do they position themselves as the gate keepers of knowledge regarding these subjects, but they simultaneously create a contrasting dichotomous image that classifies both groups in simplistic opposition to each other. This type of 'feminist orientalism' situates 'third world women' as poor, oppressed, uneducated, traditional, sexually repressed and powerless; while western women are self-represented as educated, modern, secular, sexually autonomous and in complete control of their lives.

            One of the aspects Mohanty centers her discussion on is the re-presentation of 'third world women' as a homogenous powerless group who are seen as victims of cultural and socio-economic systems. She further argues that western feminist narratives perpetually constitute ‘third world women’ as an already powerless group, prior to the historical and political analysis in question. Mohanty uses the practice of veiling as one example. Through a western feminist framework, the veil has often been perceived as a marker of female subordination and backwardness assumed to be forced upon third world women in Muslim societies as a form of control. When in actuality there are various reasons why women veil (many willingly chose to) and the reasons are not always limited to mandatory law. One example Mohanty mentions is when women veiled in Iran during the revolution to embrace solidarity between working class women. In comparison to contemporary Iran, women are required by law to veil. The meaning and value attached to the practice of veiling in these examples are both different and can only be understood when taking into account the specific cultural, historical and ideological contexts. 

            Like Mohanty, Lila Abu-Lughod suggests that one must understand and take into consideration the historical context of the situation of women prior to an analysis of their roles and positions within (in this case) contemporary Egyptian society. Abu-Lughod examines the Islamist and secularist visions of women's ideal roles within Egyptian society. Although both groups envision themselves as oppositional forces in Egypt, they interestingly seem to generally share similar beliefs when the 'question of woman' is debated within the context of familial systems. In one of her arguments, Abu-Lughod analyzes Islamist desires to return to cultural authenticity and traditionalism in an effort to 'retraditionalize' women's roles so they become proper mothers and wives. She claims that the value placed on marital love and the nuclear family that Islamists seem to emphasize the importance of (as seen in newspaper articles and advice columns) are in fact also modernist ideologies that are influenced by western notions. These traditional ideologies have not developed indigenously within the context of Islamic tradition. In fact, Abu-Lughod explains that it is not possible for there to be an authentic tradition because of Egypt's historical encounter with the West.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kBadnr2NTc

In this video, British women talk about why they willingly choose to wear the niqab.

Calla Gilligan's Week Four Blog Post

In “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses”, written by Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Mohanty first states how she feels colonization has become a term too widely used, one which is used to characterize every struggle faced by the third world women. “The definition of colonization I invoke is a predominantly discursive one, focusing on a certain mode of appropriation and codification of 'scholarship' and 'knowledge' about women in the third world by particular analytic categories employed in writings on the subject which take as their primary point of reference feminist interests as they have been articulated in the US and western Europe” (page 2). She then continues on to introduce the term “third world woman” and how it has been widely used in recent feminist text as the main subject. This term has been created to describe the oppressed, non-western woman who suffers so greatly, and in such unjust culture and socioeconomic society. She uses information published by other scholars about their own third world cultures to enrich her own argument, so while the article of focusing specifically on western feminist dialogues about the third world woman, the critiques she has offered also pertain to those of the other scholars, whose analytical arguments are almost identical. Throughout the article, she is trying to show how western feminist writings, while trying to prove how all women face the same struggles, but the “third world woman” who suffers so much more, should adopt these western feminist ideals as their own. These women should adopt international links but what the western feminists are trying to do is sell a product, their feminism being the product.

In “Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East”, edited by Lila Abu-Lughod, she describes how those who claim to reject feminist ideals as western imports actually practice a form of this type of feminism. The Islamists are dependent on the ideas of early modernizing reformers as these ideas have become transformed, widely spread and normalized into people’s lives through the socioeconomic changes of the last century. Throughout the article, she describes several “tv serial” writers and the content of their shows. The author believes “tv serials” are not as influential and powerful to modern feminism as the producers and critics of these shows believe. But some writers who have been involved with television since the 60’s write about several women’s issues. One of the television writers, who is female, described how she struggled with censors because some of the content of her shows was deemed unrealistic to how the women of Egypt actually acted in society.

Both these articles expressed how this idea of modern feminism had distorted society in dramatic ways. In the first article, this “third world woman” is being told how she should act, what battles to fight wherein the second article when these modern ideas are adopted, they are dismissed and fought against. In the second article, many women made traditionalism a new form of feminism, adopting hijabs and leaving their jobs to be mothers and housewives. These women were fought by "conservatives" but most of the time, the men preaching to the women were more conservative then the women themselves. Women are adopting new ideas, but hopefully, these ideas are their own and can helps create a more accepting world for them to live in.