Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2019, 20 (2): 26-46 | DOI: 10.13060/25706578.2019.20.2.482  

The Western focus on ‘Islamic feminism’ takes two extreme forms: it is often dismissed as an oxymoron for attaching a religious (patriarchal) adjective to an emancipatory feminist project, or it is hailed as a road to a liberal, reformed Islam. Many Muslim feminists refuse to use this term; some reject feminism outright. There is consequently a tension within the term that many Muslim women activists acknowledge. In order to gain a better understanding of how religious and secular discourses combine in ‘feminism in Islam’, this text aims to examine the place of religion in women’s emancipatory strategies.
When we...

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2019, 20 (2): 47-66 | DOI: 10.13060/25706578.2019.20.2.483  

This article explores feminisms and women’s activisms in today’s Iraq and highlights the heterogeneity of both their religious and secular expressions in analysing them in relation to each other rather than as distinct. I argue that not only do we need to go beyond the Islamist/secular dichotomy but we need to analyse what’s in-between these categories. In order to understand their in-betweenness, Iraqi women’s activisms and feminisms have to be examined in their imbricated and complex social, economic and political contexts both discursive and material. I start by reflecting on conceptual considerations regarding...

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2019, 20 (2): 68-83 | DOI: 10.13060/25706578.2019.20.2.484  

This paper looks at the religious discourse of sexuality in post-revolutionary Iran. Based on my ethnographic fieldwork in Tehran, I discuss how in state-sponsored publications and official education traditional religious rules of sexuality such as tamkin are redefined in relation to society’s new demands. I discuss the role played by religious workshops for married couples in justifying Islamic moral codes of behaviour that regulate and control Iranians’ sexual lives.
However, this paper argues that Islamic sex education is changing the perception of sex and female sexuality amongst its young religious audience. Such changes...

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2019, 20 (2): 84-106 | DOI: 10.13060/25706578.2019.20.2.485  

This article explores how young displaced Iraqi Sunni Muslim women negotiate religious identity in diaspora, and how veiling becomes an expression of a new politicised Islamic feminism. Veiling continues to be the focus of ideological debates about Islam and women’s rights in the Muslim world and in the global diaspora of displaced refugees. Young refugee and migrant women find themselves at the intersection of new and old Muslim communities, secular and religious feminisms, and first- and second-generation ideals of female modesty. Based on oral histories conducted with Arab and Kurdish Sunni Iraqi women now resettled in the Toronto and Detroit...