Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research, 2019 (vol. 20), issue 2
Feminist Re-Interpretations of Islam

Editorial

Muslim Feminists and Their Search for Gender-Egalitarian Islam

Gabriela Özel Volfová, Maria Holt

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2019, 20 (2): 3-24 | DOI: 10.13060/25706578.2019.20.2.481  

Articles

Secular, Islamic or Muslim feminism? The Place of Religion in Women’s Perspectives on Equality in Islam

Zora Hesová

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...

Feminisms in Iraq: Beyond the Religious and Secular Divide

Zahra Ali

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...

The Religious Sexual Education in Post-Revolutionary Iran: Redefining Tamkin and the Control of Sexuality

Nafiseh Sharifi

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...

Political Embodiments of the Hijab in Narratives of Iraqi Refugee Women in Diaspora

Nadia Jones-Gailani

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...

Essay

The Challenges of Islamic Feminism

Ziba Mir-Hosseini

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2019, 20 (2): 108-122 | DOI: 10.13060/25706578.2019.20.2.486  

By the early 1990s there were clear signs of the emergence of a new gender discourse that came to be labelled ‘Islamic feminism’. In this paper, I first set this new discourse against the backdrop of the global and local politics of Islam and gender in the latter part of the 20th century. Then I introduce the work of feminist scholar-activists who argue for equality and justice from inside the Muslim tradition, outline how they seek to change the terms of traditional Islamic discourses on gender, and consider their prospects of success. I shall focus on Musawah (www.musawah.org), a global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family.

Articles outside the special issue

Is Self-employment a Precarious Job for Mothers of Young Children? A Comparison of the Experience of Czech and Ukrainian Entrepreneurs with Small Children in the Czech Republic

Romana Marková Volejníčková, Markéta Švarcová, Alena Křížková, Lenka Formánková

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2019, 20 (2): 124-153 | DOI: 10.13060/25706578.2019.20.2.487  

Entrepreneurship may be associated with independence and profit, but it may also be a precarious type of employment. Self-employment is often a strategy for those groups of workers who face marginalisation and disadvantages on the labour market, such as mothers of young children or migrants. In this paper we use an intersectional approach and draw on the theory of precarity to analyse how Czech and Ukrainian entrepreneurs with small children (in the Czech Republic) describe and perceive precarity in self-employment. Our analysis shows that entrepreneurship is a form of precarious work, especially for mothers of young children. Their social position,...

Reviews

The Political and Racial Ramifications of Conversion in Europe: The Case of German Muslim Converts

Fatma Tütüncü

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2019, 20 (2): 154-158  

Review of book Özyürek, E. 2015. Being German, Becoming Muslim: Race, Religion, and Conversion in the New Europe. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Unveiling Lower-Class Bodies and Queering Labour History: ‘Industrial Sexuality’

Claire Savina

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2019, 20 (2): 158-162  

Review of book Hammad, H. 2016. Industrial Sexuality: Gender, Urbanization, and Social Transformation in Egypt. Austin: University of Texas Press.

The Struggle over Women’s Bodies in the Global Beauty Industry

Anna Rybová

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2019, 20 (2): 162-167  

Review of book Jha, M. R. 2016. The Global Beauty Industry: Racism, Colorism and the National Body. New York: Routledge.

Information

Obituary: Remembering Ann Snitow

Iva Šmídová

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2019, 20 (2): 168  

Who Shapes Global Migration Governance Today and Who’s Affected by It? Report from the Conference ‘Geopolitics and Transnational Migration’

Marie Heřmanová

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2019, 20 (2): 169-172  

The Sociological Imagination: Do We Build Boundaries or Do We Want Solidarity?

Romana Marková Volejníčková, Markéta Švarcová

Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research 2019, 20 (2): 173-175