In Search of Islamic Feminism: One Woman’s Global Journey by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea
I have been talking about this book with a lot of people, many of whom looked at the title and said “isn’t that a contradiction in terms?” I usually then go into a mini-lecture on “family feminism”, that is, feminism which promotes women’s equal power within the family, and her public equality with men as a way to further the family. It is an intriguing viewpoint, in contrast with the usually individualist and sometimes gender-combative approached taken in Western feminism.
This was an intense read covering nine countries with sizable Muslim populations (Uzbekistan, Morocco, Kuwait, Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel/Palestine, the US); globally important women working to support further women’s social, legal and political rights; and dozens of detailed interviews. In nearly every nation, women identified the prime problems facing women as: education, divorce law, and inheritance law. These issues existed in terms of sharia, local meshings of traditional local family law and sharia, and fairly straight secular law. Heavy swimming, but neat information.
This is part of my long-term research for my semester abroad in Qatar at Carnegie Mellon’s campus there. I *will not* be an ignorant American if I can help it
Inspirational Quote:
JUSTICE ALITO: Well, the school could keep records on its students, like the police keep records on confidential informants. So if — unless this student
had a proven record of having accurately ratted out a certain number of classmates in the past, she couldn’t be believed.
MR. WRIGHT: Except that, Your Honor, there’s a different incentive here. Students can be disciplined if they — if they tell tales. And so if she tells a lie she faces the risk of discipline. In addition to that, there was evidence that these kids were friends, and he had reason to rely on that. He had
reason based on their association at the opening dance. He had reason to believe that because —
JUSTICE STEVENS: What discipline did the tipster receive? What discipline was the erroneous tipster given?
MR. WRIGHT: Oh, there was no discipline that I know of in the record, Your Honor. It’s not in the record and I do not know.
