An analysis of Islamist cultural politics through the ethnography of a thriving, grassroots women's piety movement in the mosques of Cairo, Egypt. Unlike those organized Islamist activities that seek to seize or transform the state, this is a moral reform movement whose orthodox practices are commonly viewed as inconsequential to Egypt's political landscape. The author's exposition of these practices challenges this assumption by showing how the ethical and the political are linked within the context of such movements.

Democracy is the central political issue of our age, yet debates over its nature and goals rarely engage with feminist concerns. Now that women have the right to vote, they are thought to present no special problems of their own. But despite the seemingly gender-neutral categories of individual or citizen, democratic theory and practice continues to privilege the male. This book reconsiders dominant strands in democratic thinking - focusing on liberal democracy, participatory democracy, and twentieth century versions of civic republicanism (...) - and approaches these from a feminist perspective. Anne Phillips explores the under-representation of women in politics, the crucial relationship between public and private spheres, and the lessons of the contemporary women's movement as an experience in participatory democracy. (shrink)

Polygamy, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, punishing women for being raped, differential access for men and women to health care and education, unequal rights of ownership, assembly, and political participation, unequal vulnerability to violence. These practices and conditions are standard in some parts of the world. Do demands for multiculturalism — and certain minority group rights in particular — make them more likely to continue and to spread to liberal democracies? Are there fundamental conflicts between our commitment to gender equity (...) and our increasing desire to respect the customs of minority cultures or religions? In this book, the eminent feminist Susan Moller Okin and fifteen of the world’s leading thinkers about feminism and multiculturalism explore these unsettling questions in a provocative, passionate, and illuminating debate. Okin opens by arguing that some group rights can, in fact, endanger women. She points, for example, to the French government’s giving thousands of male immigrants special permission to bring multiple wives into the country, despite French laws against polygamy and the wives’ own bitter opposition to the practice. Okin argues that if we agree that women should not be disadvantaged because of their sex, we should not accept group rights that permit oppressive practices on the grounds that they are fundamental to minority cultures whose existence may otherwise be threatened. In reply, some respondents reject Okin’s position outright, contending that her views are rooted in a moral universalism that is blind to cultural difference. Others quarrel with Okin’s focus on gender, or argue that we should be careful about which group rights we permit, but not reject the category of group rights altogether. Okin concludes with a rebuttal, clarifying, adjusting, and extending her original position. These incisive and accessible essays — expanded from their original publication in Boston Review and including four new contributions — are indispensable reading for anyone interested in one of the most contentious social and political issues today. The diverse contributors, in addition to Okin, are Azizah al-Hibri, Abdullahi An-Na’im, Homi Bhabha, Sander Gilman, Janet Halley, Bonnie Honig, Will Kymlicka, Martha Nussbaum, Bhikhu Parekh, Katha Pollitt, Robert Post, Joseph Raz, Saskia Sassen, Cass Sunstein, and Yael Tamir. (shrink)

"Toward a Feminist Theory of the State" presents Catharine MacKinnon's powerful analysis of politics, sexuality, and the law from the perspective of women.

The use of "theory" in feminist analysis has been said to threaten feminism as a political force. This collection of work by leading feminist scholars engages with the question of the political status of poststructuralism theory within feminism. Against the view that the use of post-structuralism necessarily weakens feminism, 'Feminists Theorize the Political' affirms the contemporary debate over theory as politically rich and consequential. In laying the theoretical groundwork for the volume, Butler and Scott posed a number of questions to (...) prominent legal scholars, literary critics, philosophers, political theorists, historians, and cultural theorists. The essays do not settle the questions but generate new and productive directions for them. The volume as a whole valorizes the unsettling power and politics of theory. The essays in 'Feminists Theorize the Political' speak to the questions that emerge from the convergence of feminism and poststructuralism: What happens to feminist critique when traditional foundations--experience, history, universal norms--are called into question? Can feminist theory problematize the notion of the subject without losing its political effectivity? Which version of the subject is to questioned, and how does that questioning open up possibilities for reformulating agency, power, and sites of political resistance? What are the consequences of a specifically feminist reformulation of difference? What are the uses and limits of a poststructuralist critique of binary logic for the theorization of racial and class differences, the position of the subaltern? This anthology represents a diverse array of theoretical work within feminist theory with strong political stakes. Although not all of the authors subscribe to poststructuralism, (and few would concede post-structuralism is a monolithic enterprise), each offers an innovative feminist analysis that is in some way motivated in and by the poststructuralist challenge. 'Feminists Theorize The Political' addresses a range of feminist concerns, including productive freedom, anti-discrimination law, rape, and formulating power in terms of exclusion, difference and hierarchy. (shrink)

The article focuses on the complex positioning of people from disempowered backgrounds with respect to liberalism and liberal dividends. The author offers the term liberal bargain, paraphrasing Deniz Kandiyoti’s “patriarchal bargain” and Cynthia Cockburn’s “ethnic bargain,” and dwells on the interconnections between the three. The liberal bargain indicates the particular consciousness and symbolic whitening that “colorized” people tend to adopt when they attempt to cash in on the liberal promise. Within the discourse of postcolonial feminism, the concept is intended to (...) promote the discussion of power differentials among women, through refining the analytically dissatisfactory color metaphors habitually used to address issues of hegemony and ethnocentrism. (shrink)

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Working Feminism looks at key concepts and debates within feminist theory and puts them to work concretely in relation to the real problems faced by Filipina ...