Is strategic coalition-building the ticket to securing women’s interests in the post-Arab Spring world?

(post originally published June 19, 2012)

The UN declaration that Syria is engaged in a civil war. Ongoing tensions between the US and Iran. This weekend’s Egyptian presidential elections (tentatively won by Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi). Last week’s decision by SCAF to dissolve the Egyptian Parliament, which was dominated by Muslim Brotherhood members. The decision by SCAF to greatly limit the new president’s power, vesting part of it (legislation, budget) in their own hands. These stories of life in the MENA have been the focus of major news outlets in recent weeks. And who in the mainstream media is talking about where women fit into all of this (aside from being the victims of the Assad regime’s atrocities, the losers in Egyptian politics, and – well – virtually invisible in the current debates over what to do about Iran)? Well no one, really, at least not in any sustained manner. If past precedent is any indication of success, strategic coalition –building will be key to women’s particular concerns remaining front and center in the dialogues and debates about the shape of the post-Arab Spring MENA landscape.

women's rights MENAKelly PembertonJune 14, 2016Cairo, Egypt, Houria Mashour, Islam, Islamism, Nahdat ul-Ulama, Nadia Yassine, Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Women and Memory Forum

Islamism: Poison or Antidote for Women’s Rights?

(post originally published May 30, 2012)

Are women’s rights and Islamism (here, “political Islam”) diametrically opposed? That is the common consensus, at least among policymakers and pundits in the West. But all over the world, women are embracing Islamism as the source – not the antithesis—of their power and authority. Why would women support Islamist movements that have historically opposed women’s political participation and public visibility and have only recently, sometimes reluctantly, embraced the idea of women’s mobilization? Explanations of women’s attraction to Islamism have ranged from seeing women as victims of “false consciousness” to enumerating the ways in which they benefit from such “patriarchal bargains” (to borrow Deniz Kandiyoti’s well-known phrase), to seeing women’s activism through Islamist channels as a way for them to claim their rights as women through more widely acceptable paradigms, while simultaneously avoiding the charge of being “Western style-feminists.”

Islam and women's rightsKelly PembertonJune 14, 2016Amat al-Salam Raja, Arab Spring, Egype, extremism, Islah party, Islam, Islamism, Middle East, Morocco, Muslim Brothrhood, Nadia Yassine, Pakistan, Red Mosque, Refah Party, Turkey, women's rights, Yemen

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