Gender and Economics in Muslim Communities

Critical Feminist and Postcolonial Analyses

Ebru Kongar, Jennifer Olmsted, Elora Shehabuddin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351856645
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Bringing together feminist analyses of economic processes and outcomes with feminist critiques of Orientalism, this book examines the diverse economic realities facing women in a range of Muslim communities. This approach pays special attention to the role of Islam in economic analyses of gender equality and women's well-being in Muslim communities, while at the same time challenging biased and inaccurate accounts that essentialize Islam.

Nuanced case studies conducted in Bangladesh, Iran, Israel, Nigeria, and Turkey illustrate the historical and institutional diversity of Muslim communities and draw vivid pictures of the everyday economic lives of Muslim women in these communities. These studies are complemented by quantitative analyses that extend beyond inserting Islam as a dummy variable. The contributions represent a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, economics, gender studies, political science, psychology, and sociology.

By placing critiques of Orientalist scholarship in direct dialogue with scholarship on economic development in Muslim contexts, this diverse collection illustrates how different methods and frameworks can work together to provide a better understanding of gender equality and women's well-being in Muslim contexts. In doing so, the authors aim to facilitate conversations among feminist scholars across disciplines in order to provide a more nuanced picture of the situation facing women in Muslim communities.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Feminist Economics.

MOVING BEYOND CULTURALISM AND FORMALISM: ISLAM, WOMEN, AND POLITICAL UNREST IN THE MIDDLE EAST

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Gamze Çavdar and Yavuz Yaşar

ABSTRACT

Scenes of political unrest throughout the Middle East are often coupled with media reports and public debates in the United States that have a recurring theme: the relationship between women and Islam. After discussing the culturalist accounts that portray women as being in grave danger from Islam and in need of Western protection and supervision, this contribution examines an emerging trend in political science developed under the influence of the formalism of neoclassical economics. The study argues that despite ostensibly universal assumptions about human behavior and alleged objectivity, the theoretical foundations of neoclassical economics and its methodological formalism fall short in providing an alternative to culturalism, and, instead, reinforce the misperceptions and misunderstandings about the region.

INTRODUCTION

Since December 2010, after the self-immolation of a Tunisian vegetable seller sparked waves of protests, the Middle East region has witnessed unprecedented political activism.¹ The uprisings eventually led to the ousters of presidents and a possible emergence of new regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, and have posed significant challenges to the existing authoritarian governments in Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria, among others. Scenes of the ongoing political unrest are often coupled with media reports and public debates in the United States that have a recurring theme: women threatened by Islam. These accounts repeatedly express concerns about a likely eradication of women’s rights under the newly emerging regimes, and they imply Western protection.

While the issue of gender inequality in Muslim societies is indeed challenging and persistent, the remarkable characteristic of these accounts is a highly ethnocentric and paternalistic stance toward women, who are portrayed as being in grave danger from Islam, with the West depicted as savior.² A large body of scholarship has long criticized such culturalist explanations, arguing that Islam is neither more nor less patriarchal than the other Abrahamic religions and urging the use of other conceptual tools to understand Muslim women (Deniz Kandiyoti 1991; Valentine M. Moghadam 2001). The impact of this literature on public debates, however, has been minor, as similar characterizations of Islam tend to emerge repeatedly, especially in times of political crisis.

As an alternative to such culturalist accounts, a new scholarly trend has emerged recently in political science scholarship and its application to Middle East studies. This development is the use of the theoretical foundations of neoclassical theory and its methodological formalism, which has been the focus of feminist economic critiques as well as internal critiques within economics (see, for example, Julie Nelson 1995; Roger E. Backhouse 1998). Starting from universal assumptions that individuals are rational, autonomous, and self-interested, and relying on methodological formalism that consists of axiomatization, mathematization, and empirical testing, this approach has been advocated as a scientific and objective alternative to the specificity of Islam presented by culturalism (see the discussion on the hostility against area studies below). Although not yet applied to the Middle East uprisings, our research, discussed below, has revealed that this perspective represents the most prevalent framework being used to examine the Middle East in disciplinary and sub-disciplinary political science journals. An analysis of this trend illustrates the influence of neoclassical economics and its methodological formalism on the discipline and illuminates some of the common and persistent problems that emanate from it.

The main objective of this contribution is to criticize formalism emerging in Middle East studies especially under the influence of neoclassical theory. The study does so by first discussing the culturalist accounts of the Middle East, which formalism claims to oppose. Then, it examines two examples of formalist analyses (M. Steven Fish 2002; Lisa Blaydes and Drew A. Linzer 2008). The aim is to demonstrate that the use of formalism under the influence of neoclassical theory in Middle East studies has not only failed to provide an alternative to culturalism, but has also reinforced previous misconceptions about women and Islam. The study further argues that a better understanding of Middle Eastern women requires analytical tools used in a comparative, contextualized, and interdisciplinary fashion instead of an exclusive focus on the methods that give attention only to outcomes.

POPULAR UPRISINGS IN THE MIDDLE EAST: THE REINVENTION OF CULTURALISM

The peoples of the Middle East have been conceptualized as sui generis in some European and American scholarship, a practice that is rooted in colonialism:

According to Lord Cromer, author of the 1908 pseudo-history Modern Egypt, their progress was “arrested” by the very fact of their being Muslim, by virtue of which their minds were as “strange” to that of a modern Western man “as would be the mind of an inhabitant of Saturn.” (Mark LeVine 2011)

Others (Samuel P. Huntington 1993; Bernard Lewis 1993; Elie Kedourie 1994; Adrian Karatnycky 2002) also identified Islam as the villain: “Islam’s democracy and freedom deficits …. appear to have something to do with the nature of Islam itself” (Charles K. Rowley and Nathanael Smith 2009: 298). In fact, these authors often argued, Middle Eastern societies lack almost everything required for modern politics:

[T]here is no state, but only a ruler; no court, but only a judge. There is not even a city with defined powers, limits, and functions, but only an assemblage of neighborhoods, mostly defined by family, tribal, ethnic, or religious criteria, and governed by officials, usually military, appointed by the sovereign. (Lewis 1993: 94)

For these authors, Western supervision, control, and promotion of democracy offered the only hope for the development of liberal institutions and democracy and the emancipation of women, because “the small-scale autocracy of the home, especially the upper-class home, founded on polygamy, concubinage, and slavery, was preparation of an adult life of domination and acquiescence, and a barrier to the entry of liberal ideas” (Bernard Lewis 1996: 96). If democratic movements existed at all, they were “a consequence of the growing impact of the U.S. democracy and of American popular culture” (Lewis 1993: 91). After all, liberal democracy, “a product of the Judeo-Christian West,” was alien to these “Islamic lands” (Lewis 1993: 93).³

Middle East experts from various disciplines have produced an impressive body of scholarship over the last three decades disputing the above-mentioned culturalist accounts that have been prevalent in some Western scholarship and the US popular media. Some have emphasized the roles of institutions, instead of culture, in shaping women’s lives. Kandiyoti (1991) argued that women’s lives vary greatly across Muslim societies, and their roles cannot be understood without understanding the political roles played by nation-states. Some experts demonstrated that even Islamist groups and parties are not uniform in their treatment of women, as their policies are shaped by women’s activism and their relationship with the states that solidify reforms (Janine Astrid Clark and Jillian Schwedler 2003; Janine Astrid Clark 2006; Janine Astrid Clark and Amy E. Young 2008). Others criticized culturalism from a political economy perspective by demonstrating how neoliberal policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) contribute to patriarchal structures (Nilüfer Çağatay and Günseli Berik 1994; Mervat Hatem 1994; Eleanor Abdella Doumato and Marsha Pripstein Posusney 2003; Valentine M. Moghadam 2005). Valentine M. Moghadam (2003) provided one of the most comprehensive and nuanced frameworks for understanding women’s status in Muslim societies. Moghadam argued that a framework that takes into account class, the gender system, economic development, and state policies, instead of Islam, better explains Muslim women’s status.

Among these responses, postcolonial studies have provided the most detailed criticism to culturalism. Following in the footsteps of Edward W. Said (1978), postcolonial scholarship has focused on demonstrating that the knowledge produced in some Western scholarship demonizes Middle Eastern people and justifies Western foreign policy objectives, such as colonialism and imperialism, while conveniently blaming local culture for all problems. Leila Ahmed (1993) criticized the commonly held conviction that Islamic societies are inherently oppressive to women by demonstrating the historical evolution of women’s status in the Middle East. Lila Abu-Lughod (2002) argued that Muslim women do not need saving in her discussion on the “War on Terrorism.” Elora Shehabuddin (2011) demonstrated that the “moderate Muslim” is a concept rooted in colonialism and is now used to justify some foreign policy objectives, and Frances S. Hasso (2009) criticized some global indicators, such as the Human Development Index, arguing that it is “part and parcel of transnational feminist governmentalities, which manage, normalize, and even constitute a range of inequalities among women” (68). Lila Abu-Lughod (2009) and Fida J. Adely (2009) similarly criticized the United Nation Development Programme’s (UNDP) Arab Development Report of 2005 for understating or ignoring the role of the West in the region’s problems. The emphasis of postcolonial studies on the region’s own cultural heritage has paved the way for Islamic feminism, a form of feminism rooted in the Islamic tradition. The West does not have the monopoly over women’s empowerment and feminism, the Islamic feminists argue. By reinterpreting Islamic texts and the tradition, they aim to demonstrate that Islam and feminism are fully compatible (Leila Ahmed 1993, 2011; Margot Badran 1999, 2001, 2011; Isobel Coleman 2010).

Although critics of the culturalist accounts have reached no consensus about the exact determinants of women’s lives, by adopting different theoretical approaches, they have provided examples of analyses that move away from focusing on Islam to providing alternative frameworks of analysis and highlighting complexity and diversity. Their work remains sensitive to domestic contexts through ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, observation, and personal experience, all relying on regional languages.

The impact of this rich body of scholarship on public debates seems to be limited or absent, however, especially during times of political crisis. During the recent uprisings in the region, US media comments once again echoed culturalist claims. A paternalistic tone toward women and the fear of the danger of Islam remerged among pundits and policymakers alike. In a NPR radio interview with Michele Kelemen on March 9, 2011, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, offered help:

[We] certainly try to ensure that [women’s] concerns are heard by the new Egyptian Government, because it would be a shame, with all of the extraordinary change that’s going on in Egypt, if women were somehow not given their opportunity to be part of bringing about the new Egypt.

Some, including the Israeli analyst Barry Rubin, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, openly...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Introduction – Gender and Economics in Muslim Communities: A Critical Feminist and Postcolonial Analysis
• 1. Moving Beyond Culturalism and Formalism: Islam, Women, and Political Unrest in the Middle East
• 2. Patriarchy versus Islam: Gender and Religion in Economic Growth
• 3. The Influence of Patriarchal Norms, Institutions, and Household Composition on Women’s Employment in Twenty-Eight Muslim-Majority Countries
• 4. Unilateral Divorce for Women and Labor Supply in the Middle East and North Africa: The Effect of Khul Reform
• 5. Diverging Stories of “Missing Women” in South Asia: Is Son Preference Weakening in Bangladesh?
• 6. Funding Pain: Bedouin Women and Political Economy in the Naqab/Negev
• 7. Peace in the Household: Gender, Agency, and Villagers’ Measures of Marital Quality in Bangladesh
• 8. “Just Like Prophet Mohammad Preached”: Labor, Piety, and Charity in Contemporary Turkey
• 9. Entrepreneurial Subjectivities and Gendered Complexities: Neoliberal Citizenship in Turkey
• 10. Choice and Constraint in Paid Work: Women from Low-Income Households in Tehran
• 11. Agency through Development: Hausa Women’s NGOs and CBOs in Kano, Nigeria
• Index