Durac, Vincent, and Francesco Cavatorta. "Gender and Politics". In Politics and Governance in the Middle East, by Vincent Durac and Francesco Cavatorta, 188-210. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Durac, Vincent, and Francesco Cavatorta. "Gender and Politics". In Politics and Governance in the Middle East, by Vincent Durac and Francesco Cavatorta, 188-210. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

• There is a widespread perception that women in the Middle East are universally oppressed by a variety of cultural practice pertaining to Islam, such as veiling or purdah. This narrative is flawed and has been constructed by foreign powers to bolster support for various colonial projects (188).
• Colonialists, particularly the French, stereotyped Muslim women are either an oppressed group within a patriarchal society or as sensual temptresses without Christian moral values. Colonial interest in feminism was originally limited, since most European states were opposed to feminism, but it was later employed in the final years of colonialism to undermine Arab nationalism (189).
• As most early Middle Eastern feminist movements were associated with nationalist movements, there was generally limited support for them in the West. When women's rights were expanded in the Middle East, it was usually through authoritarian governments with no real interest in women's agency as citizens (192).
• European women were oppressed under conditions similar to those of the Middle East and the feminist movement of the early 20th Century developed across national lines to include Egyptian and Turkish women alongside their European counterparts. The Middle East must, therefore, be regarded as an active historical participant in feminism, not as a subject excluded from these debates (190).
• However, the gains of these feminist movements were often extremely limited. They were usually part of larger nationalist movements and suffered repression for this reason. Moreover, when they were successful, their gains in legal rights and education often affected only a small portion of the urban population (190-191).
• The adoption of a progressive Personal Status Code in Tunisia in 1956 ended the use of sharia law and sharia courts in family and personal law in Tunisia and replaced it with a secular code that ended many Muslim practices and greatly enhanced the legal autonomy of women. These changes were deeply unpopular outside of a small portion of the elite. It was an important element of the Bourguiba government's anti-Islamist stance, upon which the dictatorship based much of its legitimacy (193).
• Since the 1970s, dialogues about feminism in the Middle East have broadly been about the usefulness and applicability of liberal feminism, with promoters seeing it as empowering and its critics arguing that it destroys the conservative social practices and institutions that many local women actually find empowering (193).
• It is often assumed that religion, and specifically Islam, is the root cause for the oppression of women in the Middle East. This perspective demands that religion be excluded from public life and that liberal feminist practices be adopted in its place. Because it argued that Islamism was an impediment to 'modern' gender relations, feminists often found allies in authoritarian and nationalist governments threatened by Islamism and seeking to modernize their societies (194).
• Some argue that state feminism itself reinforces patriarchy because it implies a patriarchal relationship where women are weak and need to be protected by men through the state (194).
• Some Muslims argue that this division between Islamism and feminism is a result of a misinterpretation of the Quran by those in whose interests it is to keep women oppressed. They argue that Islam actually provides for the conditions of gender equality (194-195).
• This point has come under increased scrutiny in recent decades as many advances in women's right that might have been considered progressive in the first half of the 20th Century are now regarded as basic, and Islam fails to support many modern conceptions of women's rights, with even progressive Islamism positions being seen as conservative and patriarchal (195-196).
• The association of feminists with authoritarian governments in the Middle East means that they often lack support from wide segments of the population, which has turned increasingly to Islamism in opposition to the authoritarian government. Feminists have tried to respond to this difficulty by attempting to 'Islamize' feminism by abandoning their traditional hostility towards relgion and justifying feminist claims on the basis of Islam (196).
• The idea of Islam as playing a central role in the position of women in Middle Eastern societies comes from an orientalist tradition. Nikki Keddie criticizes this approach on the basis that it wrongly assumes legal rights or literary discussions of women are a good gauge of actual women's rights, rather than just looking at how women are actually treated within a society (197).
• Dr. Keddie argues that instead of looking at religious laws, scholars on women in the Middle East must look at alternative explanations for their lived conditions, including economics, Western influences, and other social dynamics typically ignored in the literature (197-198).
• Similar to early capitalist societies in the West, the introduction of capitalist relations in the Middle East resulted in the impoverishment of many rural men and women as their productive capacities were undermined. In the Middle East, this was concurrent with the rise of feminism, resulting in a divide between conservative and rural women who suffered from modernization and wealthy, urban feminists (200-201).
• Women are undoubtedly oppressed both politically and economically in the Middle East. Although they gained the vote in Turkey in 1930, elsewhere this was only achieved in most countries in the 1950s or 1960s, in Jordan and Bahrain in the 1970s, and in Oman, Kuwait, and the UAE only in the 2000s. Women are usually excluded from major political power, Turkey and Israel being exceptions. Female participation in the economy is also relatively low and they are often confined to certain sectors, like education (198-199).
• There is already widespread legal discrimination against women in the Middle East. This ranges from being subject to harsh and gender-specific laws for public or sexual behavior, being discriminated against in legal cases, or being considered as permanent dependents of a male in the legal system (199-200).
• Western governments have often supported anti-feminist dictatorships, especially in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, meaning that they certainly share some portion of the blame for the continuation of oppressive and anti-feminist policies in those countries (201).
• There are a number of reasons why conservative Islamist parties might have female membership despite advocating against ideas of gender equality. Islamist parties might like to present themselves as progressive by having prominent female members, they might genuinely support some degree of female participation, or women themselves have taken advantage of these impulses to demand more authority within the organization. Some have suggested that having prominent female Islamists is used to attract female votes, but women have been present in the Islamist movement since before female suffrage (206).
• Research has revealed that Islamism holds a appeal for many young Arab women because it is seen as a more legitimate political movement than the liberal currents in which feminism often operates (204). Islamism is seen as a better structure for gender relations than liberal feminism, which is seen as having failed in its mission and as corrupted by Western influences (207-208).
• The decline of secularism, liberalism, and leftism as prominent ideologies across the Middle East has meant that these projects attract less political interest than those based on conservatism or Islamism. This partially explains the shift among young women from liberal feminism to Islamism (209).
• It is often assumed that women who advocate for anti-feminist positions or support Islamist parties are operating under 'false consciousness' or have been brainwashed into supporting these positions. This perspective denies agency to those women who participate in these activities (203).