the reinvention of feminism in Pakistan

This article argues that there has been a significant turn in the discourse of feminist politics in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The author suggests that the rise of a new feminism – rooted in Islamic discourse, non-confrontational, privatized and personalized, whose objective is to ‘empower’ women within Islam – is not a post-9/11 development but rather a result of unresolved debates on the issue of religion within the progressive women's movement. It has been due to the accommodation of religion-based feminist arguments by the stronger secular feminist movement of the 1980s that paved the way for its own marginalization by giving feminist legitimacy to such voices. The author argues that the second wave of feminism may have become diluted in its effectiveness and support due to discriminatory religious laws, dictatorship, NGO-ization, fragmentation, co-option by the state and political parties in the same way as the global women's movement has. Yet it has been the internal inconsistency of the political strategies as well as the personal, Muslim identities of secular feminists that have allowed Islamic feminists to redefine the feminist agenda in Pakistan. This article voices the larger concern over the rise of a new generation of Islamic revivalist feminists who seek to rationalize all women's rights within the religious framework and render secular feminism irrelevant while framing the debate on women's rights exclusively around Islamic history, culture and tradition. The danger is that a debate such as this will be premised on a polarized ‘good’ vs ‘bad’ Muslim woman, such that women who abide by the liberal interpretation of theology will be pitted against those who follow a strict and literal interpretist mode and associate themselves with male religio-political discourse. This is only likely to produce a new, radicalized, religio-political feminism dominating Pakistan's political future.     

Only Contradictions on Offer

Segal addresses feminism's future at a time when political energies are apparently in decline. She explores the contradictory models of feminism operating in political and media representations: the dominance of gender questions and gender anxieties, including the marked concern with models of 'proper' masculinity, inevitably implicates feminists in the political arena. The decline in political engagement among feminists is in any case disturbing, because women without power have been made the central targets of neo-conservative social policies in the United States, Britain and elsewhere, with the female 'welfare dependent' becoming particularly demonized. The failure of feminists to address such issues results from the decline of socialist feminisms, and a general failure within feminism to make class and race differences, and the inequalities that result from them, the central plank of its theories and politics. Segal calls attention to the divorce between feminist theory and feminist activism, and argues that the politics of the academy have largely contributed to a disciplinary specialization which militates against feminism's productive interdisciplinarity. While the literary paradigms that now dominate feminist thought have produced rich models for subjectivity and identity, the decrease in social science contributions to the field has led to a lessening of attention to existing social relations. Segal insists upon the necessity of a continuing engagement with cultural questions, but argues that these need to be combined with a commitment to radical social transformation if feminisms, in all their complexity and multifariousness, are to have a future.     

The ‘Great Offender’: feminists and the campaign for women's ordination

Few scholars have investigated the relationship between feminism and religion in the aftermath of suffrage. This article explores how feminist organizations and individual feminists supported campaigns for women's ordination within the Anglican Church and their concern for gender equality within British churches more broadly during the forties and fifties. Focusing in particular on the 1944 ordination of the first female priest within the Anglican Communion (The Bishop of Hong Kong Ronald O. Hall ordained Chinese Deaconess Florence Li Tim Oi) and the institution of female chaplain's assistant positions in 1942, it argues that a full understanding of mid twentieth-century feminism requires consideration of the struggle for women's representation in their churches. The forties and fifties have often been portrayed by historians as the nadir of twentieth-century feminism, yet feminists continued their work for women's rights and religious identity and issues could be motivating factors for their activism. Feminists were neither anti-religious nor militantly secular and this article seeks to foster work which explores the connection between religion and women's political and social activism since the nineteenth century.     

Wounding and Healing: dealing with difference in Christian narratives of migrant women in East London since the 1980s

Setting oral histories conducted with a group of female Christian migrants to East London from various backgrounds and different stages in the life cycle alongside interviews with male migrants and non-migrant women, this article seeks to explore the relationship between gender, mainstream religious affiliation and the negotiation of the migratory experience. Informed by mimetic and feminist theory on religious subjectivities, the article focuses on the preoccupation with sacrifice and healing which emerges from these life stories and highlights the ways in which the emotional realities of pain, separation and suffering also give rise to powerfully reconceptualised, individual faith resources and creative strategies for claiming agency within familial, vocational and religious settings. Through a focus on domestic life, work and church leadership within ‘mainstream’ Christian churches, this article complicates assumptions about the nature and historical trajectory of ‘traditional’ religious organisations, and interweaves migrant women's experience closely with that of other members of their church communities. Through these ‘moving stories’, gender forms an integral part of these women's spiritual narratives and is constitutive of their articulation and negotiation of their faith, migration and inculturation.     

Politics Materialized: Rethinking the Materiality of Feminist Political Action through Epigenetics

The ‘new’ of new materialism should not be read as current feminism's distancing from or disavowal of the legacy of previous feminist movements. This past cannot be left behind as it is enfolded—both conceptually and materially—and reconfigured as feminism's current theorizing and political action. This article argues that this cultural inheritance is at the same time corporeally manifested in the biology of feminist bodies. Such a contention is inspired by Karen Barad's argument that concepts, ideas and other social phenomena are specific physical arrangements materialized through apparatuses. Barad insists that the relationships between the social, political and discursive and physical matter are not relations of externality. Instead, there is a complex entanglement where the differences between the cultural and the physical are matters of making separate rather than there being two radically separate realms. Barad's claims are supported by epigenetic research into the intergenerational health effects of the experience of social stigma. The results of this research suggest that an individual's environment, both physical and social, current and historical, manifests in biology at the molecular level. So politics, then, is a truly material practice which is at the same time constitutive of its practitioners. New materialism's history of feminist action and theorization can never be excluded from current practices of feminism but neither can it determine them in advance. Politics and feminism are particular, contingent, material histories, with each practitioner reconfiguring her or his specific biological and social materialization as their present-day political and feminist actions.     

Beginning an ‘Extraordinary Opportunity’: Eleanor Roosevelt,Molly Dewson,and the expansion of women's boundaries in the Democratic Party, 1924–1934

This article contributes to recent reinterpretations of women's participation in the United States' political system in the 1920s and 1930s by arguing that the years 1924 through 1934 demonstrated an expansion of female boundaries in the Democratic Party. Eleanor Roosevelt became the first agent in this process through her involvement in both the New York State Democratic Party and in social justice feminism. Her protégée, Molly Dewson, continued the expansion as the first full-time director of the Women's Division of the Democratic National Committee, also helping to re-establish social justice feminism's national prominence.     

Emotional Deviants and the Politics of Love: ‘spiritual friendships’ in late nineteenth-century Christchurch

William Smith, also known as ‘the man with two wives’, and Mary Colborne-Veel's ‘spiritual friendships’ are part of a significant window into the emotional politics of late nineteenth-century New Zealand. This research explores the relationship between the apparently ‘deviant’ emotions expressed by respectable middle-class political reformers like Smith and his second wife Kate Sheppard, and the political nation-state which they sought to reform. It is the contention of this article that emotional ‘deviancy’ was a reflection of the wider contemporary political situation which saw the nation in flux; the early women's movement politicised love and affection, while the fractured nation that that movement unsettled enabled emotional deviance the privilege of social sanctioning.     

The impact of gay friendly cultures on religious expression: a study of inclusive attitudes and behaviours among religious adolescent American male athletes

Abstract

This article investigates the way attitudes inclusive of homosexuality have proliferated among 11 high school athletes on 1 sporting team, despite those athletes representing various beliefs. Utilizing an in-depth, six-question interview schedule, as well as Huber’s centrality of religion scale (CRS-10), the respondents’ varied religious backgrounds, attitudes towards homosexuality and religiosity are discerned via semi-structured interviews. Results show that these young men reconcile their church’s stances with their own inclusive beliefs, reported ostensibly inclusive environments within their church communities, and articulated their belief in equality through secular discourse. As church communities in inclusive locales deemphasize anti-gay principles and posture inclusivity, young people may maintain religious identities as a function of secularization as declining religious authority. Finally, I discuss the relationship between inclusive masculinities, religiosity and secularization; in doing so, I explore mechanisms by which dominant cultural narratives (in this case, the acceptance of homosexuality) might transform religious expression and religious institutions.     

A “pair of … infernal queens”? 1 a reassessment of the dominant representations of emmeline and christabel pankhurst,first wave feminists in edwardian britain

Abstract

This article reassesses the dominant representations of two First Wave feminists in Edwardian Britain, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst, who founded the women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) on 10 October 1903 with the expressed aim of fighting for the right of women to enfranchisement on the same terms as it was, or may be, granted to men. Both women, it is argued, have been represented by historians mainly in a negative light which, at best, ignores their women-centred approach to politics and, at worst, misrepresents their views. However, if we are to understand these women as feminists then we must examine their own rationale for their actions which is in wide divergence with the views expressed by historians. As women-identified women, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst were forerunners of some of the ideas articulated by radical feminists in the Second Wave of feminism in the West in the 1970s. In this article, this theme is illustrated through focusing on two key areas – the world-view of the Pankhurst women and their style of leadership.     

women developing women: Islamic approaches for poverty alleviation in rural Egypt

Through an ethnographic account of a social reform project led by Islamic activist women in the village of Mehmeit in rural Egypt, this article analyses women's Islamic activism as a form of worship. Women's experiences of activism are at the centre of this account, which highlights their attempts to economically and socially develop a destitute rural community. Their development ideals mirror the embedded principles of liberal secular modernity and offer a tangible example of the concomitance of these so-called binaries of religion and secularism in women's religious activism. Normative assumptions regarding religion and secularism as two binary constructs have largely dictated a monolithic view of women who engage in Islamic activism as religious subjects primarily devoted to a spiritual, internal faith. Persistent models of religious selves engaged in a continuous exercise of self-fashioning towards a fixed ‘religious ideal’ overlook the complexity and seamlessness of the desires that animate these subjectivities. Moreover, it is inaccurate to represent participants in Islamic activism as homogenized into one overarching group that adheres to standardized religious membership criteria. Discourses of modernity have also constructed separate spheres of what is defined as religion and secularism. Yet, these spheres, in practice, are not always so neatly demarcated as they are in modern principles. Societies shaped by the historical and temporal dynamics of colonialism, modernization, secularization and nation building projects present more complex and heterogeneous forms of subjectivities in their members. This article illustrates how a theoretical concomitance of religion and secularism opens up new possible considerations of women's activism in Islamic movements. The author argues that the desires and subjectivities of Islamic women that inform their activism are ultimately linked to the historical emergence of secularism and state modernization schemes aimed at transforming Muslim subjects into modern citizens of liberal democracies.     

Pulses from the multitude: virtuosity and black feminist discourse

Using a dialogic format this conversation between two authors uses political theorist Paolo Virno's conception of the “multitude” to examine and compare two different arenas of black feminist protest that took place on social media in the latter half of 2013. As a performative article, it offers historical and theoretical background to the terms “multitude,” “public intellect,” and “virtuosic labor” in racialized capitalist formations, situating them to provide an alternative to the power of the State – an alternative that unlike the State does not claim to confer rights. The article looks at the Facebook response to a call from the Crunk Feminist Collective to white feminists to speak out on the verdict exonerating Trayvon Martin’s killer and offer counter images to those that describe Martin's killing as justified. It then looks at the public dialogue around the applicability of the term “feminism” to Beyoncé's self-titled “visual album.” Through aesthetic inquiry, the authors look at the form these examples of protest take to situate and propose the active viewing of these aesthetic forms by others on social media, as well as by the authors of this article, as a kind of virtuosic labor. The article concludes with a series of poems created using the “cut-up” technique designed to transmit feeling through subjective action and a task manifesto for white feminists to use as a guide.     

‘The Defection of Women’: the New Zealand Contagious Diseases Act repeal campaign and transnational feminist dialogue in the late nineteenth century

Over the past decade, historians have situated feminist reformers’ efforts to dismantle the British imperial contagious diseases apparatus at the heart of the transnational turn in women's history. New Zealand was an early emulator of British prostitution regulations, which provoked an organised repeal campaign in the 1880s, yet the colony is seldom considered in these debates. Tracing the dialogue concerning the repeal of contagious diseases legislation between British and New Zealand feminists in the 1890s, this article reaffirms the salience of political developments in the settler colonies for metropolitan reformers. A close reading of these interactions, catalysed by the Auckland Women's Liberal League's endorsement of the Act in 1895, reveals recently enfranchised New Zealand women's desire to act as model citizens for the benefit of metropolitan suffragists. Furthermore, it highlights the asymmetries that remained characteristic of the relationship between British feminists and their enfranchised Antipodean counterparts.     

‘Purifying’ the public world: feminist vigilantes in late Victorian England

In late nineteenth-century England, a number of feminists confronted prostitution through the closing of brothels and the expulsion of prostitutes from places of entertainment. Feminist historians have either understood this behaviour as reflective of feminist' powerlessness within the largely non-feminist movement for social purity, or they have neglected the behaviour and concentrated on the aspects of these women' work that appear more positive to feminists today. Neither approach attempts to understand why women took this more repressive stance and thought of it as feminist. To understand the actions of these women, it is necessary to recognise that their vision of a ‘purified’ public and private world was often informed by religious beliefs and adherence to temperance. Concern with the morality of public space also related to women' desire for safety in public places. And their ‘repressive’ and statist actions related in part to feminist philanthropist' changing attitude toward local government.     

Mary Neal and Emmeline Pethick: from mission to activism

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed the rise of communal religious activities among British women of various Protestant denominations as well as a broader definition of the spiritual for many people. Communal religious service structures created a space in which young, mostly middle-class women could acquire both a degree of autonomy and a sense of effecting change in a wider sphere than would typically be open to them and, just as importantly, allowed them to meet and develop ties with others beyond their immediate family circles. This article looks at how two young women, Mary Neal and Emmeline Pethick, used one such organisation, the West London Mission, as a springboard for wider activism: Emmeline Pethick, as Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, came to prominence as one of the leaders of the Women's Social and Political Union, and Mary Neal's work on recovering the disappearing morris dance for the benefit of working-class girls brought her national recognition. Both women benefited from friendship networks which allowed them to draw other women into their work and both faced opposition from male-dominated power structures, but the spiritual element with which they imbued their activism remained integral to their projects and to their lives. Ultimately, though, the evolution of their spiritual beliefs brought them to assess their life achievements in very different ways.     

Public history and popular memory: issues in the commemoration of the British militant suffrage campaign

Drawing on Raphael Samuel's work on the construction of historical knowledge, this article argues that British militant suffrage feminists had a strong sense of their role in history. Once the vote was won, militants became the first public historians of their own suffrage history by collecting ‘relics’ of the campaign and commemorating suffrage events. The work of curators, especially at the Museum of London and National Library of Australia, Canberra, also enabled wider access to the movement's ephemera. Subsequent generations have ‘remembered’ suffrage in different ways, including depiction in fiction, film, local histories and the physical landscape. An exploration of such depictions might help us start to understand the continuing fascination with this aspect of women's history.     

Feminism,peace, and civil liberties: Women's role in the origins of the World War I civil liberties movement

Historians of the women's movement in the World War I era tend, understandably, to concentrate on the final heroic chapter of the suffrage campaign. Since the majority of suffragists followed their leader, Carrie Chapman Catt, into the war effort after April 6, 1917, suffragist‐feminist patriotism is a dominant theme. Recently historians have begun to chronicle women's pre‐war and wartime peace work, particularly through the aegis of the Woman's Peace Party, founded in early 1915.¹ Women's civil liberties activism during the war and in the Red Scare aftermath is still uncharted terrain. There is, to date, little appreciation of the way the World War I era experience in the United States influenced a small but determined and articulate number of left‐wing feminists to become civil‐libertarian activists. In this article I examine women's involvement in several important civil liberties organizations and argue that the convictions and activities of women not only helped to shape the agenda of the burgeoning civil liberties movement but also to influence federal public policy, particularly with respect to treatment of conscientious objectors, political prisoners, and “enemy aliens.” I also suggest that some feminists involved in both antiwar and civil liberties work during the war era came to see how militarism, war, and misogyny are related in western society, an insight which informed the thought and activities of the post‐war women's peace movement.     

Mary Augusta Ward (Mrs Humphry) and the opposition to women's suffrage[1]

This article analyses the tensions and contradictions in the work of the conservative writer and social reformer, Mary Augusta Ward and her role in the development of a constructive anti-suffragism designated as the ‘forward policy’. Ward's representation of the suffragette in her novel, Delia Blanchflower (1915), is discussed. Concentrating on Ward's principled support for women and her reforming imagination, the article shows how she shared much in common with feminists of her day and suggests ways in which her writing may be mined by historians and literary scholars interested in the history of women's suffrage.     

Childbearers as rights-bearers: feminist discourse on the rights of aboriginal and non-aboriginal mothers in Australia, 1920–50

Abstract

In the post-suffrage era in Australia, feminists invoked maternalist arguments in support of the idea that mothers were political subjects with rights and they extended their campaigns to press for recognition of the rights of Aboriginal women. This article examines the claim made by post-suffrage feminists that ‘the common status of motherhood’ entailed a range of social, economic and civil rights. They argued in Royal Commissions, election campaigns, and the press that all mothers, working class and middle class, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, who wished to retain the custody of their children should have the legal right and economic ability to do so. In New South Wales the campaign culminated in the staging of a play called Whose Child? This article explores some of the tensions between Women's claims as mothers and as independent citizens and the difficulties encountered when feminists attempted to have mothers' rights defined as human rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.     

blogging solo: new media, ‘old’ politics

This article focuses on the blogosphere as an oppositional field where the meanings around contemporary Western women's singlehood are contested, negotiated and rewritten. In contrast to dominant narratives in which single women are pathologised, in the blogs by, for, and about single women analysed here, writers aim to refigure women's singleness as well as providing resources, support and a textual community where others can intervene and contribute to the re-valuation of single women. These blogs also function as alternative forms of knowledge, seeking to (re)legitimise women's singleness and to trouble their aberrance and social liminality. Rather than only considering the form in isolation from its content, this article analyses the discourses deployed by bloggers and within blogs and how women bloggers publicly perform their very singleness as part of a personal and political strategy of re-signification. In this way, while cautious not to overestimate the democratic potentialities of the so-called blogosphere, it underscores the important cultural – and indeed political – work being undertaken by single women therein. Moreover, by demonstrating how these blogs use discursive tactics commonly associated with feminism's second-wave – women's consciousness-raising; identity politics; deploying and reiterating the famous feminist dictum: ‘the personal is political’; naming discrimination; and empathy and community-building – it argues that they are using so-called ‘new’ media for what is now problematically believed to be ‘old’ (feminist) politics.