women and gender in islam by leila ahmed

As such, this article investigates the extent to which Edward Said’s discourse of Orientalism is employed by Mohja Kahf in her novel The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (2006) to project the stereotypes and misrepresentations that confine the identity of Arab and Muslim characters in the US society.

This diasporic literature functions as a means of discussing the Orientalist discourse that circumscribes Arab American identity and its effects in determining their position in the wider American society. The social and political atmosphere in post-9/11 America encouraged the growth of such literature and brought it to international attention. The discussion further theorizes Islamic feminism by problematizing gender justice and its relation to gender equality in Pakistani workplaces and society.Īrab-American women’s literature has emerged noticeably in the early years of the 21st century. While the Islamic bank enforces gender segregation and isolation and limits interaction among the genders according to orthodox Islamic practices, the multinational western bank provides a more equal and integrated work environment, though we observed the exploitation of femininities to pursue business objectives. Gender oppression thus assumes different meanings, as gender norms and sexualities are differently negotiated by women and men in the two banks. The research reveals that distinct practices and expectations exist in different organizations, specifically in the context of Islamic banks when compared with western banks operating in Pakistan. Theoretically grounded within Islamic feminism and informed by secular feminism, the paper discusses the findings emerging from two ethnographic studies aimed at exploring the influence of ‘religiously motivated’ patriarchal norms on experiences of gender inequalities in financial institutions in Pakistan. This paper theorizes the juxtaposition between gender justice and gender equality within Islamic feminism, through the empirical analysis of gender practices in Pakistani banks.

Women and gender in islam by leila ahmed