The Debate about Gender, Religion, and Rights: Thoughts of a Middle East Anthropologist

Author(s): Lila Abu-Lughod

Source: PMLA, Vol. 121, No. 5 (Oct., 2006), pp. 1621-1630
Published by: Modern Language Association
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 i2i.5 The Humanities in Human Rights: Critique, Language, Politics 1621

The Debate about Gender,

RAISESOMEQUESTIONSINTHISESSAY
IWANTTO
Religion, and Rights: Thoughts
about the impoverished way debates on the of a Middle East Anthropologist
relation among gender, religion, and human
issue
rights are often framed. I approach this
as an anthropologist who comes from a dis LILA ABU-LUGHOD
cipline that, whatever its flaws, thinks hard
about social and cultural processes and what
it is to be human; I also approach it as some tion of subjectivity, which has serious impli
one who has spent her academic life thinking cations for our understanding of rights and
about and studying theMuslim Middle East, choice, two key elements in the liberal politi
a region that carries a heavy symbolic load in cal discourse ofwomen's rights.
theWestern imagination with respect to the There is not enough space here to consider
relation between religion and women's rights. two of the common ways discussions of reli
I'm going to talk about problems with gion, gender, and human rights get framed.
the binaries that dominate the discussions, The first debate is about whether religion or
whether broadly in the media
and scholar certain religions are bad for and violate the hu

ship in theWest or specifically in key liberal

man rights ofwomen. Put slightly differently,
thinkers such as Martha Nussbaum, author of some ask ifreligion or certain religions, "prop
an essay with a title similar tomine ("Gender, erly" interpreted or reformed, can be compati
Religion, and Human Rights") that appears ble with women's human rights, ifnot the basis
in her book Sex and Social Justice, and Susan for them.1 The second debate is about whether
Moller Okin, author of themuch-publicized we must uphold universal rights for human
women in particular, or whether
essay "Is Multiculturalism Bad forWomen?" beings, and
Iwill argue that the terms inwhich these de we must value cultural or religious differences
bates frame the relation between religion and even when they go against these universals.
women's rights tend to exclude from consid This is commonly posed as the contest between
eration key aspects of ordinary life inmuch universalism and cultural relativism, inwhich
of theworld. In particular, such framings are accusations about the cultural particularism or
abstracted from the geopolitical and histori imperial character of universalism are
pitted
cal contexts in which all our lives proceed; against
accusations that relativism abnegates
are
deeply secular and assume the superior ethical responsibility for human harm. More

ityof liberal secularism for solving problems recently in the critical human rights commu
women face in different parts of the world, nity, this framing has been recast as a matter
despite itspeculiar understanding of religion; of how to balance individual and group rights
and are simplistic about the dynamics of hu (Kymlicka; Robbins and Stamatopoulou).
man life,whether in analyzing social
social I want to focus on a third way the de

systems or the social and cultural construe bate has been framed. Most secular liberal

LILAABU-LUGHOD isprofessor of anthropology and director of the InstituteforResearch on Women and Gender at Columbia University.
An anthropologist who has done extensive fieldwork in Egypton gender, expressive culture, and media, she was propelled intoworking
on the discourse on women's human rightsby the United States invasion of Afghanistan. Author of Veiled Sentiments:Honor and Poetry in
a Bedouin Society (U of California P, 1986,1999), WritingWomen's Worlds: Bedouin Stories (Uof California P, 1993), and Dramas ofNation
hood: The Politics of Television in Egypt (Uof Chicago P, 2005) and coeditor, with Ahmad Sa'di, of a forthcoming book, Nakba: Palestine,
1948 and theClaims ofMemory, she isengaged ina project, ofwhich this paper ispart, to be called Do Muslim Women Have Rights?

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1622 The Humanities in Human Rights: Critique, Language, Politics PMLA

feminists do not want to engage in the work women's rights as an alibi forUnited States
of condemning particular religions as patri military intervention in Afghanistan (Abu
archal; many feminists, even fromwithin the Lughod, "Do Muslim Women"; Hirschkind
traditions (who sometimes call themselves and Mahmood). How can we think differently
faith-based feminists), do not want to find about Islam and women's human rights?
themselves trying to rescue these religions as

potentially liberating. Many now realize that

Geopolitical Abstraction
the universal claims counterposed to relative
cultural values have specific locations and his Let me begin with the uncanny similarities be
tories. Instead, liberal-feminist thinkers try to tween two sentences in textswritten a century

place themselves above the fray and frame the apart. These similarities are a clue to one of the
issue as a legal and moral matter of adjudicat key problems with thewhole discussion of re
ing between two liberal goods or values. For ligion and women's human rights: the abstrac
example, as Okin paraphrases Nussbaum, the tion from geopolitical contexts. Okin responds

question iswhether religious freedom should to one of her critics' objections that she was

trump sex discrimination ("Reply" 127). This not paying attention to the voices ofMuslim
is presented either as a problem formulticul women in her essay "IsMulticulturalism Bad
tural democracies or as a problem for inter forWomen?" by quoting some Muslim femi
national regulation. Inmulticultural settings, nists' objections to the oppressiveness of their
liberal-feminist thinkers want to see liberal own religion. She retorts, "Am I the silencer of
ism as protecting religious freedom, but only such voices, taking into account that hundreds
insofar as religious practices do not contra ofmillions ofwomen are rendered voiceless or
vene liberal principles. The problem, though virtually so by themale-dominated religions
not always explicitly stated, lies mostly with with which they live?" ("Reply" 123).

immigrants or minority religious groups. In Compare thiswith some sentences in a vol

international settings, the problem cases and ume based on proceedings of a Presbyterian

examples are overwhelmingly drawn from women's missionary conference held inCairo,
the non-Christian nations, whose religions Egypt, in 1906. In the introduction toOur Mos
are
already
vilified and misunderstood. lem Sisters: A Cry ofNeed from Lands ofDark
I was alerted to the problem with non ness Interpreted by Those Who Heard It,Annie
Christian nations in liberal discourses of Van Sommer, speaking on behalf of her fellow
women's human rights because Muslims seem women missionaries, writes of Muslim women,

to receive
special
attention. For
example,
Nuss
"[T]hey will never cry for themselves, for they
baum worries about Muslim countries that are down under the yoke of centuries of oppres
have signed the 1966 United Nations Conven sion, and their hearts have no hope of knowl
tion on the Elimination of All Forms of Dis so to-day,we want
edge of anything better.And
crimination against Women (CEDAW) but tomake our voices heard for them." She pre
that have added reservations to it.2Rarely men cedes thiswith something telling: "And it seems
tioned in such discussions is that the United to some of us that itneeds thewidespread love
States Senate has also proposed reservations and pity of thewomen of our day in Christian
to CEDAW and that, unlike these Muslim lands to seek and save the sufferingsinful needy
countries, theUnited States has not even rati women of Islam. You cannot know how great
fied CEDAW. However, my real worries about the need unless you are told; you will never go
liberal-feminist discourses were triggered by and find them until you hear their cry" (16).
the observation that transnational feminists Western women see themselves as voicing
had been complicit with those who offered what Muslim women cannot or as amplifying

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 The Humanities in Human Rights: Critique, Language, Politics 1623
i2i.5

the stifled voices of these others, whether in states, "The question that should be asked
the service of Christian or liberal salvation. when assessing quality of life in a country?
This finds many echoes in popular culture, and of course this is a central part of assessing
a on the quality of its political arrangements?is,
including the subtitle of popular book
Muslim women in 1994 by the How well have the people of the country been
published
JanGoodwin thatmixes metaphors enabled to perform the central human func
journalist
of veiling and voice: Muslim Women Lift the tions" (42). But nowhere does this question
Veil of Silence on the Islamic World. allow for the fact that many of the reasons
cen
Liberal feminists, like those who speak in people might not be enabled to perform
the language of human rights, regularly brush tral human functions reach well outside the
aside with a wave of the hand the accusations country. These reasons can be found in the
of cultural imperialism or declare their will history of unequal relations between that

ingness to accept such accusations

in the ser country and others, in the terms of exchange
vice of the greater goods of gender justice or thatmake certain nations rich at the expense
humanitarianism. But I don't think this is of others, in the transnational ties that enrich
sue can be so easily sidestepped, not because and empower local elites, in the realities of
these feminists have bad intentions or are po or foreign fund
foreign military occupation
of local or in other ways that
litically incorrect, but because in abstracting ing insurgencies,
the issues of gender and rights from the actual nations are made utterly incapable of arrang
world we live in?where, among other things, ing their own political and economic affairs.
Muslims stand in particular relation to Eu The implication of this construction is thatwe

ropeans and Americans?they ignore some must blame the countries of the Third World

thing fundamental
to any argument about the for their failures to provide a full life for their
relation between rights and religion. citizens. And we must blame religions like Is
How does this abstraction occur? First, lam and Hinduism for violations of women's
liberal feminists ignore the placement of Is rights in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Iran,
lam and other religions in a larger imaginative and other countries, as if these religions were
a long historical reach, one timeless traditions unaffected by the dynam
geography with
that preceded colonialism but was certainly ics of reaction and response to changing in

heightened during the colonial period in the ternal and external conditions.
encounter between Christian European em And even sophisticated feminist scholars,

pires and the colonies they dominated (Bur such as Rajeswari Sunder Rajan and the legal
ton;Mastnak; Said). The notion of religion as anthropologist Sally Engle Merry, who are
wom
an
all-enveloping
cultural container, or even as
thinking critically about the problem of
opposed to secularism, shaped and was shaped en's human rights somewhat underplay the

by the expansion of Europe and its encoun importance of the transnational character of
ter?political and scholarly?with others, espe rightswork today, including local backlashes,
cially in theMuslim world (Masuzawa). Both media exploitation of violations, translations

religion and secularism, ironically, became the from powerful to powerless nations, and the

justificatory term of civilizing missions. power of donors and outside governments

Second, secular liberal feminists like in human rights projects.3 In cautioning us
Okin and Nussbaum seem to artificially seg about the care thatmust be taken in choosing
ment the world, imagining that the units mechanisms to apply "human rights norms

being evaluated are nations

or societies. In towomen of the South," for example, Sunder

promoting her "human capabilities approach" Rajan notes that "human rights bodies would
to development, for example, Nussbaum need to be particularly alert to the danger

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1624 The Humanities in Human Rights: Critique, Language, Politics PMLA

that uniform norms do not lead to a disregard their governments' failure to provide schools,
of the complexities of the situation on the health clinics, and jobs forwomen. Yet she

ground." She notes that "international pressure consigns to a footnote in "Transnational Hu

to conform to human rights agendas has been man Rights" a key point in the dynamics of
known to cause a backlash" and acknowledges the transfer ofwhat she admits is a culturally
the danger of "media exploitation of stories of specific human rights discourse: the power
human rights violations," not tomention "the of the rich countries to set agendas and the

cynical deployment, masking self-interested need of translators and activists to please do

economic motives, of benevolent human rights nors. She writes, "This uneven circulation [of
concerns on behalf of people of the South by programs originating in rich countries and
distant adjudicating bodies" (131-32). Yet she applied in poor ones] is driven by funders
goes on to argue for strategic ways to conduct and governments. Transnational imports
human rights agendas and to translate from are usually local conceptions from elsewhere

global forums to local contexts. Iwould give launched into the transnational
domain by
more weight to these cautionary concerns, the economic and political power of their

arguing that no discourse of women's human creators" (49nl0). In her book Human Rights

rights can be abstracted from these kinds of and Gender Violence, Merry does note the in

"distorting" realities of implementation. equalities of power and resources between the

in an article on the cre
Similarly, Merry, global North and South and the problems
of transnational human ated by the uneven flows of funding and do
"transplantation"
nor priorities ("reforming particular practices
rights discourse, expansively documents the
ways that activist "translators" apply human rather than changing economic and political

rights discourse in local situations and in turn structuresthat generate global inequality"
take local grievances and move them "up" [226]). But Iwould argue thatwe must pursue
into the language of rights ("Transnational hard this analysis of the political-economic
Human Rights"). She shows how such activist structures of the circulation and transplanta
translators use the hegemonic discourse of in tion of human rights and women's rights.
ternational standards, individual injury, and
cultural oppression rather than the discourse
Deep Secularism
of structural violence. She shows how slippery
are in the sphere of The second major problem with the liberal
deployments of "culture"
international human rights, admitting that feminist framing of the issue as one of adjudi
the human rights regime articulates particu cating between the rights to religious freedom
lar cultural ideas of "individual autonomy, versus women's human rights
is the deep secu

equality, choice, and secularism" (4) despite larism that permeates their perspective and
itspresentation as universal; that, speaking of that leads to their concomitant failures to grasp
CEDAW, gender equality is a particular cul what religions have historically been and how
tural notion; and finally that national elites inmany places and formany communities they
who participate in international forums de continue in smallmeasure to be. This slides into
voted to compliance with international con a failure to understand that religion is hard to
ventions on violence against women or gender separate from other aspects of social life.
equality participate in a civilizational dis Some thinkers reify religion as a sepa
course, locating continuing problems in their rate category of human social life that can be
countries in "intractable traditional culture" distinguished from culture. Some ossify reli
as if transhistorical and
(of the rural; lower castes; ethnic minori gions, treating them
ties; or religious communities) rather than in neatly divisible into discrete forms. Others

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 i2i.5 The Humanities in Human Rights: Critique, Language, Politics 1625

can A similar idea of religion as decontextu

textualize religion, presuming that one
reduce religions to their sacred texts or, at a alized from any living society and certainly
stretch, to the messages embodied in their any forms of authority underlies the norma
ritual practices. These are all forms of decon tive suggestions Nussbaum makes in the con
textualization that may have origins in the clusion of her piece about religion and human
modern history of Christianity, characterized rights. She argues that no religious law can
by biblical texts, sectarian divisions, and the (or should be allowed to) interfere with ba
gradual extraction of religion from political sic women's rights. But how can you argue
power and authority. The debate between Talal for freedom of worship ifyou discredit reli
Asad ("Construction") and Clifford Geertz gious law? Only a socially eviscerated notion
("Religion") on religion has at least taught us of religion, one that understands religion as a
that. But the point is that these conceptualiza set of beliefs or a matter of faith, as Asad has
tions of religion do not do justice to theway argued modern Christianity does, could hold
religions work or have worked in theworld. that religion should not guide the behavior of
The more disturbing aspect of the ab believers or have authority over them. Reli
straction of religion so endemic in liberal gious law is precisely that enactment.
thought is revealed in arguments such as Moreover, such abstract views fail to cap
Okin's about the proper way to deal with the ture theworkings of religion in practice. Two

danger of religion or religious fundamental very different examples, one drawn from the
ism in society. She argues that the answer is literature on South Asia and the other from
to expose children in their educational sys my fieldwork in Egypt, can illustrate this
tems to comparative religion ("Reply" 129). point. First, let us take the notorious case of
This policy recommendation could only come sati in India, the beliefs about and practices
from someone whose distance from religion of widow immolation that were condemned
allows her to imagine putting religions (re as barbaric by colonial officials and are to
duced to "belief systems") side by side, like day seen by many feminists as emblematic
political ideologies or brands of running of the patriarchal oppressiveness of religious
shoes. This is already to relegate religions law. There is an enormous and excellent body
to the status of brands of faith in the mar of literature on this subject (e.g., Mani; Na
ketplace of ideas, outside oneself and one's rayan), but Iwill discuss just one compelling
way of
being,
not to mention the communi article by Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid
ties that are so central to the definitions of about the expansion and reconstitution of sati
most religions. This is not what ithas meant worship in the 1980s. Instead of looking at sati
inmost traditions to be religious?to know in the Hindu tradition, they place the "local
implicitly that you are in the realm of truth ized phenomenon ofwidow immolation" in a
about being, about life, about theworld, and region of Rajasthan in the 1980s. The authors
about morality and to belong to a community looked not to scripture but to the specific in
built around that. Okin writes, "What must cidents?how they
were
represented
in narra

education be like for religious affiliations to tives by families and priests, what
dissenting
be as voluntary as possible?" (130). Iwould voices (often lower caste) said about what had
ask different questions: What idea of religion happened, how crucial the temples glorify
and truth underlies such a strangely consum ing thewomen were, who in the relevant vil
erist formulation? And, ifwe follow thework lage and surrounds benefited from them and
of Gil Anidjar and Tomoko Masuzawa, what who supported their establishment
financially
universalism or even Christianity is smuggled and politically, what the iconography in the
into this pluralism? temples showed, how the immolations played

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1626 The Humanities in Human Rights: Critique, Language, Politics PMLA

into caste mobility and the interlocking rela community and the good, and even harder to
tionships among elites (class and caste), what reduce the complexity of gendered social rela
role Hindu nationalism and Rajput hegemony tions to patriarchy, inwhich, as Okin would
played in glorifying the events and persons, have it,men "control" women.

how essential the kitschy commercialization of rise of Islamist movements, whose

The
the events had become, and what rituals were members self-consciously embrace a particular
invented to normalize satiworship. A key ele form of piety, has made Western feminists,with
ment inwidow immolation in the 1980s was their deeply secular convictions, even more
its adoption by Hindu nationalist parties as nervous. As Wendy Brown has argued more
part of authenticating Hindu distinctiveness generally in Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in
and artificially creating a sense of timeless or theAge ofMulticulturalism and Empire:
historical continuity. Religion, as Sangari and
Vaid's analyses reveal, is always grounded in Nonliberal societies and practices, especially
social and political-economic specificities. those designated
as fundamentalist, are de

A second example can be taken frommy picted not only as relentlesslyand inherently
fieldwork in Egypt in the 1980s. In my book intolerant but as potentially intolerable for
or
Writing Women's Worlds: Bedouin Stories, Iwas
their putative rule by culture and
religion
their concomitant devaluation of the autono
particularly concerned to show the problems
mous individual?in short, their
with the easy characterization of Arab soci thwarting
of individual with or cul
eties as patriarchal. I drew on detailed narra autonomy religious
tural commandments. (166)
tives and arguments fromwithin one Bedouin

community in Egypt to show how complex

Ifyou choose religion voluntarily and keep it
the workings of those social and cultural
in its place, that is good. If you submit to its
forms?like patriliny, polygyny, and honor
calling, it is dangerous. But what proper re
and shame?usually described as "patriarchal"
ligious tradition would accept this definition
actually were: matriarchs wielded power; rela
of its limited worth and reach? And what re
tionships between co-wives depended on per
sonalities and the dynamics of family history; ligious person would see her or his religious
as moral were experiences and participation in a religious
and honor and shame qualities
tradition in these limited terms? As we will
deployed in unexpected ways by girls increas
see, thework of Saba Mahmood on women in
ingly enmeshed in the larger national Egyp
tian world through education. The appeal of themosque movement in Egypt shows that the
matter of choice and constraint in religious
Islamism, along with the entailments of seden
belief requires some serious rethinking.
tarization, were indeed curbing some of Bed
ouin women's traditional freedoms, as could be
seen in the sobriety being demanded (though
Liberalism: Anthropological Questions
rarely achieved) at weddings by the late 1980s about IndividualRightsand the
(Abu-Lughod, "Muslim Sexuality"). Yet every Language of Choice
one in the community considered living as a
a In the final part of this essay, Iwant to turn
good Muslim essential to being moral person.
Their ideas of the good were expressed in the to the third of my objections to the liberal
wider moral vocabulary of Islam, even without feminist framing of the proper relation be
doctrinal basis. In the context of everyday lives tween rights and religion. Instead of the
as theywere lived in this changing community, impoverished idea of religion with which
it is impossible to isolate religion?as a distinct such secular feminists work, Iwant to exam
menu of beliefs?from thewider constructs of ine their reductiveness about the dynamics

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 121.5 The Humanities in Human Rights: Critique, Language, Politics 1627

of social and cultural life. This reductiveness our development as viable human beings ut
as their abstraction of on a long period of socializa
might be understood terlydependent
the notion of the human. We all know that tion in families and social groups. Although
the central tropes of liberalism are the auton many of us in the late 1980s and early 1990s
omy of the individual and the sacrosanctity critiqued the notion of cultures as bounded
of choice or freedom. Again, one could eas homogeneous units (e.g., Abu-Lughod, Writ

ily trace the secularism of this understanding ing;Appadurai; Clifford), we never doubted
to Protestant roots, although there ismuch the social and cultural construction of per
more to liberal theory. The problem Iwant to sonhood and what we would now think of in
a
explore here iswhat Asad, in recent essay Foucauldian terms as subjectification.
on human rights and on Nussbaum's idea of In Writing Women sWorlds, my experi
the universal human capabilities that should mental "feminist" ethnography of the Awlad

ground human rights, characterizes

as the cAliwomen in Egypt, I recounted stories of the
"thickness" of the concept of the human at lives ofwomen, trying to cast their narratives
work in liberal constructions ("Redeeming" in the terms they used. I also tried to capture
150). The related concept of choice that un the criteria they used for judging others and
derlies liberal oppositions between religion putting forward claims. Stories ofmarital re
and individual women's rights ignores every lationships provide the best evidence both of
thing anthropologists have understood about the inaptness of the opposition between choice
the social and cultural construction of per and constraint and of the importance of recog
sonhood and what, more recently, theorists nizing different constructions of "rights."Girls
in the human sciences fromMichel Foucault I knew resisted particular marriages thatwere
("Afterword" and Use) to Judith Butler have arranged for them but never the basic principle
understood in terms of technologies of the that families should arrange marriages. They
self and the dynamics of subjectification. might sing songs about the kind of young men
What every anthropology undergraduate they
wanted to
marry?not cousins, those who

learns is, first, that our everyday understand were educated, those riding in certain kinds

ings of the individual are culturally specific of trucks?but they assumed that itwas up
and ideological (the one we work with today to their families to choose such matches for

developed, as Emile Durkheim

so nicely sug them. Even the love poems that registered their
as a
gested, part of the cult of the individual longings and frustrations were mode of ex
personality that grew up with the modern pression fully within
a
system, not a rebellion

division of labor?or, as Marcel Mauss put against it.Many toldme about the dangers of
it, as a product of social evolution). This un love matches; all valued the protections and
derstanding of the self can be contrasted with support afforded by their families in arranged
other conceptions of self thatmay involve dif marriages. Furthermore, women in
marriages
ferent valuations of autonomy, more intimate often asserted based on a
"rights"?somewhat

perceptions of the relation between self and sense of Islamic and customary law but mostly
other, notions of the "dividual" rather than derived from a keen sense of justice nurtured
the individual, and so forth (e.g., Daniel; by community practices and ingrained ex
Lee; Rosaldo). Second, theway to understand pectations about their self-worth and their
human "nature" is to recognize it as thor responsibilities. Rarely did divisions in this
oughly cultural, as Geertz ("Growth of Cul community fall strictly along lines of gender
ture") long ago argued?that is, our brains family and social roles determined farmore
having evolved alongside our social orders, about power and experience than sex. And fi
with language central to our existence and nally, as I illuminate inmy careful detailing of

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1628 The Humanities in Human Rights: Critique, Language, Politics PMLA

the shifting relationships, solidarities, angers, real desires and obligatory social conven
and sorrows in one polygamous marriage, it tions," claiming instead that the prescribed
was not polygyny, supported in Islamic law forms of behavior "constitute the conditions
and recognized as something real, that was for the emergence of the self as such and are
ever the issue for these particular co-wives and integral to its realization" (149). She describes
their husband. Instead, itwas the personali thewomen who want to pray and to be close to
ties, histories, behaviors, and feelings for each God by veiling and being modest as involved in
other. The reproach and claim of one co-wife, a project ofmoral cultivation. The point of this
after telling me a long story about an infuri brief discussion of a complex study of some

ating situation that she found herself in just women in contemporary Egypt is to suggest
after her husband married his thirdwife, was that the liberal idea that individuals choose?
different fromwhat one might have expected. whether religions or lifestyles?flies in the face
I asked her if she was jealous. She responded, of everything we know about how individual
"No Iwasn't jealous. Iwas just angry thatwe desires are determined
by social contexts,
were being treated unfairly. Aren't we all the cultural formations, and upbringing. Choices
same?" (Abu-Lughod, Writing 98). This is for all of us are fashioned by discourses, so

hardly a liberal argument forwomen's human cial locations, geopolitical configurations, and

rights. It is an argument that co-wives have the unequal power into historically and locally
right to be treated with absolute equality. specific ranges. This makes nonsense of the bi
Arguably themost sophisticated way in naries that structure the liberal-feminist argu
which matters of agency, autonomy, and sub ment: we are either free or constrained, either

jectification have been taken up in relation to have choice or are prevented from choosing,

gender, religion, and rights is in the work of keep religion in its place or are ruled by it (as
the anthropologist Saba Mahmood. She has in fundamentalism).
studied the ethical formation and cultivation It seems tome that liberalism itselfneeds
of self among women in the pietistic mosque to be seriously reexamined, whether to see it
movement in Egypt, looking seriously at what as a tradition, as Alisdair Maclntyre suggests,
we can learn from a group of women in the no more or less universal than any other, or as
1980s and 1990s who have deliberately taken a
self-deluding ideology,
as other critics have

on the veil and who are seeking to live as good noted. Brown, for example, argues:
Muslims. In an argument with liberal theo
rists and communitarian philosophers, and [Liberalism isnot only itselfa cultural form,it
is striated with non-liberal culture wherever it is
even with Butler, she describes these Egyptian
institutionalized and practiced_Liberalism in
Muslim women's desires to follow socially
volves a and protean set
contingent, malleable,
prescribed conventions "as the potentialities, of beliefs and practices about being human and
the 'scaffolding,'... through which the self is to self, others, and world,
being together, relating
realized" (148)?and she contends that these
and not doing, and not
doing valuing valuing
desires are not to be understood as part of
certain And liberalism is also always in
things.
their subordination as individuals. She also and govern
stitutionalized, constitutionalized,

argues that their desire to take ideals and tools mentalized in articulation with other cultural

of self-reference from outside the self (from Is norms, those of kinship, race, gender, sexuality,
lamic religious practice, texts, and law [151]) work, politics, leisure, and more. (23)

challenges the usual separation of individual

and society on which liberal political thinking The general conclusion I want to draw
rests. She refuses the distinction that under here is that thewhole edifice crumbles ifyou
liesmost liberal theory between "the subject's accept that there are problems with each of

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 i2i.5 The Humanities in Human Rights: Critique, Language, Politics 1629

the fundamental pieces of the way the issue Notes

of gender, religion, and human rights has
Iwant to thank Dina Siddiqi and the students in our gradu
been framed. These problems include the idea ate course Transnational Locations and Women's Rights
that you can talk in general about the rela at Columbia University for stimulating my thinking;
tion among these three categories, abstracted Constance Buchanan for encouraging me to think about

from configurations of societies and religions religion and human rights and inviting me to share my
a lively group at the Ford Foundation;
thoughts with the
and the power relations among them; that you
National Council forResearch onWomen, atwhose confer
can use a static definition of
religion, emp ence, Power Matters, I first spoke about these issues; Judith
tied of all its force and reach and truth, not Butler and Domna Stanton for invitingme to present at the
MLA Conference on Human
tomention itshistorical realization by people Rights and the Humanities;
Anu Rao for coorganizing theworkshops on Gender and the
in particulartimes and places; and that your
Global Locations of Liberalism, sponsored by the Colum
understanding of the human and whatever bia University Institute for Social and Economic Research

rights itmight have is culturally and histori and Policy and the Institute for Research on Women and
Gender as a forum for discussion of related issues; Mona
cally specific rather than ontological and uni
Soleiman for help with the bibliography; and JeanHoward,
versal. What thismeans for our purposes here
Susan Sturm, Victoria de Grazia, JanetWolff, Carol Sanger,
is thatwe need to begin by thinking critically and Tim Mitchell for helpful comments, many of which
about the terms inwhich the opposition be came too late for revisions but made me aware of work I

tween religion and women's human rights has need to do to develop my arguments in the future.
1. The debates among Muslim feminists and people
been framed before jumping to conclusions
who study Islam have taken this form, and I recall that
like those of Okin, who, in one of her more in the early 1990s I taught writings from the late 1970s
notorious statements, proposes that women on this subject. The same can be said for feminist debates
in "patriarchal" minority cultures "might be about Christianity and Judaism, though the stakes in dis

much better off if the culture intowhich they cussing the unfamiliar and stereotyped Muslim world are
difFerent from those in
were born were either to become discussing the other two religions,
extinct (so
because only Christians talk about
reforming Christianity
that itsmembers would become
integrated and only Jews talk about reforming Judaism and because
into the less sexist surrounding culture) or, these traditions are familiar, complexly understood, and
related to theWestern self. Morerecently, with the work
preferable, to be encouraged to alter itself so as
of Abdullahi An-Nacim, we have a new variation on the
to reinforce the equality ofwomen" ("IsMulti
rescue of
religion. The question he raises iswhether we
culturalism" 22).We also need to think harder can derive human
rights from many religious traditions.
about the liberal construction of the opposi 2. Such Muslim countries reserve the right to depart
tion between religion and rights before au
from CEDAW when it conflicts with sharia, or religious
law. As some feminist critics point out, though, just about
as does Nussbaum,
thoritatively enumerating,
everything in Islamic religious law contradicts CEDAW.
the eleven areas for women's human
problem So in practice, despite to con
ratifying and appearing
rights inwhich "religious discourse, and often form to "international" values, they undermine all the

action, has been amajor influence" (88). These fundamentals (Mayer).

are areas a 3. Gayatri Spivak makes some of the same critiques.
that cursory would reveal
glance
to be compromised formost human beings on
the planet for reasons that are more re
surely
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