Categories: uncategorized
Date: 31 October 2006 06:58:43
Last night the Channel Four Dispatches programme had a facinating programme about Islamic feminism. It was a facinating programme which followed a group of Islamic feminists (and a couple of their male supporters) as they sought to worship within male only mosques & campaign for women to be allowed on the management committees.
It was a powerful programme which highlighted the place of interpretation, and the problems caused when one group feels oppressed by dominant interpretations or misinterpretations that have grown over time. It also put the whole debate about the veil in better context.
It did disturb me in places though as these women imposed their campaign on centres of patriarchy beyond their own territory, without the prior involvement of the women within that community. Whilst I could see what they were doing and supported it in principle it did worry me that imposing a campaign on another area can be counterproductive. Also they did not seem wonderful at reasoned debate, although this was clearly as a result of how personal the issues are to them and so how passionately they feel & how passionately the opposition at times felt. We don't know what behind the scenes work may have been going on, which these tactics could have damaged.
(Finally note to anybody taking A2 Sociology - was a good example to back up the theory on religion as a conservative force and a force for social change.)