Women’s rights or group rights?
When identity claims are articulated by Muslim
groups, feminist critiques arise immediately. Politi-
cal mobilization of Muslims is often criticized
because of its lack of attention to gender issues.
One of the most famous essays offering this argu-
ment is that of Okin (1999). She states that the
widely heard call for recognition of cultural rights
sustains the patriarchal structure of these groups.
To illustrate this statement, she refers to the Islamic
societies where practices such as female genital
mutilation are present.
Following the same line of argument, though
from a different theoretical perspective, are authors
such as Yuval-Davis (1993, 1997) who analyze the
genesis of nationalism and other ethnic move-
ments. While Okin can be situated within the lib-
eral school of thought, Yuval-Davis rather belongs
to classical “gender studies,” combining poststruc-
turalist, politologist, and anthropological perspec-
tives. She takes over Benedict Anderson’s argument
for the definition of nations or ethnic groups –
which she equates analytically in her argument – as
“imagined communities.” To maintain this collec-
tive imaginary, boundaries have to be constructed
and kept. To achieve this, women take key posi-
tions: they are designated as the transmitters of cul-
tural traditions and customs, and often symbolize
the collective honor. When the ethnical or national
group is threatened, the control of women and their
sexual activity will be the first target of the group
(Yuval-Davis 1993). Consequently, Yuval-Davis
argues, in a context in which the ethnic group is in
constant defense, such as is the case with migration,
women will be subjected to a much greater control
from the community. Every identity claim will go in
the direction of more “cultural purity” and more
control of the women. Again, the example of Mus-
lim women in Great Britain is offered to illustrate
this position (Yuval-Davis 1997, 201).
What is needed, then, is a transversal policy in
which women of different identities ally themselves
for the struggle, without losing the ethnical rooted-
ness that would generate a constant dialogue and
negotiation among the women (Yuval-Davis, 1997,
202). Other alternatives are found in the creation
of a “third space” – a term developed by Homi
Bhabha – in which neither the culture of origin nor
the dominant culture would rule, a space of hybrid-
ity in which ethnicity would not be reduced to a
particular vision over culture, and in which women
could recompose their cultural identity and contest
the patriarchal order of their community (Thiara
2003, Khan 1998).294 identity politics
Empowerment through identity
politics
In the first line of arguments outlined here, a
skeptical position was taken as to the possible
compatibility of political mobilization through
an ethnic line and the effects it would have for
female members of that community. This argument
assumes the a priori position of an oppressive patri-
archal ethnic community. Any political measure
that would empower the community as a whole
would be negative for women. Though it is a fact
that issues related to women are regularly margin-
alized in the political struggle for cultural recogni-
tion – just as they are marginalized an any struggle
for political rights that is not explicitly feminist –
we argue that this opposition, which is presented
between ethnic mobilization and women’s rights, is
based on an essentialization of both the community
and the women.
A first reason to argue against this opposition is
the homogeneous and oppressive description that is
given of minority cultures, and more specifically of
Muslim cultures. It is quite striking to see how an
opposition is made between the majority culture in
which oppressive structures would not be as active,
and an Islamic minority culture in which they are
dominant. This vision underestimates the complex-
ity and diversity present among Muslim minorities;
it also reproduces the Orientalist view in which a
liberated Western majority is contrasted with an
oppressive Muslim minority (Ahmed 1994, Khan
1998). Furthermore, by stating in advance that an
identity politics approach that is organized across
ethnic lines can only reproduce the patriarchal
structures, the same equation of ethnicity with cul-
ture, criticized by authors such as Yuval-Davis
(1997, 200), is made. The ethnic group is equated
with a particular vision of their culture, which
undercuts any dynamism. The diverse and hybrid
characteristic of culture is, however, not an objec-
tive to strive for, but is rather the realityfrom which
analysis ought to depart (Friedman 1997). To fully
understand the dynamism of identity politics, a
dissociation has to be made between ethnicity –
which refers to a “we-belonging” related to com-
mon origin (Roosens, 1998) – and culture. This
means understanding these political claims as
claims for recognition, in which religion plays a
fundamental structuring role of identification for
the group here concerned (Calhoun 1994, Modood
1997, 1998, Werbner 2003). It also means analyz-
ing how this political struggle for recognition
always goes together with a constant internal rene-
gotiation of the different dynamics that are present
among the community. Political struggle does not