change the complexity of the social reality, it merely
reduces its representation in order to attain goals.
Arguing the contrary would serve to reduce the
social reality to the political representation of it (see
also Modood 1998 382).
A second fundamental reason why we argue
against this opposition is because of the construc-
tion and definition of emancipation in relation to
the women here concerned. Firstly, the only rela-
tionship this vision acknowledges between a
woman and her community is one of victimhood.
Women – and certainly Muslim women – can only
be oppressed. Secondly, the only true emancipation
for these women will be attained through an indi-
vidual, secular process of emancipation. This affir-
mation not only reproduces a very particular
definition of emancipation – a Western liberal def-
inition in which the individual is artificially cut off
from the group – it also and foremost ignores the
empowering processes that are active within the
community precisely through the use of group-log-
ics. Only a few women will accept a vision of femi-
nism that puts them in conflict with their origin and
ethnic background. They will rather seek for a way
of emancipation that respects all aspects of their
identity (Khan 1998, Thiara 2003). Several empir-
ical studies on Muslim women in a migration con-
text and in the homeland show how one can speak
of an “Islamic feminism” that does not oppose the
essential structuring role that religion takes in the
self-identity of the group (Amiraux 2003, Göle
2003, Torab 1996). Several authors have, however,
debated the feminist calibre of these movements
(see, for example, Moghadam 2002). The empower-
ing of women is legitimized through the construc-
tion of alternative interpretations of the religious
sources that are women-friendly and contest patri-
archal dominance. To ignore the fact that these
women are racialized and ethnicized next to being
women, and thus that a struggle for ethnical and/
or religious recognition is as important to them
as it is for their fathers and brothers, is to ignore
a fundamental dimension of their identity and
emancipation.
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