Thus, unlike in the West, the women’s movement
did not evolve from within Muslim society to estab-
lish gender norms. On the contrary, gender issues
are gaining prominence in Muslim societies be-
cause of the proactive measures taken by interna-
tional organizations. The effort of international
organizations to spread particular gender norms is
in contest with the notion of women embedded in
the laws of Islam as stated in the Qur±àn. In Islam,
women have non-negotiable rights to be paid as
wives and mothers and to be respected as women
(Afshar 2002, 134). Globalization has made the
two world-views on women even more complex
and confusing. Globalization has led to the emer-
gence of a category of Westernized elite women
who are willing to embrace Western values includ-
ing those relating to gender ideologies. At the same
time, Western education has transformed large
numbers of women who readily accept Western
economy and technology but reject the ideology of
the West. These are the Islamist women who use
their modern education to actively support Islami-
fication that may mean that women are returning
to their roots, rediscovering Islam and demanding
their non-negotiable rights given to them by the
Qur±àn. The Islamist women invoke a backlash,
which is an outcome of disillusionment born out of
the failure of industrialization and modernization
to liberate women, against the West and its values
(Afshar 2002, 133).
Although the international organizations and
their partners in Islamic developing countries enjoy
organizational and financial support from the
West, they are prone to show weakness when it
comes to the question of implementing gender pro-
grams and projects. The weakness lies in the way
they create spaces for women and recruit modern
elite women staff from the privileged and affluent
classes for whom Islam has a weak appeal. These
elite women uncritically accept Western gender
norms without understanding the historical con-
text in the West through which the concept of
gender has evolved. Thereby, they also give a new
meaning to gender in the context of development
and Islam. They often interpret gender not as a
mere development of balanced relationship be-
tween men and women, but as a condition for
binary opposition to set women against men under
the notion of positive discrimination. Now women
replace men and different facilities and opportuni-
ties are provided to women, but these severely
delimit any organizational approach for develop-
ing gender policies to deconstruct the male domi-
nated environment. Moreover, the proponents of
gender are unable to see and comprehend how the312 international organizations
broader environment reproduces and nurtures the
male-dominated culture and adopts policies that
are not conducive to the needs of women.
These elite women staff are conversant with
Western models of gender relations, but have hardly
any understanding of how Islamic values and soci-
ety shape the everyday reality of the rural poor
women – their ultimate customer. They provide a
universal analysis of women ignoring differences of
class, cultural, and religious backgrounds of women
in different societies. Many gender practitioners
suggest that the sheer presence and practices of
elite women reproduce capitalist patriarchy within
the international organizations and their partner
non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Capital-
ist patriarchy is operational as Western males often
place local modern elite women at the head of the
international organizations and their partner or-
ganizations as their counterparts and colleagues.
The capitalist patriarchs take it for granted that
purdah (seclusion) prevails across Muslim society.
They fail to see that it is not the practice of purdah
but rather hierarchical social structures and rela-
tionships that are largely responsible for the back-
wardness of women.
The failure to deconstruct and comprehend the
broader environment by international organiza-
tions creates obstacles in the way of their opera-
tions. Paradoxically, international organizations
and their partners, while trying to promote gender
parity and world-view, continuously reproduce
within their rank and file the broader Islamic cul-
tures and values. When these organizations imple-
ment projects and programs by ensuring women’s
participation in the project planning cycle, they
confront an Islamic patriarchy. Islamic patriarchs
are the rural elite, village elders and religious lead-
ers who practice orthodox Islam sustained by the
hierarchy of Islamic culture. Despite organizational
contradictions, the promotion of gender programs
by international organizations has brought a favor-
able change among male and female staff in devel-
opment organizations and NGOs. The growing
awareness has now led government and interna-
tional organizations to grant aid for setting up sec-
tions or focal points to be responsible for integrating
women’s issues into administrative projects (Øster-
gaard 1992, 7). All organizations ensure the reflec-
tion of gender issues in project planning cycles.
Despite the complex problem of separating the
impact of projects on men and women, the usual
approach to understanding the impact of gender on
a project is to assess the outcome or product of an
organization and explore how this effects men and
women differently (Roche 1999, 236).