While international organizations and their part-
ners have initiated a process of increased gender
sensitivity, the same cannot be said to be true for
the rural societies where organizations carry out
projects. Transformative politics begins when devel-
opment organizations mobilize women through
implementing different projects, which also brings
out women from their private sphere in house-
holds. The participation of women in development
activities then gives them visibility in the male dom-
inated public sphere. The mobilization of women
from the private to the public sphere also gives
women a discursive identity and new image of their
womanhood. The discursive identity poses prob-
lems to both international organizations and Islam-
ists, as they are unsure as to how to deal with the
new image of women. The new image of women is
also a source of rift and tension over the construc-
tion of women’s identities between the interna-
tional organizations and Islamists. International
organizations and NGOs see the new identities as
an element of modernization and secularism. The
development organizations, particularly the World
Bank, consider the visibility of women as engen-
dering development (King et al. 2001), which they
understand as the transformation of traditional
women into modern and secular women. On the
contrary, Islamists see the new identities as under-
mining of traditional norms and nuances, values
and visions. Islamists consider women’s visibility as
an effort on the part of modern organizations for
“de-Islamization.” De-Islamization is a process in
which Islamic faith and beliefs of women are sys-
tematically deconstructed and distorted to induce a
belief that Islam cannot free the poor from abject
poverty. De-Islamization may in some cases be a
first step in the process of converting women into
Christianity (Mannan 2000).
Concluding thought
The net outcome of the tensions between the gen-
der programs and the de-Islaminization of women
produces at least three fractional images of women
in Muslim societies. First, there is the image of
modern and secular women promoted by the work
of development NGOs. These women are meas-
ured against a poverty scale upon which the inter-
national organizations map the modernity and
progress of poor women. The paradigm of moder-
nity is designed to “developmentalize” women.
Second, there is the image of a Muslim woman
upheld and promoted by Islamic patriarchy. The
women adopt ™ijàbas a symbol of Islamic moder-
nity. Moreover, Islamic actors believe that the
North, as in colonial days, is either employing
overview 313NGOs to create more poverty or to pollute their
Islamic belief and faith. Finally, there is the image
of a woman based on the prevailing reality con-
strued by local customs, beliefs, culture, and ecol-
ogy (Shiva 1988). In reality, women continue to
exist beyond the Western and Islamic paradigms as
a part of a historical stream to form subaltern sub-
jects. These three contending interpretations com-
pete with each other to control the lives of women.
In the last analysis, the historically evolved gen-
der norms in developed countries have split into
concepts of gender in developing Islamic countries.
As both capitalist patriarchy and Islamic patriarchy
try to construct women’s identities with their re-
spective paradigms, they create problems for their
partner organizations. All partner NGOs and inter-
national organizations locate themselves in the ten-
sion between capitalist patriarchy and Islamic
patriarchy. As a logical outcome, many NGOs in
the name of gender try to maintain the status quo;
others adopt a reformist approach, but women’s
movements and gender ideologies still have a long
way to go to bring about positive changes in the life
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