from Islamists in that they do not support any one
political philosophy or ideology and, in fact, many
of them can be uncomfortable with what they
perceive as the homogenizing tendency of Islamist
feminists and their dogmatism with respect to
interpretation and understanding of the Sharì≠a.
With a healthy respect for the role of faith in em-
powering and liberating women and men, religious
feminists are nevertheless keen on emphasizing new
and evolving interpretations of doctrine, and advo-
cate for the meeting point between international
legal instruments (for example, CEDAW) and the
essence of all faith traditions.
Religious feminists stand apart from their secular
counterparts by maintaining that no discourse of
women’s rights that rejects religion can achieve its
objectives in contexts where such a religion is the
pervasive lingua franca of the masses and the politi-
cians. Religious feminists are vociferous in urging
caution with blind espousal of a religio-political
cause (without a distinct women’s rights agenda).
They are equally cautious about any outright rejec-
tion of religion as a framework for reference. For
many of them, faith traditions (in this case mostly
Islam) guarantee a context of infinite justice for
women – but the way the religion is preached, inter-
preted, and manipulated (politically) is highly prob-
lematic. In order to counter this manipulation,
many religious feminists are keen on learning or
advocate a rereading of religious and non-religious
history and religious texts and traditions.
Familiarity with, if not mastery of, the religious lan-
guage is seen as one of the strongest tools for reject-
ing religious dogmatism, political obfuscation, and
manipulation of religious rhetoric against women,
as well as the formation of constituencies that can
engender social transformation.
As indicated earlier, women activists are not
glued to or within these feminist categories. In fact,
on some women’s rights issues, such as abolishing
female circumcision, changing family (and/or civil)
laws, and with certain political dynamics, such as
support for the Palestinian cause and calls for
democratization, there is often an overlap of inter-
ests and a commonality of agendas amongst the
otherwise different streams.
Regardless of their position on the continuum,
many of today’s feminist organizations had some of
their roots in charity work in the late 1800s and
early 1900s. By the middle of the twentieth century,
charity work gave way to activities that ranged
from promoting women’s electoral participation
and running for political office, to organizing and
providing small grants to rural development proj-
arab states 585ects, micro-financing and income generation initia-
tives, organizing and lobbying politicians, and pro-
ducing some seminal academic research.
Some organizations that started out combining a
feminist agenda with anti-colonial opposition, such
as Bint al-Ar∂(Daughter of the earth) in Egypt
or the more radical women’s work committees in
the West Bank, which called for women’s issues to
be worked on during the nationalist struggle (as
opposed to waiting for national liberation to actu-
ally happen), have more or less disbanded. This is
an indication of both a shift in feminist discourse
over the years (where one could argue that locating
women’s emancipation within national liberation
may have been limiting and was ultimately un-
successful), and of the changing political realities.
Other groups, locating their discourse in broader
social development language, such as the Palesti-
nian In≠àsh al-Usra (Family rejuvenation society),
the Ràbi†at al-Nisà± al-Sùdàniyyàt (League of
Sudanese women), or the Women’s Cultural and
Social Society of Kuwait continue to exist in vari-
ous guises, though in a much less prominent fash-
ion. More recently however, in the mid-1990s and
particularly in the lead-up to the United Nations
International Conference on Population and Devel-
opment in 1994 and the Fourth United Nations
World Women’s Conference in Beijing in 1995, a
number of groups have become far more vocal with
agendas that openly – and courageously – deal with
political participation, violence against women
(particularly rape and clitoridectomy), and repro-
ductive rights issues (abortion and contraception),
many of which are still largely considered social
taboos. Such organizations include the Al-Mar±a al-
Jadìda (The new woman) in Egypt, which, at dif-
ferent times, also included women from Sudan and
neighboring North African countries; al-Nadim
Center (also in Egypt); and the Collectif 95
Maghreb Egalité, which brought together women
(and feminist groups) from Tunisia, Algeria, and
Morocco.
In addition to these, women’s committees have
formed and are extremely active in academic con-
texts in universities in Arab capitals such as Cairo,
Khartoum, Beirut, Algiers, and Rabat, boasting a
body of work on women that is both extensive and
intensive, and publications (including books and a
rich variety of journals, and research papers) that
are impossible to quantify. Women’s committees in
national non-governmental umbrella organizations
and/or syndicates (such as human rights organiza-
tions, lawyers and teachers’ unions), and within
regional Arab bodies (such as the Arab Lawyers’