Religious Identity versus Feminist Identity?

Do religious identities and feminist identities automatically fall in a conflictual dynamic? A question I have been asking myself for a long time… And my answer:  there are ‘spaces’ of clash, and ‘spaces’ of dialogue, even in the most chaotic geopolitical zones such as the Middle East (Western Asia) where the religious knowledge tends to be a jealously protected product of religious men.

As a university professor in Theology and Sciences of Religions in Lebanon, I can assure you that managing my feminist identity and my religious beliefs, and trying to nurture a ‘convivial’ dynamic in a patriarchal environment is not an easy task. To bring feminism in a conversation about religions with religious men is extremely difficult. Also, to bring religion into a feminist conversation can be a huge red flag for some – I am thinking here of Joumana Haddad and her writings, clearly against Monotheistic religions – who perceive the experience as a dangerous affront threatening to impose a normative morality on others dictated by religious patriarchs.

As I see it, it is possible to be a committed feminist who can seek reforms from within religious traditions. This is what I am trying to do while living in Lebanon… This is what other feminists are trying to do elsewhere…

‘Red Lips High Heels’ blog and Facebook page are ‘spaces’ where women and men engage in writing, reading and commenting on content from their various feminist perspectives and with a diversity of feminist commitments. One of the objectives of this movement is to facilitate dialogue and partnership across differences and build alternative knowledge on men-women relations in the Middle East and on diversity management – including religious diversity management.

I read this morning an interesting article by Xochitl Alvizo (‘Being Undone by the Feminist Other’), analyzing Saba’s Mahmood’s work in her book ‘Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject’:

The second helpful point I draw from Mahmood is in regard to how we understand and engage in criticism. Mahmood explains that criticism, in its most prevalent form is about “demolishing the opponent’s position and exposing the implausibility of their argument” (5-6). So for example, when Mahmood began her research with women in the Islamic revival movement in Egypt, she did not imagine that their acceding to ‘feminine’ virtues such as shyness, modesty, and humility could serve as a form of agency that empowered them to take on a more public role in the religious and political life of Egypt– that would have been a position she thought implausible and would have been inclined to demolish its credibility. However, what she discovered was that the women indeed used these virtues of piety, usually thought of as means of submission, to facilitate their increased public role and participation in civic life.

Thus, to define criticism only as being about “demolishing the opponent’s position and exposing the implausibility of their argument” is a limited and weak form of critique. Mahmood poses that what is most powerful is when criticism “leaves open the possibility that we might also be remade in the process of engaging another’s world view – when we leave open the possibility that we might come to learn things that we did not already know before we undertook the engagement with another.” What is required in order to do this is that we “turn the critical gaze upon ourselves.” And so, in the example above, Mahmood was able to see that for the women in that particular religious context it did not make sense that she impose her own understanding of agency with its secular-left political bias. She was able to see this because she was willing to turn her critical gaze back onto herself and in that way have her feminist understandings be undone by the other.

Part of being undone by our encounter with the other is that we recognize our own limits in knowing and seeing, and have our feminist borders break open toward new – more expansive – horizons. Being open to having ourselves and/or our feminism be undone by another is not a passive mode of being. It is a practice of attentiveness to what is going on in the experience of another and the limits of our won. It is a breaking open for the sake of weaving and strengthening one another’s feminist enactments, each of which seek to contribute to a more just and sustaining world even if in diverse and unexpected ways.

Regarding blogs then, when we participate and engage with one another in blog spaces in ways that leave open the possibility of our own transformation, we set the stage, the online environment for facilitating connections that may have previously been left untapped. When we engage in the form of criticism that leaves open the possibility of being undone by the encounter we actively expand our imagination to make room for new interrelated visions that lead us to new radical possibilities for bringing about a new reality. For the truth is that there are possibilities, untold narratives for a renewed world that do not yet exist in our imagination because we do not have, or have not allowed for, the space to call them forth.

Thus, this kind of criticism is not a tearing down, but is an act of building. It is done only if we are willing to put the work into it. It is done by a process that requires preparation, time, and thoughtful engagement instead of quick reaction. It is done when we are willing to pull in resources, raise questions, and express curiosity even while also raising concerns; when we name our own feelings and reactions without closing off to one another. This kind of criticism makes room for the diversity of women’s lived realities and regards different women’s experiences with dignity and respect.

Blogs can be a platform where we can be undone across definitions, generations, and experiences and where we can expand the borders of feminism and religion so that we may come to be called sisters by one another. What is at stake is of the very essence of feminisms – to not regard each other as objects for critique but subjects with whom we collaborate in the messiness of life. It is not easy work, but it is worthwhile work that gives embodied witness to the ethics of and vision for a world in which none are discounted, silenced, or subsumed – not even in blog spaces”.