Week 8

Monday's readings really made me think about the relationship between gender and nationhood, nationalism, and politics. I suppose that the Jacob reading from a couple weeks ago was our first introduction to that link, but in Afasaneh Najmabadi and Deniz Kanditoyi's works, the link between femininity and nationalism was explored in a unique way. It is a link I had not thought of before. 


The Najmabadi reading about vatan in Iran was so eye-opening. It is a concept so foreign, and yet at the same time many aspects of her discussion of vatan reminded me of aspects of our own American nationalism. Gender is a complex tool for nationalism and political unity. Iran being represented as a fetishized female entity, however, is a whole other level of genderized nationalism. The implications of such a representation are manifold. For one, Iran being depicted as a "female body to love and possess, to protect and defend, to fight and die for" indicated that women are entities to be protected. But it also shows, just as every unit in this course thus far has shown, how truly powerful rhetoric is. Positioning Iran as female-bodied entity, placing vatan only second to faith or equal to faith, above family, is a brilliant nationalistic strategy that has proved successful. 


I found Kandiyoti's work interesting but less refreshing and new. It is similar to much of our previous reading in its content. But certain parts stood out to me greatly. The discussion of conflicting doctrine in the middle east (traditional law conflicting with shari'ah law, personal with constitutional) was important, and I consider this distinction to be of great importance in regards to international diplomacy and dialogue. As Kandiyoti states on page 5 of the introduction, "articles of personal status codes often conflict with the constitutions of Arab countries. While the latter guarantee equal rights for all their citizens the former extend privileges to men in the family...which are denied to women." And another quote..."customary law often accorded women even fewer rights than the shar'iah" (10). I'm also so glad that this article mentioned south Asian Islam because we have not discussed those regions at all which I think is unfortunate.