Week 8 Motasem

In Najmabadi's chapter, she discusses the issue of gendering and heterosexualization of the state. While the gender of the state was of gender ambiguity due to the inability to know to whom did the pronoun refer to, Najmabadi talks about how it was first of a male beloved (homosocial and homoerotic), then of a female beloved and finally of a mother. The concept of a protecting a mother and loving a mother is from Islamic teaching, hence it is quite interesting how Iran became the mother of all. It is also quite interesting how it became a female figure rather male. However, the construction of Iran (the homeLAND) as female draws attention to the position of gender over the course of history. The discourse of man protecting woman is obviously of a patriarchal nature as well as of positioning women in a heteronormative weak and submissive place within society. However, what was striking and I believe essential is how women were reaffirming this rhetoric of Iran as a mother needing protection. The discourse is created by both men and women and is affirmed and accepted by both. Of course, this stems from an idea of nationalism, of Iran as a sacred nation whose honor and land needs protection from foreign forces. The attack on Iran by foreign forces and conquering of lands dishonors the mother (Iran) - a female - and robs her from her sacredness. What's ironic though is women's call for education while comparing themselves to European women who receive education. While they are opposing the West, they are confirming and affirming themselves as being the Other or the Orient (to some degree). I felt that this connection is quite essential, especially in looking at the global connections and perceptions of Others were, in relation to the mother homeland of Iran. What I would like to have read here is how did these discourses come about? Were they only in literature? Was it the state that intervened in creating them?

In Kandiyorti's introduction, I found her making similar arguments to works we have read before and building upon them in terms of the state's intervention in daily life and familial life. I think the argument that connects all these works are the binaries that scholars have been analyzing the Orient with (Orient/West, East/west, and most importantly Islam/Post imperialism). It is obviously very problematic to put Islam as anti imperialist and vice versa. While that might be true in some cases, these ideologies behind each intersect in some way. However, Kandiyorti is more concerned with the discourse among feminists about the perception that Islam is suppressing women, which can be problematic. I think the best section that illustrates her argument is on page 12 where she present different ways of how the State limited the emancipation of women. She says "the same governments which granted women new rights proceeded to simultaneously abolish independent women's organizations where they existed, whilst setting up state-sponsored women's organizations which were generally docile auxiliaries of the ruling state-party" (p 13).

Week 8

Maybe I didn't read Monday's readings deeply enough, but honestly I didn't find the argument of the Najmabadi selection very convicting. For most of what we have read so far, I feel like I have learned something or gained some insight into a valuable new point of view. For the vatan writing, I didn't feel this way. The arguments made in the other things we have read felt important to me. This one didn't. I don't understand why it matters that the homeland is conceptualized as a woman. It's interesting, but I really don't see the significance. I am not convinced that there is a link between the trope of vatan as mother and women's rights. All during this reading I was asking myself "so what?" Maybe I should read it again but as of right now I really don't see the point of this reading.

I think the objective of the second reading is really interesting. Studying the relationship between Islam and the state is an insightful project. I think maybe this is what the first reading unsuccessfully attempted to do. This piece is more effective. I like that it distinguishes the variances in how nationalism is carried out in different countries. Islam plays itself out different in different areas so it makes sense that the relationship between Islam and the nation would also work itself out in different ways.

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.

week 8 post

Kandiyoti explains that “the study of Muslim women must be grounded in contemporary states and historical information” (p.2) . Up until reading this literature it seemed so easy to view the West influence as quickly infringing on the Middle East but both authors examine the long transformation from national and religious communities to nation states which not only altered policy, and cultural practices, but also rhetoric used by people within those particular states, such as the short but complicated term vatan. Not only is the examination of Muslim women “grounded in contemporary state and historical information” but it is also grounded in the interaction between gender, state, and patriotism (all impacting each other). Furthermore, Kandiyoti points to the notion that the establishment of a law or policy (such as polygyny restrictions) differs from the state practice of that law, making analysis of a particular region even more vital. Kanydiyoti argues that “neither the will to develop nor the reaffirmation of an Islamic identity can be understood without consideration of the global context in which modern nation-states operate” and to ignore the global context is to assume that women in those countries were innately submissive. Both authors however, leave out that impact of women reaction into the discourse—what impact in any did the woman have on state policies and the practice of it? In thinking about the vatan, how did women interpret, transform, and manipulate that word?
Najmabadi highlights the relationship between patriotism and gender by examining the vatan. Najmabadi explains that the “The Vatan thus is a central presence between the two men, forming the kind of triangle of desire in which the love of the two men from the single female figure produces a patriotic bond between them (p.108).” It is interesting to think of the woman (instead of a man) as the third point of the triangle. What would this imply? The desires of the woman (interchangeable to the land) is the “producer of patriotism-weakness of the woman ‘in need of care, protection, and sometimes cure’” (p. 108). This renders women as the producers, but simultaneous takes the power of ownership and entitlement away from them and in the hands of the heterosexual man in the practice of patriotism.

Joseph- Iraq and Lebanon

Saud Jospeh compares two examples of elite rule and their affect on women in Iraq and Lebanon. In Iraq, the Ba'th party socialized most aspects of society, including women's political participation, labor, and childcare. In order to guarantee loyalty to the state and the cult of leadership, the Ba'th party presented women's involvement with strict bureaucratization to keep power within the Ba'th party, while simultaneously loosening women's connections and reliance on family/kin/tribal ties. Despite all of their social programs, women still didn't welcome the changes with open arms and remained distrustful of the state, mainly because of the culture of fear the state had created as an authoritarian regime. Yet, these programs gave women more equal standing with men than in many "free" states around the world, but both Iraqi men and women, while equal, had little say in their government.

Contrary to Iraqi policy, Lebanon pushed for the opposite reinforcement of its state. Lebanon's unique structure of sectarian representation has led to a deeply divided state by religion and ethnicity. The state is so weak, that it has hardly any influence over its citizens. Instead women must rely on religious/familial ties in the private sector for all their needs. This meant that women had no loyalty to the state, and the state continued to support divided loyalties to different sects so that Lebanon's representation will stay in place. Despite the efforts of both states to increase loyalty to each state's type of rule, both Iraqis and Lebanese have little loyalty to their respective states' and are dissatisfied with the status quo of rule.

Week 8 Response

Afasaneh Najmabadi in “Vatan, the Beloved; Vatan, the Mother” in Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards and Deniz Kandiyoti in Women, Islam, and the State both investigate relationship between nation-state formations and gender, specifically the way in which the conceptual category of woman is employed in that formation process. What both texts have in common is their argument that the conceptual signifier of woman has been crucial to the formation of several Middle Eastern nation-states.

Najmabadi delineates the ideological shift of the Iranian concept of the vatan. He states that Iran worked to shift from conceptualizing homeland/country as the domain of the king who shepherds his subjects to a geographically moored community of people whose vatani rights are protected by the king (Najmabadi, 104). This shift, Najmabadi argues was articulated most consistently and effectively through a language of femininity. In representing the vatan as a female body, Iran was able to construct nationalism among its constituents. This nationalism was manifested not only in the desire to protect and maintain Iran’s geographical and cultural boundaries, but also led to the fetishization of Iranian soil.

Kandiyoti also argues that the conceptual category of woman was important to the formation of several nations in the Middle East. He works to illuminate the methodological short-comings of other scholars who have investigated this relationship. He argues that if one wishes to create a transnational conceptual framework which addresses ‘the woman question’ in the Middle East, then one is much better off starting from a position that includes both the relationship between Islam and secularism and the history of an ever-shifting concept of a nation-state than from an analytical position with limits one’s analysis to investigating the ways in which women’s oppression is solely contained as within a reaction to the intervention of the West in Middle Eastern countries. Kandiyoti argues that while the role of the West is an important factor in the ways in which women are positioned in the Arab world, when one actually examines the particularities of each country (and region), Kandiyoti argues that only after one considers the role of the nation-state (and its fluid, shifting meaning) can one make sense of the women’s symbolic and literal position within society.

These two texts add to our discussion of gender, sexuality, and Islam in important ways, and lead to several useful questions. What happens if we were to extend these authors frameworks to extend not just to women, but to gender and sexuality as a whole? Does this framework help move us beyond the West/rest binary? How do these readings re-inform our previous readings?

Sources:

Afasaneh Najmabadi. 2005. "Vatan, the Beloved; Vatan, the Mother" in Women with Mustaches and Men Without Beards. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Deniz Kandiyoti. 1991. "Introduction" in Women, Islam and the State, ed. Deniz Kandiyoti. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Deniz Kandiyoti. 1991. "End of Empire: Islam, Nationalism, and Women in Turkey" in Women, Islam and the State, ed. Deniz Kandiyoti. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Week 8 Response

Unfortunately, I found Monday's readings to be extremely difficult to get through because they felt a little repetitive. Because of and in spite of this, I found evidence of many of the previous authors we've encountered in the readings, especially in the Kandiyoti. For example, Kandiyoti's "Introduction" reflects Mohanty's arguments extremely well. When Kandiyoti claims that "women are neither homogeneous nor passive victims of patriarchal domination" and that they are "full-fledged social actors, bearing the full set of contradictions implied by their class, racial and ethnic locations as well as their gender," she echoes Mohanty's urge for Western feminists to study women as distinct entities, variable in time and place (17). Both Kandiyoti and Mohanty, in turn, employ Said's depiction of Orientalism's view of the Middle East as "ahistorical" when referring to third-world women (1).

However, I did have an objection to one of Kandiyoti's claims. She writes that the "privileged place of women and the family ... represents one of the few areas of relative autonomy left to societies whose ties of political and economic dependence severely restrict their choices in every other sphere" (8). I don't believe that this women/family life sphere is as autonomous as she thinks. Actions taken in this private sphere are often in response to "Western pressures," even as she acknowledges (8). The actions themselves may be decided by the nation and the people, but they ultimately tend to be in response to outside influences, in the form of dissent against Western society in the form of reassertion of Muslim values, or, in the case of Kemalism in Turkey, partial adoption of Western values. This decidedly limits the autonomy of women and the family, or the nation that makes decisions regarding them.