HawwaPub Date : 2020-05-08DOI: 10.1163/15692086-12341371
M. Karolak, H. A. Guta
{"title":"Saudi Women as Decision Makers: Analyzing the Media Portrayal of Female Political Participation in Saudi Arabia","authors":"M. Karolak, H. A. Guta","doi":"10.1163/15692086-12341371","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692086-12341371","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper analyzes the contrasting media portrayals of female political participation in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Through a thorough discourse analysis of Saudi, British, and American newspaper articles surrounding the 2015 municipal elections, we scrutinize how the portrayal of women as a subject group has shifted from one that requires the constant approval of guardians in the public sphere to one that makes its own decisions and actively participates in politics. We analyze what types of discourses and frames have supported this drastic shift in official Saudi media discourses. We then contrast these findings with the portrayal of Saudi female political participation in Western countries that claim to uphold human rights and gender equality, in contrast to Saudi Arabia. Finally, we contrast our findings with the perceptions of 50 female Saudis regarding female agency and political participation in Saudi Arabia.","PeriodicalId":42389,"journal":{"name":"Hawwa","volume":"18 1","pages":"75-95"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15692086-12341371","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44379688","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HawwaPub Date : 2020-05-08DOI: 10.1163/15692086-12341368
Rahma Abdulkadir, H. Müller
{"title":"The Politics of Women Empowerment","authors":"Rahma Abdulkadir, H. Müller","doi":"10.1163/15692086-12341368","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692086-12341368","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In recent decades, the governments of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, especially the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have substantially increased their promotion of women in public life, with more women obtaining senior positions in an array of social domains. Despite these efforts, women’s leadership in the public sphere of GCC states still lags behind what has been achieved in other parts of the world. Focusing on the UAE, this article provides an overview of the current state and complex nature of women’s leadership in the Emirates. It examines who the UAE’s female leaders are, their socio-economic backgrounds, and the specific social arenas they most often obtain leadership positions in. The article utilizes a newly compiled data set on the socio-economic backgrounds of women who obtained leadership positions in the realms of politics, the economy, and society more broadly in the UAE between 1970 and 2017.","PeriodicalId":42389,"journal":{"name":"Hawwa","volume":"18 1","pages":"8-30"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15692086-12341368","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45170168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HawwaPub Date : 2020-05-08DOI: 10.1163/15692086-12341369
Rana al-Mutawa
{"title":"“I Want to be a Leader, But Men Are Better Than Women in Leadership Positions”","authors":"Rana al-Mutawa","doi":"10.1163/15692086-12341369","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692086-12341369","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This research paper investigates female perceptions of female leadership in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where, particularly recently, state feminism has supported women’s occupation of leadership positions. It thus explores how state feminism’s portrayal of the ideal woman in leadership has impacted Emirati women’s perceptions of female leaders. A survey comprising 350 female Emirati students was undertaken, and results were supported by interviews. Findings suggest that although 93 percent of respondents “wanted to” or “probably wanted to” be leaders, they nevertheless endorsed “sexist” stereotypes and legitimizing myths. These contradictions are due, most likely, to ambivalent messages disseminated by the state and by society at large about female leaders. This research postulates that, while women have gained more agency in the public sphere through occupying leadership positions, their own perceptions and portrayals of acceptable gender roles are complex and ambivalent.","PeriodicalId":42389,"journal":{"name":"Hawwa","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15692086-12341369","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44106069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HawwaPub Date : 2020-03-26DOI: 10.1163/15692086-bja10003
Laleh Atashi
{"title":"Remoulding of Ideology through Remediation: Axe and Deforestation as Gender Metaphors in an Animation and a Picture Book in Iran","authors":"Laleh Atashi","doi":"10.1163/15692086-bja10003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692086-bja10003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article examines an intermedial adaptation, focusing on the potentials of two different media in the presentation of conflicting ideologies in Iran: Tabar (“Axe”) (1980, dir. Ahmad Arabani), a silent animation, and the picture book of the same title, by Shekoofeh Taqi and Manoochehr Dehqan, published in 1985. The two works have been chosen because they were both published at a time when Iran was tackling serious internal and external tensions after the Islamic Revolution. The ideological content of both the picture book and the animation can shed light on the discourse of didacticism that prevailed in Iran during the 1980s. Both works feature deforestation as a threat, but patriotism is the theme of the animation, whereas female resistance against male oppression is the message of the picture book.","PeriodicalId":42389,"journal":{"name":"Hawwa","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-23"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15692086-bja10003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42111739","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HawwaPub Date : 2020-03-19DOI: 10.1163/15692086-bja10004
V. Rispler-chaim
{"title":"The Role of Procreation (injāb) in Marital Life: a Shift Between Classical Islamic Law and Contemporary Fatwas","authors":"V. Rispler-chaim","doi":"10.1163/15692086-bja10004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692086-bja10004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Classical Islamic marriage and divorce laws focus on both spouses’ ability to perform sexually. In fiqh texts, sexual disability is considered a serious medical condition. The fiqh literature lists certain sexual disabilities unique to men, unique to women, or shared by both sexes. Infertility (ʿuqm) is not found in any of these early fiqh lists, although we have proof in various Islamic religious texts that fertility and procreation have always been highly valued in society. In contemporary fatwas (from the Sunni world), the picture appears reversed, as fertility is given priority over sexual performance. In this paper, I illustrate this shift in attitude between the classical legal texts and contemporary fatwas. Then, I offer possible explanations for it. Among the main motivations suggested for the change are feminist Muslim writings, a growing awareness of human rights in the Islamic world, advanced medical technology, and economic factors.","PeriodicalId":42389,"journal":{"name":"Hawwa","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-18"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15692086-bja10004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47226249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HawwaPub Date : 2020-02-12DOI: 10.1163/15692086-bja10001
Yahya Nurgat
{"title":"Menstruation and the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa: A Study of Ibn Taymiyya’s Landmark Ruling of Permissibility","authors":"Yahya Nurgat","doi":"10.1163/15692086-bja10001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692086-bja10001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article examines Ibn Taymiyya’s (d. 728/1328) unprecedented fatwas allowing menstruating female pilgrims to perform the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa, an essential rite of the hajj. In normative jurisprudential law, menstruating women are obliged to stay in Mecca and fulfil this rite only after returning to ritual purity. However, women in Ibn Taymiyya’s time found the prospect of staying in Mecca a difficult one, predominantly due to the risk of returning home without the protection of the hajj caravan. For modern pilgrims, bureaucratic and financial obstacles also make extending one’s stay in Mecca a difficult task. This paper examines how Ibn Taymiyya’s application of ḍarūra enabled him to provide legal recourse for the numerous female pilgrims affected by the consequences of menstruating while on the hajj. It also explores the extent to which contemporary scholars have engaged with his landmark ruling in order to assist Muslim women today.","PeriodicalId":42389,"journal":{"name":"Hawwa","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15692086-bja10001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42964204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HawwaPub Date : 2020-01-13DOI: 10.1163/15692086-12341366
Abdalla El-Fakki El-Bashir
{"title":"The Fading of Yearnings for Liberation and Passage When the Bet on Love Is Lost","authors":"Abdalla El-Fakki El-Bashir","doi":"10.1163/15692086-12341366","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692086-12341366","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents a study of the memoirs and letters of Princess Sālima bt. Saʿīd (d. 1922), whose father, Saʿīd b. Sulṭān (d. 1856), was the ruler of Oman and Zanzibar from 1832 to 1856. One hundred and fifty years ago, the princess entered into a relationship with a young German man, Rudolph Ruete. After the princess fell pregnant, putting her in conflict with the stipulations of her Islamic religion, she decided to elope with her lover and to bet on him. The paper argues that the princess was a revolutionary woman in opposition to traditional Zanzibari culture, and that her story highlights clearly the issue of women and the crisis of freedom in Arab and Islamic culture during that time.","PeriodicalId":42389,"journal":{"name":"Hawwa","volume":"1 1","pages":"1-26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15692086-12341366","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49004237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HawwaPub Date : 2019-12-19DOI: 10.1163/15692086-12341365
Maryam Moosavi, A. Ghandeharion, Mahmoud Reza Ghorban Sabbagh
{"title":"Gendered Narrative in Female War Literature: Helen Benedict’s Sand Queen","authors":"Maryam Moosavi, A. Ghandeharion, Mahmoud Reza Ghorban Sabbagh","doi":"10.1163/15692086-12341365","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692086-12341365","url":null,"abstract":"US novelist and journalist Helen Benedict’s 2011 fictional work Sand Queen, the first novel about the Iraq War (2003–11) written by a woman, has great potential for feminist approaches, especially regarding its use of gender-identity models. Through her positioning of the narrators, her multiple narratives, and the linguistic elements in this work, Benedict has created a unique artistic structure that has broad implications for the study of narrative, the themes of war, displacement, and trauma, and cross-cultural understanding. The current study examines Benedict’s work to demonstrate her gender-conscious view of war in her depiction of US soldier Kate Brady and Iraqi medical student and interpreter Naema Jassim as the central consciousnesses through which the narrative is told. Taking advantage of third-wave feminist approaches to gender, the study discovers diverse perspectives and distinctive viewpoints on the concept of gender identity. Offered by the novel’s first-person character-narrators, these viewpoints explore the fictional universe mapped out by Benedict in the text. In the context of the Iraq War, based on models of gender identity interspersed throughout the narrative, the study reveals how the challenges and/or reaffirmations of normative gender ideologies dominated patriarchal systems of military institutions.","PeriodicalId":42389,"journal":{"name":"Hawwa","volume":"18 1","pages":"1-21"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2019-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15692086-12341365","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48562194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
HawwaPub Date : 2019-11-14DOI: 10.1163/15692086-12341363
Norshahril Saat
{"title":"Malay Women Leaders in Malaysia: The Unthinkable?","authors":"Norshahril Saat","doi":"10.1163/15692086-12341363","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692086-12341363","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the position of the Malay religious elite towards the idea of women as leaders. Based on an analysis of the writings and sermons of a sample of the religious elite, the article concludes that they continue to be of the view that gender roles in modern society are ‘fixed’, ‘divine’, and ‘unquestionable’. By exploring Mohammed Arkoun’s concept of the ‘unthinkable’, I argue that the notion that women are unfit for top political leadership positions, by virtue of their gender, results from a parochial attitude towards traditions relating to women’s role in society and from a general failure to re-evaluate traditions in the light of the modern-day context. By traditions here, I refer not only to the hadiths (recorded sayings of the Prophet Mohammad), but also compilations of Qurʾanic exegesis (tafsīr) and juristic opinions (fatāwā, s. fatwa) passed down from one generation to another in the last 1,400 years of Islamic history. The article also explores how the religious elite’s views of gender equality might be reformed—it suggests that they need to be challenged with alternative discourses in order to transform their attitude towards religious sources from one that is unquestioning to one that is more questioning.","PeriodicalId":42389,"journal":{"name":"Hawwa","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2019-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15692086-12341363","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48934373","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}