Muslim Women and Freedom: The Possibility of Traditionalist Feminisms

Serene Khader (Brooklyn College, CUNY), Serene J. Khader (CUNY Graduate Center, Brooklyn College), Serene Khader

PoD#5: Serene Khader - "Muslim Women and Freedom: The Possibility of Traditionalist Feminisms", Thursday 22 Sept. @ RMIT City Campus

"Muslim Women and Freedom: The Possibility of Traditionalist Feminisms"

Serene Khader (CUNY Brooklyn College, USA)

Abstract:

The idea that Muslim women need to be liberated from their religious traditions has animated feminist support for imperialist projects. By suggesting that tradition itself is women’s oppressor, this idea prevents Western feminists from perceiving the harms “others” incur when their sources of meaning are destroyed or damaged. Still, traditions can be oppressive, so feminists cannot take an indiscriminate affirmative stance toward them. In this article, I make conceptual space for traditionalist feminisms by showing, contra the work of Saba Mahmood, that feminism does not require any particular stance toward tradition. What should matter to feminists is whether the content of traditions is oppressive—not whether a worldview places a high value on traditional adherence. I show this by arguing that, contra some liberal feminists, opposition to sexist oppression does not entail value for what I call “Enlightenment freedom.” I draw on Islamic feminisms to demonstrate the possibility of grounding opposition to sexist oppression in worldviews that value traditional adherence, and even ones that hold certain traditional dictates to be beyond question.

Bio:

Serene J. Khader is a moral and political philosopher working primarily on issues related to global gender justice. She is currently writing a book on transnational feminist solidarity for Oxford University Press, of which her PoD talk is a part. Much of her earlier work, including her book Adaptive Preferences and Women’s Empowerment (Oxford 2011), focuses on questions related to autonomy and oppressive “cultural” practices. She is also co-editor, with Ann Garry and Alison Stone, of the new Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy.  She is Jay Newman Chair in Philosophy of Culture at Brooklyn College and Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center.

WHEN:

6PM – 7:30PM, Thursday 22nd September 2016

WHERE:

Building 9, Level 3, Rooms 6A & 6B

RMIT City Campus (cnr Bowen & Franklin)

* Free, no registration required *

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