A habit of violence grown ordinary : constraints on Muslim women's participation in war - 1

While many Muslim women may claim that they have been "empowered" by a reversion to Islamic principles, or by the evident willingness of men to allow a space for female participation in violent conflict, the fundamental question of a balanced relationship between the sexes, in terms of mutual respect, remains unexamined. Even though it has been recognized that women and men are differently involved in conflict, "men and male norms have been taken to represent the norm for all human beings". (74) This is no less true in Muslim societies. My argument here is that Islam--as a religion, a cultural tradition and a political movement--has been used by some men to reinforce and legitimize the exclusion of women. This, combined with the instability of conflict, can only have negative implications for women's long-term security.

Notes

(1.) "The Kuwaiti women's recognition that the men sent to brutalize them have themselves already been brutalized does not exonerate the men of their crimes but rather puts them into a context that helps understanding. The Iraqis were not fearsome members of the `fourth largest army in the world, an army hardened in long years of combat against Iran,' to quote Cheney. They were victims of their government and leader. The Allied attack was merely another layer of cruelty laid on top of a habit of violence grown ordinary" (italics added. Cooke, Miriam, Women Claim Islam: Creating Islamic Feminism through Literature, New York & London: Routledge, 2001, pp.21-2.).

(2.) Arab Times, Special Liberation Supplement, 26 February 1996, quoted in Al-Mughni, Haya, Women in Kuwait: The Politics of Gender, London: Saqi Books, 2001, p.155.

(3.) Dalal Faysal Su'ud Al-Zubn, quoted in Cooke, Women Claim Islam, p. 15.

(4.) Cooke, Women Claim Islam, p. 16.

(5.) See, for example, arguments advanced by Barry, Kathleen, in Female Sexual Slavery, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc, 1979; and Brownmiller, Susan, in Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, New York: Bantam Books, 1975.

(6.) Alder, Christine, "Violence, Gender, and Social Change", in Manfred B Steger and Nancy S Lind, editors, Violence and its Alternatives: An Interdisiplinary Reader, Basingstoke & London: Macmillan Press, 1999, p. 114.

(7.) United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, September 1992.

(8.) Jacobson, Ruth, Jacobs, Susie, and Marchbank, Jen, "Introduction: States of Conflict", in Jacobs, Susie, Jacobson, Ruth, and Marchbank, Jennifer, States of Conflict: Gender, Violence and Resistance, London: Zed Books, 2000, p.2.

(9.) Sheffield, Carole J, "Sexual Terrorism", in Kourany, Janet A, Sterba, James P, and Tong, Rosemarie, editors, Feminist Philosophies, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1992, p.72.

(10.) Pettman, Jan Jindy, Worlding Women: A feminist international politics, London and New York: Routledge, 1996, p.209.

(11.) Steans, Jill, Gender and International Relations: An Introduction, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998, p.99.