Review of Alessandra L. González, Islamic Feminismin Kuwait: The Politics and ParadoxesNew York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 254 pp.ISBN 978-1-137-30473-5

Bryan S. Turner

# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Keywords Feminism . Kuwait . Modernization . Veil . Islamic law

With the modernization of societies in the Middle East and through their exposure toglobalization, have women become more or less empowered? The recent visibleparticipation of women in the various manifestations of the Arab Spring wouldsuggest that women from Morocco to Syria are participating more frequently andsignificantly in the public sphere. However, pointing to an alternative conclusion,various Islamic reform movements, under the broad umbrella of Salafi Islam, havesought to curb the presence of women outside the domestic sphere through the(re)enforcement of Shari’a norms. In terms of intellectual debate, these paradoxesare perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in the conflicts within feminist writing.These differences of interpretation range from Saba Mahmood’s influential ThePolitics of Piety. The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 2005), which redefined contemporary approaches to sociologicalideas about the subjectivity of pious women in Cairo to Azar Nafisi’s poignantReading Lolita in Tehran (New York: Random House, 2003), which showedhow young educated women were repressed after the Iranian Revolution in1979. Alessandra González explores the politics and paradoxes of this debateby posing a number of stark questions about women in contemporary Kuwaitsuch as: why do intelligent and educated women choose freely to veil? Inproviding answers to these puzzles, she comes to a number of counter-intuitiveresearch findings, namely that men, rather than opposing the empowerment ofwomen, are actually enabling Islamic feminism and that Islamic feminists, insupporting the quest for gender equality and respecting traditional religiousculture, ‘are finding ways to negotiate for progressive women’s rights withinthe conservative constraints of their cultures’ (p. 2).

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B. S. Turner (*)CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10016, USAe-mail: bturner@gc.cuny.edu

It is impossible to understand these everyday negotiations of gender politics,without understanding the broader framework of Kuwait’s evolution in the secondhalf of the twentieth century. Independence from Britain in 1961 created opportuni-ties for women through education and involvement in the workplace to identify withnationalist politics and claim a voice for themselves. During 1990 with the Iraqinvasion, Kuwaiti women participated in the war effort. Through these turbulentpolitical times, women’s status in the public domain was further enhanced. Popularsupport for Islamist politics grew after the Iranian Revolution and the failures of Arabnationalism. In 2005 women were granted the right to vote and run for political office,but the election of 2006 left women with little time to organize and mobilize. Whilewomen were unable to win any seats, their franchise forced Islamist politicians andsecular liberals to acknowledge their presence in politics.

Kuwait is an overwhelmingly a Muslim majority society (with 70 % Sunni and30 % Shia) in which conservative elements from Salafi reformists are representedthrough the Islamic Constitutional Movement – the Kuwaiti version of the MuslimBrotherhood. Unsurprisingly in this context even activists within the liberal women’srights movement negotiate their legal entitlements and political identity within theframework of traditional and conservative Islam. Traditional values have been, as aconsequence of the ‘war on terror’ after 9/11, reinforced by America’s militarypresence in Kuwait and by wars being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. These militaryincursions have left Kuwait with a political dilemma, being both for and againstAmerica. This political dilemma inevitably shapes social attitudes towards women’sempowerment.

González presents her account of Kuwaiti feminism in the framework of a theory oflegitimate authority which has, she argues, three main sources: religious, communityand political authority. To veil or not to veil—to be absent or present in the publicdomain—has to be negotiated through these three avenues. In terms of sources ofauthority, perhaps the most important finding from her interviews (with over thirty fivemen and women) is that ‘many young Muslim women consider Islam to be a source forthem to fight for women’s rights’ (p.18). The textual authority of the Qur’an is the mostsalient source for Islamist women from which they emphasize the Prophet’s positiverespect for women. By contrast, the West, which is seen to be overly individualistic andchaotic, is characterised by a ‘social disease’ including high divorce rates, the break-down of the family, and health problems associated with extra-marital sex. Islamicfeminists see women’s political participation as a means to greater social participationand reform of the Personal Status Laws in order to improve their general rights ascitizens, especially relating to inheritance and property.

Islamists are winning elections and have considerable popular support. One causeof religio-cultural conservatism is demographic: the shift of rural Bedouin tribalcommunities to urban centres with the support of government policies. Urban Kuwaitas a result is a diverse society. Islam, just like Kuwaiti society as a whole, is internallydivided, but generally speaking the politically engaged Muslims distinguish them-selves from jihadists and radicals, because they are willing to work within the existingpolitical framework which they see as legitimate. Given these divisions withinIslamic thought and practice in Kuwait, it is not difficult to recognize the manyreasons that bring women to veil: modesty, solidarity, protection, piety, anonymity,traditionalism, family values, and as a political statement. Veiling, for educated

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women, is not a barrier to entry into the professions and politics. At the same time,feminists are fighting traditional patriarchy, tribalism and ‘misguided religion’ viacivic education. The key to development in Kuwait and elsewhere is improvement inwomen’s status through education without simultaneously eradicating tradition. Inconclusion, the Gulf States ‘are expected to be modern, and yet their people seem towant to hold onto traditional Islamic-based values’ in order to avoid the ‘moral decayin liberalized American and European societies’ (p. 159).

Alessandra González has captured the complexity of values and attitudes in the oil-rich societies of the Gulf through the study of a single society. Her rich qualitativedata and careful argumentation provide a clear insight into the attitudes of womenwho struggle to combine loyalty to religious traditions and an enthusiastic embrace ofthe opportunities of secular political culture and institutions. But what of the future?While González paints gender issues in Kuwait in a positive light, she also recognizesthat there is still much to be reformed, especially the laws relating to personal statusthat originate in the Shari’a and need modernizing. For example with inflation and anunequal distribution of resources, women do not have sufficient material supportfrom their husbands adequately to survive. Domestic abuse and the rise in the numberof women who choose to remain unmarried pose problems for Shari’a-based welfaresystems in the Gulf. As Karl Marx observed about legal reform in the nineteenthcentury, political rights without social rights are hollow.

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