Week 6 Posting

In Afsaneh Najmabadi "(Un)Veiling Feminism", Najmabadi's goal is to point out how feminism has worked as a veil to understanding different Islamicate societies which works against building working alliances in contemporary gender politics. She wants to make it clear that her study and historicization of secularism, nationalism and feminism in this essay is not to point out how women were once united, then divided and now are in a period of finding bridges to reconnect in todays day an age. Instead, the author points out that secularism, nationalism and feminism are historically defined and therefore differ for each country and to understand their definition of these terms, it is imperative to understand their historical context and to not group them together as one, as if assuming all Islamic countries are the same and for the same reasons. Najmabadi uses Iran as an example of this veiling generalization that plagues Islamic countries. The configurations of Islam are have unfolded/are unfolding as they should based upon the fact that the Islamic republic has been in power for more than 20 years.

Building upon Iran as an example, in her section titled "Woman and the Culture of Revolution", Najmabadi  points out that despite the legal and social restrictions that are placed upon women and the fact that feminist in the country still feel silenced, there is still a flourishing of women's intellectual and cultural production. According to the author, women who are responsible for this uprising are not only doing this to prove the islamic republic wrong and to succeed against all odds. It is also the rise of the Islamist moment in the 70's and the emergence of a new political sociability that centers around gender and its place is the political discourse making what was once marginal and illegitimate into a light of immediate authenticity and importance.