Abstract
This chapter explores the barriers to women’s power and agency. It also reviews some theoretical constructs related to barriers to power. In addition, this chapter juxtaposes these theoretical constructs with those of informants’ narratives and life stories, and argues that there are religio-cultural practices and socio-structural constraints that make women of Chandhara less powerful than men. This chapter mainly engages discourses and theories of power, such as Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz’s, and Steven Lukes’, in discussing barriers to (women’s) power and agency. This chapter engages the religious discourses of the early days of Islam that incorporates folk traditions in interpreting the foundations of the Islamic creed that tend to view women negatively. In addition, it describes institutional, social, and cultural barriers to women’s power and agency.
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Alam, S. (2018). Barriers to Women’s Power and Agency. In: Perceptions of Self, Power, & Gender Among Muslim Women. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73791-1_6
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