Marriage, Obedience and Feminine Submission

Abstract

The fact that some women choose to join religious movements which emphasize the importance of binary gender roles suggests that they find some positive advantages in adopting this position. They cannot all be victims, especially when the choice is apparently freely made in a liberal democratic environment. A number of writers have explored ways in which women empower themselves through religion and especially through fundamentalist-like movements (Afshar 1991; 1995a; Ozorak 1995; Gerami 1996; North 1996; Brasher 1998; Karam 1998). Shahin Gerami counters the blanket anti-women stereotype of fundamentalism by not only listing the negative effects of fundamentalism but by producing a list of positive impacts which fundamentalism has had for some women, especially in the case of Islam in the Muslim Middle East (Gerami 1996: 156). Among the positive effects of fundamentalist discourse in the United States, Gerami, rightly suggests ‘the reaffirmation of motherhood as a legitimate feminist agenda’ (ibid.). Brenda Brasher (1998) takes a similar position with regard to ‘fundamentalist’ women in the United States. She refers to the power women can wield within the confines of their religious community, a community that also regulates the behaviour of men.