The Foreign Service Journal, April 2011

32 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 1 1 Advocacy groups use e-mail and so- cial media to bombard policymak- ers with pleas for justice, exposing brutality and injustice with simple video footage captured on a cell phone and uploaded to YouTube. Providing Appropriate Assistance Clearly, women’s empowerment cannot be imposed on a country or culture from the outside. Rather, all members of the com- munity must find their own reasons for allowing women a fuller role in society. Still, there are ways U.S. foreign policy can support indigenous campaigns for greater women’s rights in Muslim-majority countries. First, it is important to recognize that change is hap- pening. In a 2010 Freedom House study of women’s rights in the Middle East and North Africa, 15 out of 18 countries demonstrated gains over the past five years. The Gulf Cooperation Council countries, which scored lowest in the previous 2005 report, showed the most progress, with women expanding their political participa- tion and becoming more visible in education, public life and business. In fact, women are beginning to significantly outnum- ber men at higher levels of education across the region. Even in Saudi Arabia, women comprise more than 60 per- cent of university graduates. U.S. policymakers should applaud these changes and use every opportunity to cel- ebrate the groundbreaking work of women who are push- ing for greater opportunities. The State Department’s Women of Courage Award, for example, is a great way to shine a spotlight on emerging female leaders around the world. In addition to moral support, however, these activists also need financial assistance and technical expertise. While it is true that women’s groups are vulnerable to the risk of backlash against their international partnerships, this concern is often exaggerated precisely because they are often already being accused by their opponents of pro- moting a foreign agenda. These courageous individuals recognize the risks and trade-offs of working with international organizations, and understand local conditions well enough to decide whether the benefits of international support — technical expertise, financial support, media exposure and public recognition — help their cause more than they hurt it. Moreover, concerns about backlash can be minimized by keeping international support demand-driven and chan- neling it through local groups. In the emerging democracies of Tunisia and Egypt, women’s groups will be up against well-financed and well-organized Islamist groups that will, in the name of religion, de- mand a rollback of the progressive laws for women that exist in both countries. Already, conservative voices have criticized Tunisia’s anti-polygamy law and Egypt’s divorce law on the grounds that they contradict sharia. Islamists will also exert their influence in the writing of new con- stitutions for these countries, making sure that sharia has a strong influence on the laws of the land. Women’s rights will be a litmus test for how well Islam and democracy can be blended, so groups promoting them will have to be organized and ready to fight back against backsliding. They will need to use a range of tac- tics, including marshalling progressive interpretations of Islam to fight religion with religion. They can learn from the experience of female activists in other Muslim-ma- jority countries, who have been waging such battles for a long time. Wherever the international community does play a direct role in shaping the political situation in a country, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, it should support the de- mands of local women to freely exercise their rights. In- corporating electoral quotas for women in those countries’ constitutions likely sped up their access to po- litical power by at least a generation. Other leverage points include media access and training for women, as well as access to education, property rights and eco- nomic opportunity. It is also important to keep in mind that cultural shifts happen slowly. The process will be uneven, and the out- comes from place to place will no doubt differ. I suspect that over the long term Islamic feminism, like other re- form movements that preceded it, will end up unapolo- getically secular. Only then will long-running debates over religious interpretation abate. In the meantime, Is- lamic feminism is an important emotional and intellectual stepping stone for reconciling religion with the demands of the modern world. n F O C U S These efforts are an important stepping stone for reconciling religion with the demands of the modern world.