Book
Identity Politics and Women

Cultural Reassertions and Feminisms in International Perspective

Identity politics refers to discourses and movements organized around questions of religious, ethnic and national identity. This work focuses on political-cultural movements that are making a bid for state power, for fundamental juridical change, or for cultural hegemony. In particular, the contributors explore the relationships between culture, identity and women, providing illustrations from around the world of the compelling nature of "woman" as cultural symbol and as political pawn in male-directed power struggles. The book includes 13 case-studies spanning Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Hindu countries and communities.

Table of contents
  1. Part I
    Introduction
    Valentine M. Moghadam
  2. Part I
    The Creation of the World We Know: World Economy and the Recreation of Gendered Identities
    Joan Smith
  3. Part I
    The Ideal Woman and the Ideal Society: Control and Autonomy in the Construction of Identity
    Hanna Papanek
  4. Part I
    Gender as an Ethno-Marker: Rape, War, and Identity Politics in the Former Yugoslavia
    Silva Meznaric
  5. Part I
    Women of the West Imagined: The Farangi Other and the Emergence of the Woman Question in Iran
    Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi
  6. Part II
    Politics, Islam, and Women in Kano, Northern Nigeria
    Ayesha M. Imam
  7. Part II
    Gender, Religious Identity and Political Mobilization in Sudan
    Sondra Hale
  8. Part II
    Feminism and Muslim Fundamentalism: The Tunisian and Algerian Cases
    Alya Baffoun
  9. Part II
    The Social Representation of Women in Algeria's Islamist Movement
    Cherifa Bouatta, Dorian Cherifati-Merabtine
  10. Part II
    Gender Activism: Feminists and Islamists in Egypt
    Margot Badran
  11. Part II
    Identity Politics and Women: “Fundamentalism” and Women in Pakistan
    Khawar Mumtaz
  12. Part II
    Moving Away from a Secular Vision?: Women, Nation and the Cultural Construction of Hindu India
    Sucheta Mazumdar
  13. Part II
    Identity Politics and the Contemporary Indian Feminist Movement
    Radha Kumar
  14. Part II
    Women and Fundamentalism: The Case of Turkey
    Binnaz Toprak
  15. Part II
    Halakha, Zionism and Gender: The Case of Gush Emunim
    Madeleine Tress
  16. Part II
    The Role, Place and Power of Middle-Class Women in the Islamic Republic
    Shanin Gerami
  17. Part II
    Paradoxical Politics: Gender Politics among New Orthodox Jewish Women in the United States
    Debra Renee Kaufman
  18. Part II
    Women of the New Right in the United States: Family, Feminism and Politics
    Rebecca E. Klatch
  19. Part III
    The Preferential Symbol for Islamic Identity: Women in Muslim Personal Laws
    Marie-Aimée Hélie-Lucas
  20. Part III
    Identity Politics and Women's Ethnicity
    Nira Yuval-Davis
  21. Part III
    International Standards of Equality and Religious Freedom: Implications for the Status of Women
    United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women
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