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Abstract:
This article demonstrates how gender analysis has been profoundly overlooked in many studies of sectarianism in the Middle East. While numerous books and articles have discussed the question of gender in the MENA region more broadly, dominant scholarship focusing on sectarianism misses this gender-informed perspective. By examining recent publications on sectarianism and showing how gender analysis can add significantly to their interpretations, the article highlights how the gendered position of researchers and their subjects is a pressing concern in studies of sectarianism. Overall, the article provides specific suggestions for integrating gender analysis into the field, and it demonstrates how gender is a key dimension of the cultural, discursive, political, and ideological production of sectarianism.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Notable examples of the recent literature on sectarianism that will be addressed in this article include: Toby Matthiesen (2013) The Sectarian Gulf: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Spring that Wasn’t (Stanford: Stanford University Press); Max Weiss (2010) In the Shadow of Sectarianism: Law, Shi‘ism, and the Making of Modern Lebanon (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press); Bassel F. Salloukh et al. (2015) The Politics of Sectarianism in Postwar Lebanon (London: Pluto Press); Abdo (2017) The New Sectarianism: The Arab Uprisings and the Rebirth of the Shi‘a–Sunni Divide (New York: Oxford University Press); Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel (2017) Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East (London: Hurst); Frederic M. Wehrey (2017) Beyond Sunni and Shia: The Roots of Sectarianism in a Changing Middle East (London: Hurst); and Fanar Haddad (2020b) Understanding “Sectarianism”: Sunni–Shi‘a Relations in the Modern Arab World (London: Hurst).
2 See, for example, Suad Joseph (1983) Working-Class Women’s Networks in a Sectarian State: A Political Paradox, American Ethnologist, 10(1), pp. 1–22; Max Weiss (2007) The Cultural Politics of Shi‘i Modernism: Morality and Gender in Early 20th-Century Lebanon, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 39(2), pp. 294–270; Deniz Kandiyoti (1991) End of Empire: Islam, Nationalism, and Women in Turkey, in: Deniz Kandiyoti (ed) Women, Islam, and the State, pp. 22–47 (London: Macmillan); and Mervat Hatem (1999) Modernization, the State, and the Family in Middle East Women’s Studies, in: Margaret L. Meriwether and Judith E. Tucker (eds) A Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East, pp. 63–87 (Boulder, CO: Westview).
3 See for example, Deniz Kandiyoti (1988) Bargaining with Patriarchy, Gender and Society, 2, pp. 274–290; and Sophie Richter-Devroe (2011) Palestinian Women’s Everyday Resistance: Between Normality and Normalisation, Journal of International Women’s Studies, 12(2), pp. 32–46.
4 See V. Spike Peterson and Anne Sisson Runyan (1993) Global Gender Issues (Oxford: Westview); J. Ann Tickner (1992) Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security (New York: Columbia University Press); and Jan Jindy Pettman (1996) Worlding Women: A Feminist International Politics (London: Routledge).
5 For recent theorizations of sectarianism, see especially Haddad, Understanding “Sectarianism”; as well as Fanar Haddad (2020a) Sectarian Identity and National Identity in the Middle East, Nations and Nationalism, 26(1), pp. 123–137. For the instrumentalization of sectarian identities both before and after the Arab Uprisings see Hashemi and Postel, Sectarianization; Salloukh et al., Politics of Sectarianism; and Wehrey, Beyond Sunni and Shia. For more on the interrelationships between sect, nationalism, and ethnicity, see Raymond Hinnebusch (2020) Identity and State Formation in Multi‐sectarian Societies: Between Nationalism and Sectarianism in Syria, Nations and Nationalism, 26(1) pp. 138–154; and Christopher Phillips and Morten Valbjørn, (2018) What is in a Name?: The Role of (Different) Identities in the Multiple Proxy Wars in Syria, Small Wars and Insurgencies 29(3), pp. 414–433.
6 Judith Squires (2000) Gender in Political Theory (London: Wiley); Kathy Ferguson (1993) The Man Question: Visions of Subjectivity in Feminist Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press); Michel Foucault (1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977, in: Colin Gordon (ed), p. 93 (Brighton, UK: Harvester Press).
7 Nira Yuval-Davis (1997) Gender and Nation (London: Sage), pp. 21–25.
8 Ibid.
9 Rima Majed (2020) Theoretical and Methodological Traps in Studying Sectarianism in the Middle East, in: Larbi Sadiki (ed) Routledge Handbook of Middle East Politics, pp. 540–553 (London: Routledge).
10 Morten Valbjørn (2020) Beyond the Beyond(s): On the (Many) Third Way(s) beyond Primordialism and Instrumentalism in the Study of Sectarianism, Nation and Nationalism, 26, pp. 91–107.
11 Aldoughli (2021) What Is Syrian Nationalism? Primordialism and Romanticism in Official Baath Discourse, in Nations and Nationalism, 28(1), pp. 125–140.
12 Anne McClintock, Aamir Mufti, and Ella Shohat (eds) (1997) Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives, p. 77 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). See also Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation.
13 See Donna Haraway (1988) Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective, Feminist Studies, 14(3) pp. 575–599.
14 Morten Valbjørn and Waleed Hazbun (2017) Scholarly Identities and The Making of Middle East IR: Insights from the Global/Post-Western Debate, APSA-MENA Newsletter, 3, pp. 3–6, accessed July 23, 2023. See also Cecilie Basberg Neumann and Iver B. Neumann (2018) Power, Culture, and Situated Research Methodology (Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan).
15 Majed, “Theoretical and Methodological Traps.”
16 Breny Mendoza (2016) Coloniality of Gender and Power: From Postcoloniality to Decoloniality, in: Lisa Disch and Mary Hawkesworth (eds) Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory, pp. 100–121 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Maria Lugones (2010) Towards a Decolonial Feminism, Hypatia, 25(4), pp. 742–759.
17 For “positional superiority,” see Edward Said (1979) Orientalism, p. 7 (New York: Vintage Books).
18 Charlotte Hooper (2001) Manly States: Masculinities, International Relations, and Gender Politics, p. 224 (New York: Columbia University Press).
19 Ibid., p. 225. See also Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges.”
20 Joan Scott (1999) Gender as a Useful Category in Historical Analysis, American Historical Review, 91(5), p. 760. See also Squires, Gender in Political Theory, pp. 78–88.
21 See, for example, S. Hines (2010) Queerly Situated? Exploring Negotiations of Trans Queer Subjectivities at Work and within Community Spaces in the UK, Gender, Place, and Culture, 17(5), pp. 597–613; and Stoetzler and Nina Yuval-Davis (2002) Standpoint Theory, Situated Knowledge, and the Situated Imagination, Feminist Theory, 3(3), pp. 315–333.
22 Donna Haraway, “Situated Knowledges,” pp. 579 and 589.
23 For example, see J. Anderson, P. Adey, and P. Bevan (2010) Positioning Place: Polylogic Approaches to Research Methodology, Qualitative Research, 10(5), pp. 589–604; S. Mukherjee (2017) Troubling Positionality: Politics of “Studying Up” in Transnational Contexts, Professional Geographer, 69(2), pp. 291–298.
24 See Majed, “Theoretical and Methodological Traps,” p. 541.
25 For more on situational identities, see Karina V. Korostelina 2007) Readiness to Fight in Crimea: How It Interrelates with National and Ethnic Identities, in James L. Peacock, Patricia M. Thornton, and Patrick B. Inman (eds) Identity Matters: Ethnic and Sectarian Conflict, pp. 49–70 (New York: Berghan).
26 McClintock, et al., Dangerous Liaisons; Claudia Koonz (1988) Mothers in the Fatherland (London: Methuen); Wendy Bracewell (2000) Rape in Kosovo: Masculinity and Serbian Nationalism, Nations and Nationalism, 6(4), pp. 563–590; Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation, pp. 21–25. See also Cynthia H. Enloe (1990) Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press); and Tamar Mayer (ed) (2000) Gender Ironies of Nationalism: Sexing the Nation (New York: Routledge).
27 Enloe, Bananas, Beaches, and Bases, p. 67.
28 Joseph, “Working-Class Women’s Networks.”
29 Ibid., pp. 2–3.
30 Ibid., p. 5.
31 Lara Deeb (2020) Beyond Sectarianism: Intermarriage and Social Difference in Lebanon, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 52, p. 218.
32 Ali Zahra (2018) Women and Gender in Iraq: Between Nation-Building and Fragmentation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
33 Weiss, “Cultural Politics of Shi‘i Modernism.”
34 Maya Mikdashi (2014) Sex and Sectarianism: The Legal Architecture of Lebanese Citizenship, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 34(2), pp. 279–293; Sabiha Allouche (2020) Different Normativity and Strategic “Nomadic” Marriages: Area Studies and Queer Theory, Middle East Critique, 29(1), pp. 9–27.
35 Madawi Al-Rasheed (2017) Saudi Women: Navigating War and Market, London School of Economics and Political Science Middle East Center Blog (December 18, 2017), accessed July 23, 2023.
36 See Valbjørn, “Beyond the Beyond(s),” p. 97; and Aaron Y. Zelin and Phillip Smyth (2014) The Vocabulary of Sectarianism, Foreign Policy (January 29, 2014), accessed July 23, 2023.
37 Hashemi and Postel, Sectarianization, p. 2.
38 Abdo, New Sectarianism, p. 242.
39 Ibid., pp. 1–3.
40 Nasr (2006), Shia Revival, pp. 20–22.
41 Ibid., p. 25.
42 See Jennifer Philippa Eggert (2018) Female Fighters and Militants during the Lebanese Civil War: Individual Profiles, Pathways, and Motivations, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 46(7), pp. 1042–1071; and Abdellatif and Ottaway (2007) Women in Islamist Movements: Toward an Islamist Model of Women’s Activism, Carnegie Middle East Center (June 2007), accessed July 23, 2023.
43 Lara Deeb (2014) Leisurely Islam: Negotiating Geography and Morality in Shiite South Beirut, p. 51 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Studies).
44 See, for example, Mabon, “Saudi Arabia and Iran”; Nader Hashemi (2016) Toward a Political Theory of Sectarianism in the Middle East: The Salience of Authoritarianism over Theology, Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies 1(1), pp. 65–76; and May Darwich and Tamirace Fakhoury (2016) Casting the Other as an Existential Threat: The Securitisation of Sectarianism in the International Relations of the Syria Crisis, Global Discourse 6(4), pp. 712–732.
45 Wehrey, Sectarian Politics, p. x.
46 Ibid., p. xiv.
47 Salloukh et al., Politics of Sectarianism, p. 3.
48 Cynthia Cockburn (1998) The Space Between Us: Negotiating Gender and National Identities in Conflict, p. 128 (London: Zed).
49 Salloukh et al., Politics of Sectarianism, 32–51.
50 See Fatima Sbaity Kassem (2013) Party Politics, Religion, and Women’s Leadership (New York, Palgrave Macmillan); and Lina Khatib (2010), Gender, Citizenship, and Political Agency in Lebanon, in: Zahia Smail Salhi (ed) Gender and Diversity in the Middle East and North Africa, pp. 145–160 (New York: Routledge).
51 Marguerite Helou (1970) Women’s Political Participation in Lebanon: Gaps in Research and Approaches, Al Raida, 145, pp. 74–82.
52 See Huda Al-Tamimi (2018) Effects of Iraq’s Parliamentary Gender Quota on Women’s Political Mobilization and Legitimacy Post-2003, Contemporary Arab Affairs, 11(4), pp. 41–62; Sanja Kelly and Julia Breslin (eds) (2010) Women’s Rights in the Middle East and North Africa: Progress Amid Resistance (New York: Freedom House); Esther van Eijk (2016) Family Law in Syria: Patriarchy, Pluralism, and Personal Status Codes (London: Tauris); and Aili Mari Tripp (2019) Seeking Legitimacy: Why Arab Autocracies Adopt Women’s Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
53 See Darwich and Fakhoury, “Casting the Other.”
54 See Iris Marion Young (2003) The Logic of Masculinist Protection: Reflections on the Current Security State, Signs, 29(1), pp. 1–25.
55 See Aldoughli (2016) Revisiting Ideological Borrowings in Syrian Nationalist Narratives: Sati ‘Al-Husri, Michel ‘Aflaq and Zaki Al-Arsuzi, Syria Studies, 8(1), pp.7–39; (2019a). Interrogating the construction of masculinist protection and militarism in the Syrian constitution of 1973, The Journal of Middle East Women Studies, 15(1), pp. 48–74; (2019b). The Symbolic Construction of National Identity and Belonging in Syrian Nationalist Songs (from 1970 to 2007), Contemporary Levant, 4(2), pp. 141–154; (forthcoming 2023) Romantic Muscularity and Nation in Baathist Syria: the Making and Unmaking of hegemonic identity (UK: Manchester University Press).
56 See Alkhudary (2020) Iraqi Women are Engaged in a Struggle for their Rights, London School of Economics Middle East Centre Blog (June 15, 2020), accessed July 23, 2023; and Minority Rights Group International (2015) 14,000 Women Killed So Far in Iraq Conflict (Feb. 18, 2015), accessed July 23, 2023.
57 See, for example, Haddad, “Sectarian Identity and National Identity,” p. 126.
58 Haddad, “Sectarian Relations in Arab Iraq,” p. 118.
59 Ibid., p. 124.
60 Ibid., p. 134. This omission or minimization of gender-based analysis continues in Haddad’s most recent work. See Haddad, Understanding “Sectarianism”; and Haddad, “Sectarian Identity and National Identity.”
61 Raymond Hinnebusch (2019) Sectarianism and Governance in Syria, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 19(1), p. 59. See also Hinnebusch, “Identity and State Formation.”
62 Patricia M. Thornton has discussed how the feminist “depolarization and reinter twinning of identities” can contribute to conflict resolution. See Thornton (2007) Identity Matters, in James L. Peacock, Patricia M. Thornton, and Patrick B. Inman (eds) Identity Matters: Ethnic and Sectarian Conflict, p. 4 (New York: Berghan).
63 Edward H. Thompson and Joseph H. Pleck (1995) Masculinity Ideologies, in R. F. Levant and W. S. Pollack (eds) A New Psychology of Men, pp. 129–163 (New York: Basic Books). See also Connell, Masculinities.
64 Sheldon Stryker (1969) Identity Salience and Role Performance: The Relevance of Symbolic Interaction Theory for Family Research, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 30, pp. 558–564; S. Ting-Toomey et al. (2000) Ethnic/Cultural Identity Salience and Conflict Styles in Four U.S. Ethnic Groups, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 24, pp. 47–81; L. Huddy (2001) From Social to Political Identity: A Critical Examination of Social Identity Theory, Political Psychology, 1, pp. 127–156.
65 Valbjørn, “Beyond the Beyond(s),” p. 91.
66 Ibid., p. 102.