Missing Gender: Conceptual Limitations in the Debate on “Sectarianism” in the Middle East

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.

KEY WORDS:

• Gender
• masculinity
• Middle East
• positionality
• sectarianism
• women

Sectarianism has become one of the most dominant conceptual frameworks for analyzing the politics of the Middle East. From the Iranian Revolution in 1979 to the outbreak of internal conflicts in Iraq in 2006, to the Arab Uprisings and Syrian conflict starting in 2011, and ultimately to the current sweeping ‘cross-sectarian’ protests in Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran starting in 2019, the idea of sectarianism has exerted a magnetic pull. It has become a catchphrase used to encapsulate the complex dynamics of the region. Numerous academic monographs published during the past decade demonstrate the overwhelming influence of sectarianism as a concept. Debated on television, on the radio, in the printed press, and in numerous academic fields, this ever-growing interest in sectarianism has eclipsed other potential explanatory perspectives, including the role of gender in framing sectarian identities. The exact contours and implications of sectarianism are highly contested in recent academic literature; however, the heterogeneity of approaches and definitions of sectarianism that appear in these debates co-exists with a profound homogeneity in terms of disregarding gender as an analytical lens.¹ The current article seeks to revise this equation by examining the role of gender in cultivating sectarian tension, instigating violence, and establishing peace in the region.

There are many studies that take into account the role of gender in state formation, civil rights, and various other aspects of Middle Eastern life, particularly when discussing the pre-2011 context.² This makes it even more striking that much of the sectarianism-oriented literature addressing the post-2011 politics of the region ignores the impact of masculinity and femininity constructs in shaping these political upheavals. There is a notable gulf between academic scholarship focusing on how gender ideologies contribute to laws, legislation, interpersonal violence, and male domination over women’s lives in the private sphere,³ and analyses of sectarian conflict and violent political struggle that ignore the role of gender. This is not an entirely new trend, as for several decades feminist scholars have been pointing out that the overall ‘International Relations’ literature downplays the significance of gender in shaping broader political identities and conflicts.⁴ However, this gap is specifically notable in the field of Middle Eastern studies.

The concept of sectarianism has continued to evolve in recent academic discourse, especially following the 2011 Arab Uprisings.⁵ New approaches upend the traditional interpretation of sectarianism as ‘ancient ideological hatreds,’ and instead emphasize its mutability and how various actors use sectarianism to pursue political goals. However, gender has not crossed over into such analyses. This article argues that examining women’s and men’s gendered experiences in relation to sectarian identities is crucial—without doing so, we cannot fully understand the shifting alliances, roles, conflicts, and power relationships in the contemporary Middle East.

Moreover, this article discusses how power dynamics and positionality of the researcher affect the production of knowledge about sectarian dynamics. The dominance of male scholars in this academic field should be understood as a central reason why gender differences and interpersonal components of political identity are often omitted. In some cases, these scholars may simply lack practical access to relevant aspects of community life during their fieldwork. However, I would also contend that male scholars tend to be less attuned to thinking about the interpersonal components of political identity, as numerous scholars—i.e. Judith Squires, Kathy Fergusun, and Michel Foucault, among others⁶—have discussed. The meaning of sectarian identity encompasses an array of histories, habits, familiarities, relationships, and needs; and examining the politicization or partisan mobilization of these identities in the formal sphere (as most studies of sectarianism do) is not sufficient to understand their nuanced contours and possibilities. Analyses of sectarian identities and conflicts should include those aspects of an individual’s social belonging, identity formation, and safety, and analyze how these needs interact with diverse social phenomena, including gender.

Beyond critiquing the omission of gender relations in the relevant literature, the article also aims to offer more sophisticated tools for theorizing sectarian identities and conflicts in the MENA region by drawing on the important work of Nira Yuval-Davis. She argued that analyses on the development of national identity can benefit from acknowledging that gender relations are deeply embedded in various national formations.⁷ The intersections of gender and nationalism outlined by Yuval-Davis can be equally applied to sectarian formations, and thus, serve as a guideline to how gender analysis can yield a more refined understanding of sectarian dynamics. These conceptual intersections include:

1. Women as biological producers of the nation [sect]; that is, as an important resource of fertility and fecundity.

2. Women as cultural reservoirs, carrying the nation’s [sect’s] identity and reinforcing cultural boundaries. Women are considered as physical symbols and signifiers of national [sectarian] difference.

3. Women’s role as the preservers and transmitters of national [sectarian] cultural narratives, through their assigned duties as mothers and teachers.

4. Women’s role in maintaining national [sectarian] boundaries by accepting relationships with members of the sect and/or refusing relationships with outsiders.

5. Women’s participation as active contributors in national [sectarian] movements and in related community activities.⁸

   While these points provide a good start in integrating knowledge about gender into discussions of sectarianism during times of conflict, I would add two additional intersections focused on voicing subjugated knowledge related to gendered experiences:

6. Women’s experiences of sectarian conflict, which are often quite different from how men experience these conflicts and are expected to participate in them.

7. Women’s resistance or challenges to sectarian frameworks, and how they actively construct alternative discourses and projects.

As Rima Majed has argued, most academics define Middle Eastern sectarian identities purely in terms of patriarchs, male honor, and female passivity.⁹ By emphasizing the role of masculinity and femininity constructs in sectarian conflicts, this article will provide a critical and thoughtful gender analysis of sectarianism, providing a closer and more dynamic reading that takes into accounts questions of community, belonging, and conflict. The article outlines several potential approaches to this issue, demonstrating how gender can provide new intersectional insights in the study of sectarianism, creating ‘third’ or ‘eclectic ways’ of understanding.¹⁰ To present this argument, the article is structured into three main sections. First, I present my own positionality and the background of this research, highlighting the work of scholars at the margins of the field, especially women, who offer perspectives that include a gender-based critique. Second, I survey some of the current central texts and approaches in the study of sectarianism and indicate specifically how a greater attentiveness to gender could help expand these analyses. Finally, I discuss how the inclusion of gender in the analyses of sectarianism can be used as a roadmap to develop more refined scholarship.

Mapping the Identity of the Researcher: Giving Voice to Subjugated Knowledge

As a researcher in this field and a culturally Sunni woman, I have long felt that my chosen field of study presented important omissions. This is what prompted to focus, in my previous work, on the study of patriarchal aspects of Arab nationalism and the Baathist ideology, focusing on the invocation of masculinity and gender roles. However, I always wondered why most scholars had failed to capture the prominence of these strongly gendered concepts in Syrian nationalist discourses.¹¹ Over time, I realized that large presence of male researchers on this topic often translated in them not being particularly inclined to question masculinist rhetoric or view it as a central element of their conceptual analysis. In such a field, gender analysis defaulted to a women-only job.

The current paucity of gender analyses in the debate on sectarianism echoes a similar omission in nationalism studies up through the 1980s, which Ann McClintock aptly captured: ‘if nationalism is not transformed by an analysis of gender power, the nation-state will remain a repository of male hopes, male aspirations, and male privileges.’¹² McClintock highlighted how nationalist discourses were mostly analyzed by male researchers, focusing exclusively on the outlooks, fears, and aspirations of men. While nationalism studies have somewhat improved, similar omissions exists in the current literature on sectarian conflict in the Middle East. Women’s experiences, when present, take the form of extremely secondary considerations (as reflections on the impact of men’s activities) or lenses of last resort; that is, they are brought out only when other explanatory lenses fail completely.¹³ In light of the widespread and scholarly awareness on intersectionality, gender cannot continue to be ignored.

Since research focused on sectarian identity demands forms of reflection and interpretation that are sensitive to power dynamics, the social position of the researcher is not irrelevant in this task. Morten Valbjorn and Waleed Hazbun, for example, have spoken about the importance of examining the role of scholarly identities in shaping the direction of Middle Eastern research.¹⁴ The main starting point of these valuable discussions in the context of Middle Eastern studies entails the researcher’s religious, ethnic, or national background. In a similar fashion, it is important to consider how the gendered background of the researcher—what scholars refer to as ‘positionality’—influences both the focus of and access to what constitutes our research field.

In the field of sectarianism, the existence of a masculinist bias—coupled with the colonial legacy of Western Orientalism—has led many scholars to treat sectarianism as an abstract or fundamentally political identification, to the extent of categorizing the people of an area into sectarian groupings as descriptive statistics. As Majed argues, Western scholarship quickly flattens out Middle Eastern identities, while not applying the same logic to its own demographics.¹⁵ Similarly, feminist theorists, such as Breny Mendoza and Maria Lugones, have argued that masculinist perspectives are intrinsically connected to colonialism, and that colonial relationships cannot be dismantled without the incorporation of a gender critique.¹⁶ This is a significant aspect of the literature on sectarianism and violence in the Middle East. De-colonizing the discursive construction of ‘sectarianism’ requires a radical approach, integrating the social complexities on the ground, especially gender.

Mainstream studies on sectarianism evade gender by positing a fundamental and persistent colonial legacy that trivializes any other analytical lenses. In such discussions, the ‘positional superiority’ (to borrow Edward Said’s term) of the researcher or commentator vis-à-vis gender is usually assumed; in other words, the participating speakers give voice to a male-gendered experience by default.¹⁷ This preserves relations of dominance by: First, limiting the outlooks that are expressed; and second, presenting the expressed outlooks as gender-neutral or objective and failing to consider the speakers’ social positionality and how it informs their research. Hence, most literature on sectarianism fails to interrogate the question of patriarchy; rather it normalizes it.

Contesting this discursive production of knowledge that renders the play of sectarian identities as ‘genderless’—that is, normatively masculine—raises the question of whether (or not) there is an alternative category of subaltern woman-centered knowledge about sectarianism waiting to emerge. Drawing on Charlotte Hooper’s ‘post-postivist’ outlook, my criticism is directed at the ‘elitist and exclusionary boundaries’ in academic scholarship, which Hooper associates with masculine perspectives.¹⁸ A post-positivist approach focuses on the micro-politics and complexity of power, while also emphasizing the researcher’s positionality in relation to the studied social questions. It criticizes the primacy of abstract rationalism in academic discourse and the view that such analyses can be disassociated from the researcher’s identity. There is a need to explore the intersections between identity and scholarship to illuminate the limitations and omissions in research output, as well as the related claims to objectivity and the persistent belief that being ‘blind’ to gender is an accomplishment, rather than an omission.¹⁹ In other words, I claim that sectarianism and gender are important areas of Middle Eastern studies, yet the positionality of the researcher—especially gender—is relevant in the analysis of sectarian dynamics.

To integrate gender analysis into the study of sectarian identities means questioning the foundations of ‘objective’ truths. As Joan Scott explains: ‘The power of these “truths” comes from the ways they function as givens at first premises for both sides in an argument, so that conflicts within discursive fields are framed to follow from rather than question them.’²⁰ Pioneering feminist scholarship can guide us in this endeavor since it has developed a set of interrelated approaches involving positionality, reflexivity, and intersectionality.²¹ While Donna Haraway’s theorization of the situatedness of knowledge has been vital in critiquing the presumption of objectivity,²² other scholars from various fields have criticized further the existence of objective truth or knowledge, prioritizing instead the social positioning of the researcher.²³

In the context of sectarian-focused analyses of the Middle East, this rejection of ‘objectivity’ takes the form of questioning reductive views that divide the region into clear-cut sects as an exclusive interpretive framework, while marginalizing and ignoring other modes of analysis. It also questions the simplistic definition of ‘sect’ as a religious or political ideology, and incorporates greater attention to how sectarian identity is experienced as a community and how it meets social needs, such as physical and psychological safety. For these reasons, this article refrains from defining sectarianism purely in terms of religious or political belief, and instead emphasizes the social and interpersonal dimensions of a community, as much as dogma or political ideology.²⁴ These perspectives can help us to understand that sectarian identity is not singular or monolithic; rather it includes overlapping layers, short-term identities, and situational identities.²⁵ In the following sections, such a perspective will be used to examine the topic of sectarianism.

Nationalism, Sectarianism, and Gender in the Middle East

Since the 1980s, numerous feminist scholars, such as Anne McClintock, Claudia Koonz, Wendy Bracewell, and Nira Yuval-Davis, have discussed the gendered aspects of the nation, tracing the links between nationalist discourses, gender privilege, and violence.²⁶ As aforementioned, these perspectives can become very valuable when analyzing the rise of sectarian identity in the Middle East. In the absence of a strong national state, sectarian organizations manifest similar discourses and impulses as the national ones, centering their narratives around question of ‘brotherhood’ and ‘honor.’ Cynthia H. Enloe described such discursive formations as ‘masculinized memory, masculinized humiliation, and masculinized hopes.’²⁷ Women, however, may have a very different perspective on what the national community entails.

While efforts to transfer this gender-based analysis of nationalism to the sectarian context exist, they nonetheless remain marginal to the dominant literature, mostly categorized as a distinct area of study. For example, in the context of the protracted Lebanese Civil War, the anthropologist Suad Joseph examined how working-class women challenged sectarian politics and formed cross-sectarian support networks.²⁸ This article, published in 1983, presages many of the criticisms I present in relation to the lack of intersectional hierarchies in the study of sectarianism. Joseph emphasizes that most Western scholarship on the Middle East has fetishized sectarian identities and reduced women to mere symbols of their tribal, kinship, or religious groups, often limiting the discussion of women to an Orientalist fascination with veils, polygyny, and various other ‘esoteric’ Islamic practices. Joseph’s objections to these studies that minimize women’s agency by emphasizing masculine political divisions continue to ring true in the current era. She argues that scholars of sectarianism have not only erased the possibility of gender and class solidarity in the Middle East but also have failed to conceive the possibility of patriarchal male networks that cross sectarian lines.²⁹

In response to this myopia, Joseph discusses how women’s social networks affected the country’s ongoing civil disputes. She presents a convincing argument that these women’s networks had real power and influence in state-level organizations and in the outcomes of political negotiations, challenging the entrenched sectarian structures of the elite political class. As Joseph explains, the power of these cross-sectarian affiliations has always been evident to observers willing to look beyond one-dimensional analyses:

Expanding the lens to take in a broader social, historical, and interpretive field requires not simply deconstructing sectarian explanations—which will remain powerful—but pulling back, looking elsewhere, and allowing such narratives to de-stabilize themselves by drawing attention to other possibilities.³⁰

Rather than accepting sectarianism and colonial legacies as a fundamental cause or ‘total explanation’ of political conflict in Lebanon, Joseph shows that gender and class divisions played an equally pivotal role.

Lara Deeb’s article on intermarriage and social differences in Lebanon represent a more recent example of a scholarly work that strongly contributes to our understanding of gender and sectarianism. Deeb offers an important redefinition of the concept of sect as ‘an inheritable category of social difference,’ which goes beyond religious and political beliefs.³¹ Rejecting mainstream scholarly perspectives that look exclusively at the ideological and formal/legal categories of sect in the Middle East, Deeb’s work interweaves sexuality and sectarian relations in the context of kinship and family. Like Joseph, she evaluates the intersections of these sectarian categories with gender and other social factors, such as rural-urban and class divides.

In the context of Iraq, Zahra Ali has recently published an important book on gender constructs and nation-building.³² While this work does not engage directly with sectarianism literature, it provides a compelling account of how gender influences a variety of nationalist, tribal, and religious identity formations, and examines how these overlapping identities affect feminist discourse in the country. The book describes, in fact, how competing sectarian affiliations (together with competing national and political identities) entrench masculinism and patriarchy, while creating direct challenges for feminist organizing. It discusses the difficulties experienced by Iraqi women as a result of the growing militarism that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and contains numerous insights about women’s experiences of sectarian conflict. All these aspects can be very useful for researchers who seek to integrate gender analysis into their understanding of sectarian dynamics. There are various other studies that could likewise serve to challenge reductive, masculinist-oriented views of sectarianism, including discussions of gender roles in the colonial period,³³ and/or more contemporary analyses on queer experiences in the Middle East.³⁴

Finally, valuable discussions about gender and sectarianism in the contemporary Middle East can be found on non-academic outlets as well, i.e. blogs. In this regard, Madawi al-Rasheed provides a pertinent contribution to the inseparability of gender analysis from the study of sectarianism. She describes how Saudi women have been instrumentalized to serve as ‘guardians of the moral integrity of the nation, producers of future pious generations, keepers of tribal and Arab purity, and markers of the nation’s commitment to Islam.’³⁵ The masculinist Saudi regime coopts the experiences of women to legitimize and demonstrate its purported sectarian superiority in the context of the Saudi–Houthi conflict. Overall, while these feminist works offer prospects and opportunities for integrating gender-based analysis into discussions of sectarian conflict, such opportunities are largely missed in the central literature on sectarianism.

Positions on Sectarianism in Current Scholarship

I identify four main approaches within the current academic debates about sectarianism: (a) primordialism, (b) instrumentalism, (c) constructivism, and (d) eclectic strategies. Each of these approaches discusses sectarian identity as either masculine or ‘gender neutral,’ while largely ignoring women’s experiences and the reality of gender roles and hierarchies. This section not only provides an overview of these approaches but also aims to address how they could incorporate gender analysis in their research agenda, if not into the mainstream of the wider field.

Primordialism

The primordialist approach remains extremely common in the popular imagination while exerting less influence in the scholarly realm. This view regards sectarian belonging as involuntary and essential; that is, as an innate, fixed, and permanent identity. As it is discussed in mainstream media coverage, this outlook often spills over into language attributing current conflicts in the Middle East to ‘ancient sectarian hatreds;’ that is, by describing today’s wars in Syria and Yemen as resulting from the seventh-century struggle over the rightful heir to the Prophet Muhammad.³⁶ Unfortunately, various influential commentators and political figures adopted such a language, including former U.S. President Barak Obama.³⁷

While most academic analyses refute these essentialized notions of sectarian identity, few influential academic authors continue to rely on such primordialist assumptions. Geneive Abdo, for example, has argued that understanding sectarianism requires ‘serious consideration … [of] religious difference’ that pre-dates today’s political, social, and economic divides.³⁸ According to this analysis, increasing sectarian strife in the region after 2011 is a result of long-standing conflicts among competing schools of Islamic law, which have engaged in a renewed struggle for ideological dominance. Abdo argues that sectarianism is an intractable ‘plague’ that will continue to engulf the region for years to come, since ‘all players in the violent conflict claim to have a monopoly on religious truth.’³⁹ In a similar fashion, Vali Nasr has described recent increases in sectarianism in the Middle East as a centuries-old battle to own ‘the soul of Islam’ (i.e. religious authority and authenticity), which flares up regularly during times of historical crisis.⁴⁰ Scholars who regard sectarianism through a primordialist lens consider belonging in the sect as an essential legacy that most individuals are born into. Such an argument is valid when studying the generational transmission of familial values and identity. From this perspective, it would be hard to evade the intimate relationship between sectarian identity and the role of women as mothers, teachers, and culture-bearers. Remarkably, Abdo and Nasr ignore the role of women in reproducing the sect—both physically and culturally—throughout history. For example, Nasr provides a list of ‘primordial ties’ that serve to forge sectarian identity, yet fails to note that women and men have played very different roles in maintaining and transmitting these ties.⁴¹ These works contain a masculinist fixation on violent conflict and abstract religious ideologies as the main driver of sectarian identity. In doing so, domestic histories, cultural performances, education of children, and interpersonal life disappear from their analyses.

A valuable starting place to integrate gender analysis into the primordialist view of sectarian identities would be to recognize that almost all state constitutions in the Middle East institutionalize the family as the basic unit of society. Analyzing the concept of the family as it emerges in sectarian and national discourses—particularly about designated binary roles assigned to men as ‘breadwinners’ and women as ‘homemakers’—would add a valuable dimension to the scholarly understanding of how sectarian identity is reproduced and passed down through the generations. This analysis could consider not only the formal/legal aspects of how gender roles are policed in the sect (i.e. obligations enacted in sectarian personal status laws and dress codes) but also everyday micro-political dynamics, such as cultural issues surrounding cross-sectarian marriages and women’s role in transmitting sectarian values to children. The resulting focus on family life, as it relates to sectarian identity, would provide a valuable corrective to the current emphasis on male-dominated ‘public life,’ which obscures the experiences of women, as well as gender-related dynamics and motivations.

To address the topic of gendered subjectivity and sectarianism more resolutely, one might also consider the social significance of discriminatory laws that prevent women from transmitting their citizenship to their children (in most Middle Eastern countries, citizenship is defined by the child’s father). Feminist critics have frequently pointed to these laws as a clear example of institutionalized patriarchy, where women’s bodies and reproductive abilities are placed under male control. From a sectarian outlook, it is extremely notable how these laws bind women to male sectarian power structures and reduce women’s autonomy within the sect, by ensuring that their children’s social identity must be derived from the father. In this sense, ‘sectarian politics’ becomes as much about demography and biopower, as it is about ideological differences, and the control of women is understood as an essential aspect and function of sectarian polemics.

Moreover, primordialist analyses could consider how the family serves as a critical space for building identity and discuss how the actions of women can affirm or challenge sectarian views. Understanding women as cultural agents and recognizing the importance of their assigned spheres of action is a vital aspect of countering masculinist presumptions. Any effective approach towards de-sectarianization must consider that actions within the family are vital for achieving meaningful social change. Greater attention should also be given to the force of women in mobilizing sectarian or anti-sectarian sentiment within communities, particularly within religious institutions. There are a small number of existing studies that have considered women’s influence as agents or accessories within sectarian organizations (mostly in regard to Hezbollah, and mostly ‘profile’ studies), but so far these discussions of women’s cultural influence have remained marginal, with very little influence on the wider field.⁴² For example, Lara Deeb has shown how systematic differences in the dress of Shi‘i and Sunni women reinforces sectarian identity and maintain social boundaries in the Lebanese context.⁴³ In the Syrian context and elsewhere, an understanding of the sectarian dimensions of the war could be greatly enhanced by considering how expectations of women’s dress and behavior have changed since the 2011 uprisings. Such cultural and ‘everyday’ factors can offer more appropriate tools to trace the existence of a historical sectarian identity, rather than relying solely on religion.

Instrumentalism

This represents a more common approach in contemporary scholarship on sectarianism. Scholars belonging to this tradition focus on how sectarian identity is mobilized for pragmatic political ends. They examine how political leaders in the region stoke and manipulate sectarian ideologies to establish legitimacy, consolidate hegemony, and promote specific geopolitical interests.⁴⁴ Their argument explains that such a manipulation of identities can be conducted either from above (by state actors) or from below (by popular leaders). Two major influential books represent this approach: Frederic Wehrey’s Sectarian Politics in the Gulf (covering Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait), and the edited volume by Bassel Salloukh, titled Politics of Sectarianism in Post-war Lebanon. Both works are highly regarded in the field as having made important contributions to the study of sectarianism, and they emphasize how regimes instrumentalize sectarianism, while demonstrating the relevance of overlooked gender dynamics.

Unlike primordialist scholarship, Wehrey argues that sectarianism is a ‘relatively recent and largely artificial import to the region.’⁴⁵ He explains the increase of sectarianism in the Middle East in relation to how political authorities manage legitimacy deficits, dysfunctional institutions, and rising public dissatisfaction with economic and social inequality. In the studied countries, Wehrey discusses primarily repressive measures taken by Sunni elites against Shi‘a, presenting them as the primary cause of rising sectarian tensions.⁴⁶ In the context of Lebanon, Salloukh and the various contributors discuss how the 1943 National Pact and the 1989 Ta’if Accord created a weak state that institutionalized sectarianism by dividing formal political authority in a confessional fashion among Sunnis, Shi‘a, and Maronite Christians, as well as other sects. This division of state power by sectarian elites is a form of top-down political practice that, in Salloukh’s words, ‘produces and reproduces sectarian subjects and modes of political subjectification and mobilization through a dispersed ensemble of institutional, clientelist, and discursive practices.’⁴⁷ In other words, instrumentalist analyses regard sectarian dynamics as resulting from the power-seeking maneuvers of various political players.

However, gender analysis is mostly absent from these works. While they focus on the actions of political elites in defining sectarian identities, they do not inquire whether gender identity of these elites plays a role in their outlooks toward sectarianism and political power. For instance, these instrumentalist studies could discuss more closely the question of patriarchy, examining whether (or not) elite sectarian posturing contributes to patriarchal interests, while preventing the emergence of unified women’s organizations across sects. For instance, Cynthia Cockburn analyzed the impact of cross-national women’s movements in Israel/Palestine and elsewhere, and found a strong association between peacebuilding efforts and the development of a shared female gender identity that rejects male-defined political divisions. The rationale for women coming together across ethnic and national lines in these contexts was that ‘if a militarized society was a disaster both to the women of the oppressing community as well as the community of the oppressed, an alliance between women would help both groups.’⁴⁸ The catalyst for rejecting national divisions and violent conflict in all of Cockburn’s case histories, no matter the country or culture, was women’s gained sense of shared identity and self-definition along with control of their own reproductive potential and sexuality. As a result, women rejected their assigned position as ‘boundary-markers’ or symbols of male-dominated political factions.

Beyond the role of sectarianism in suppressing alternative forms of identification and solidarity, another related question is: To what extent does the sectarian control of Personal Status laws, media apparatus, political parties, and educational curricula affect women’s access to education, employment, and social positions? Instrumentalist analyses touch briefly on these topics, and they miss the overarching link between sectarian and gendered subjectivity.⁴⁹ To a large extent, the overfocus of this scholarship on the power struggle between various male political actors replicates naively the understanding that sectarian dynamics concern only the spheres of high offices of state, armed conflict, and the giants of the formal economy, all of them being elite and male-dominated realms of endeavor. Yet, the impact of sectarian conflicts for women’s participation in such realms remains under-analyzed.

When women do appear in these elite and male-dominated positions, they often fill the role of ‘placeholders’ for patriarchal family dynasties.⁵⁰ If the cynical actions of political elites fan sectarian conflicts in the region, then the study of the patriarchal nature of these elites can offer good insights on how sectarianism works. For instance, Marguerite Helou examines the role of political tribalism and clientelism in hindering women’s participation in politics.⁵¹ By importing these insights into instrumentalism, more nuanced analyses of how sectarian identities are leveraged to preserve and enact social power could be provided. It is becoming increasingly difficult to overlook women’s role in Middle Eastern political movements. One significant factor that has contributed to this increased visibility is the spate of regimes that after 2011 adopted and/or expanded institutional measures to promote women’s inclusion in the political, legal, and, at times, economic spheres. From an instrumentalist perspective, such gestures are seen as cynical attempts to purchase women’s loyalty, appease Western donors, and legitimize crumbling regimes.⁵² Less attention has been given to how these policy shifts, such as electoral gender quotas or easing restrictions on women’s travel, interact with sectarian identities. This represents a great research opportunity to evaluate how women view and experience specific policy changes and how these changes affect their sense of social identity.

When approaching instrumentalized ‘securitization,’ gender analysis could also be integrated further by considering the process of casting social differences as exaggerated existential threats, thereby justifying militant and repressive measures to protect a privileged class. Some scholars examine sectarianism in the light of these security discourses, arguing that violent sectarian conflicts can be understood as a process of seeing the ‘other’ as an imminent danger to the survival of the sect. Hence, the sectarian difference can be mobilized and consolidated as a means of protecting inequality.⁵³ However, these analyses should consider how securitization integrates with gender constructs, as both men and women are securitized differently. Overall, research into securitization has focused on military actions, prisons, and violent aggression—interactions that primarily involve men and could reasonably be considered ‘masculine’ threats. While not exempt from these practices, women are more often ‘securitized’ in contexts of sectarian conflict by being silenced and subjected to expanded forms of patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity that seek to limit their social agency, often under the guise of ‘protection.’⁵⁴ Critical analyses often overlook how the instrumentalization of sectarian identities is used to securitize women and their relationships within the public/domestic sphere.

For these reasons, the study of the relationship between the political instrumentalizations of sectarianism and gender could provide fruitful insights, particularly when examining warring militias. Sectarian leaders often instrumentalize gender, such as the Syrian Sunni sheikh, Adnan al-Aroor, who has released numerous videos shaming men who have not joined Syrian opposition militias. Bashar al-Assad, for his part, has also extensively invoked religious and masculinist language to incite loyalists to defend their honor and communities, while promoting the visibility of female religious scholars who serve as symbols of the regime’s supposed modernism and protectionism.⁵⁵ These intersections between instrumentalized gender and sectarianism can provide expanded insights into political dynamics, as well as a better understanding of outbreaks of gender-based violence as a tool of terror and dominance.⁵⁶

Constructivism

Similar to instrumentalism, this approach rejects the notion that sectarian identity is ancient, stable, or innately determined. Unlike instrumentalism, the constructivist approach emphasizes how ordinary individuals build their social identities through everyday interactions. This focus on microlevel agency and on the activities that constitute the fabric of social life provides a corrective to the instrumentalist view that tends to see sectarianism as an outcome of macro-level politics. It presents sectarianism as a cultural or discursive construct but also considers that the aggregated choices of numerous individuals—including the most marginalized groups—can cause ongoing fluctuations in identity formations.

Constructivist approaches are employed to understand overlapping, conflicting, and changing identities. In the context of sectarianism in the Middle East, the interactions between sectarian identity and national identity are of particular interest, as analyzed in the work of scholars, such as Fanar Haddad and Raymond Hinnebusch. These authors recognize that a full understanding of sectarianism requires multi-disciplinary approaches to analyze intersecting identities.⁵⁷ Intuitively, the constructivist approach seems attuned to discussing the intersections of gender and sectarianism and how these social forces overlap in the everyday construction of identity. However, these works also overlook the role of gender.

For instance, Haddad discusses sectarian identities as relying heavily on interconnected symbolism and life narratives that adherents adopt and modify to fit their personal experiences. Sectarian dynamics are ‘intimately connected to perceptions of one’s self and the other and to the construction of competing myth-symbol complexes that are often divorced from historical reality.’⁵⁸ These adopted narratives of sectarianism, as Haddad notes are saturated with references to militarism and heroism in the public sphere.⁵⁹ Unfortunately, Haddad does not pursue this discussion to its logical conclusion by asking why these particular narratives provide such a unifying appeal, what actions and motivations drive this form of identity, or what implications it might have for women or men who do not espouse such ideals. The centrality of gender constructs to sectarian and national identities is implied, yet the opportunity to develop further a gender analysis of the topic is missed. For instance, in his detailed discussion of the contributions of sectarian identities to the 2006–2007 Iraqi civil war, Haddad provides very little consideration of how the masculinist components of these identities shaped the contours of the conflict, or how men and women may have experienced the violence in different ways.⁶⁰ By failing to place gender constructs on the same central explanatory plane as sectarian or national identities, this approach misses opportunities to think more deeply about why sectarian violence exists. Similarly, Hinnebusch discusses the relationship between national governance and sectarian identity, focusing mostly on the context of Syria. He argues that, in times of conflict, increasingly militant sectarianism can become activated as individuals forge stronger constructed distinctions between self and other.⁶¹ However, such an analysis entirely leaves out the role of gender constructs in informing such responses to conflict.⁶²

Constructivist approaches have been quite influential in gender studies, for example in the work of Edward H. Thompson and Joseph H. Pleck.⁶³ These researchers investigated how socially constructed perceptions of masculinity differ for men of different races, ethnic/sectarian groups, sexual orientations, social class, and other intersecting identities. It would be valuable to conduct empirical research on the types of masculine or feminine identities that individuals with different sectarian backgrounds adopt, and to examine how these gender identities change over time in correspondence with sectarian conflicts. Combining constructivist views of sectarianism and gender could strengthen the analysis of both types of social formations. For instance, researchers have found that, in times of violent conflict, some layers of identity become stronger than others.⁶⁴ For the study of sectarianism through a constructivist lens, a central question might be whether sectarian or gender identities are more salient to political violence.

Eclectic Strategies

A final approach to sectarianism consists of merging together various elements from the previously discussed approaches. This method is almost wholly attributable to Morten Valbjørn’s pioneering meta-study, which sought to summarize the overall scope and direction of the field and to suggest more inclusive ways of integrating the existing analyses of sectarian conflict.⁶⁵ Rather than providing one overarching ‘superior’ approach, Valbjørn suggested several possible constellations in which different outlooks on sectarianism could profit from mutual dialogue. Describing these possibilities as ‘eclectic approaches,’ he argued that the ability to view sectarian dynamics through multiple lenses can provide a more inclusive picture. Frustratingly, gender analysis is again omitted entirely from these eclectic constellations. Even in his suggestions for ‘reconsidering future travel plans’ and broadening research agendas, Valbjørn did not consider that gender might be a glaring omission in most of the previous scholarship.⁶⁶ Over the past couple of years, a growing scholarly concern is emerging towards the importance of foregrounding gender when analyzing sectarian conflict, an analytical move that the field of nationalism studies and other scholarly areas have already undergone.

Conclusion

In this article, I have shown how current mainstream scholarship on sectarianism suffers from a omission of gender as a conceptual lens, and how these analyses could benefit from incorporating a greater attention to gendered differences in the creation and perception of sectarianism. Mainstream literature on sectarianism treats religious identity, institutional power, political representation, violence, and participation as ‘gender-neutral’ factors. However, these analyses focus almost exclusively on the experiences of men and the dynamics of male-dominated social arenas. The role of gender in framing these dynamics is conspicuously missing from the literature, and the differences between men’s and women’s lived experience in Middle Eastern societies are treated as non-existent or unimportant. In response to these omissions, the current article provided alternative directions on how gender analysis could be productively incorporated into the existing discussions of sectarianism. These examples demonstrate that a discussion of gender is vital for developing a fine-grained understanding of the origins and ontology of sectarianism, analyzing the reasons for its current escalation, and/or formulating effective approaches to ‘de-sectarianization.’

An examination of prominent works in the field shows that scholars using a variety of different theoretical lenses have latched onto the singular emphasis of sectarianism’s centrality, defining it as a piety problem, a political tool, a geopolitical driver, or a polarization in identity that has risen to ascendance in an era of national destabilization. In all these approaches, these works minimize questions related to the gendering of sectarian identity, the marginalization of women in state institutions, the politicization of women’s bodies and sexuality, and the relationship between masculinist narratives and sectarian violence. Research has also consistently overlooked the limitations of their own gender positioning as it relates to their ability to identify and access crucial components of sectarian experiences.

These omissions highlight the need to complicate sect affiliation by recognizing that it is only one of the complex intersecting identifications that constitute a person’s social positioning. Current social developments continue to move rapidly in the MENA region, and robust multidisciplinary and comparative research will be needed to understand adequately the evolving nature of sectarianism. Gender analysis should be a central part of this endeavor. More work is needed to expand our knowledge of how sectarian divisions are transmitted or promoted by women and how these discourses function in domestic or feminized spaces; and alternatively, to understand how some women seek to reduce or mitigate sectarian division. Evidence-based research is needed to draw conclusions about how individuals navigate the gendered aspects of sectarian identities, to evaluate how policies intended to enhance women’s political and economic participation affect their sectarian identities, and how women respond to efforts to mobilize and instrumentalize their support for masculinist sectarian regimes. A better understanding of Middle Eastern women’s responses to gendered behavior expectations during violent sectarian conflicts is also sorely needed. While the current article does not complete the task of de-centering monolithic theories of sectarian politics, I hope that it can provide a guideline for younger and more critical scholars, encouraging more in-depth research in these areas. Gender alone cannot explain the complexity of sectarianism, but it must be seriously considered as an intrinsic aspect of sectarian belonging and conflict.

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.