Etin Anwar, Chair of Religious Studies and Associate Professor, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Epistemology of Islamic Feminism: Contexts and Contestation in Indonesia

“Feminists love God and do not depend on men; they depend only on God,” declares Nyai Masriyah in front of hundreds of her santris (Islamic boarding school students) at the Pesantren Kebon Jambu, in Babakan, Cirebon, West Java, Indonesia. Nyai Masriyah puts to rest the debate over the compatibility between Islam and feminism. Not only does Islamic feminism in Indonesia proliferate among Muslim women scholars and gender activists but it also becomes a site for masculine production of knowledge on women’s issues in Islamic traditions. As masculine dominance on women’s issues carries religious authority, it begs the question of what constitutes Islamic feminism given the feminist emphasis on the relationship between the epistemological formulation of knowledge and women’s experience.

My talk will discuss how Islamic feminism emerged, developed, and proliferated in Indonesia. It highlights the patterns and the changes of the encounters between Islam and feminism from 1900 to the early 1990s and its effects on the definition of Islamic feminism. It systemizes Muslim women’s encounter with Islam and feminism into five eras: emancipation, association, development, integration, and proliferation eras. Each era corresponds to sites that shape the development of Islamic feminism. The talk also shows how Islamic feminism contributes to the rediscovery of Islam as ethics and women as ethical agents.

Co-sponsored by Female, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

Lunch will be provided.