Deconstructing Sexuality in the Middle East

Challenges and Discourses

Pinar Ilkkaracan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138275546
• eBook ISBN: 9781317153696
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Exploring the contemporary dynamics of sexuality in the Middle East, this volume offers an in-depth and unique insight into this much contested and debated issue. It focuses on the role of sexuality in political and social struggles and the politicization of sexuality and gender in the region. Contributors illustrate the complexity of discourses, debates and issues, focusing in particular on the situation in Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine and Turkey, and explain how they cannot be reduced to a single underlying factor such as religion, or a simple binary opposition between the religious right and feminists. Contributors include renowned academicians, researchers, psychologists, historians, human rights and women's rights advocates and political scientists, from different countries and backgrounds, offering a balanced and contemporary perspective on this important issue, as well as highlighting the implication of these debates in larger socio-political contexts.

Chapter 1 Introduction: Sexuality as a Contested Political Domain in the Middle East

Pınar İlkkaracan

DOI: 10.4324/9781315576213-1

In September 2007, Iranian president Ahmadinejad delivered a speech at Columbia University in New York that made headlines worldwide. Ahmadinejad stated, ‘In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. We don’t have that in our country,’ claiming there are no homosexuals in Iran. Ahmadinejad’s denial of homosexuals in Iran, which drew both ridicule and protests from around the world, was not a statement of personal conviction or manipulation but a political one, reflecting the stand of the majority of Middle Eastern governments on sexual freedom and rights.

Over the last couple of decades in various Middle Eastern countries, as is the case in a number of African and Asian countries, homosexuality has increasingly been constructed as a ‘Western’ practice that is ‘imported’ from the West, which threatens the social and moral order, although there is extensive evidence of sexual relations between people of the same sex, and of transgender cultures, throughout these countries, even if the way these practices and cultures are labeled and understood varies from place to place, and may well differ from Western lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) identities and cultures. ¹ Ironically, centuries ago, claims were made in the West that homosexuality was an Oriental or Muslim vice. ²

1 Sylvia Tamale, ‘Out of the Closet: Unveiling Sexuality Discourses in Uganda,’ Feminist Africa, 2 (2003), <http://www.feministafrica.org/fa%202/02-2003/sp-tamale.html>; and Ruth Morgan and Saskia Wieringa, Tommy Boys, Lesbian Men and Ancestral Wives: Female Same–sex Practices in Africa (South Africa: Jacana Media, 2004). 2 Douglas Sanders, ‘Flying the Rainbow Flag in Asia’ (paper presented at the Conference on Sexualities, Genders and Rights in Asia, Bangkok, July 7–9, 2005), <http://bangkok2005.anu.edu.au/papers/Sanders.pdf>.

Sexuality and gender equality, matters that are inextricably linked, have been highly politicized issues in almost all Middle Eastern nations ever since reforms towards modernization and/or Westernization were initiated in the nineteenth century. Although a general consensus on the need for modernization efforts in the technical, administrative and economic domains has been remarkably visible even among antagonistic political actors and movements, reforms targeting gender relations and the private sphere have remained notably controversial. ³ While modernists have in general argued for gender equality and, to a degree, for sexual liberation, traditionalists/Islamic conservatives have subsequently and deliberately attempted to exert their control on issues related to sexuality, struggling to preserve their interpretation of their respective society’s ‘religious and moral values,’ and to maintain, or in some cases regain their dominance especially in the private sphere, namely, regarding the status of women in the family and the regulation of sexual behavior.

3 On controversial aspects of gender reforms in Muslim societies, see John L. Esposito, ‘Introduction: Women in Islam and Muslim Societies,’ in Islam, Gender and Social Change, ed. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and John L. Esposito (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); and Nikki R. Keddie, ‘Introduction: Deciphering Middle Eastern Women,’ in Women in Middle Eastern History, ed. Nikki R. Keddie and Beth Baron (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).

The Middle East shows a great degree of diversity in the formulation of legal codes and their application to women’s everyday lives, as is also the case in the rest of the Muslim world. The scope of the legal reforms that have redefined gender relations varies greatly between countries. While in Turkey, for instance, modernization included the adoption of Western legal codes and aimed at complete secularization, most Gulf countries preserved their interpretation of Islamic legal jurisprudence as the fundamental law in all juridical areas. It is striking that most other nations in the region abandoned Islamic jurisprudence but retained an ‘Islamic’ interpretation of the ‘personal status law,’ which includes mainly the laws on family (that is, the private sphere and the status of women), but with certain reforms, as in Egypt or Iran during the shah’s reign. The reforms in Turkey were the most comprehensive, followed by those in Tunisia, and in Marxist Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. ⁴

4 Valentine M. Moghadam, Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1993); John L. Esposito, ‘Introduction: Women in Islam and Muslim Societies,’ in Haddad and Esposito, Islam, Gender and Social Change, ix–xxviii; and Nikki R. Keddie, ‘Introduction: Deciphering Middle Eastern Women’s History,’ in Keddie and Baron, Women in Middle Eastern History, 1–22.

Despite the positive impact of all modern legal, educational and economic reforms on the position of women and the growing strength of feminist movements, the majority of women living in the region have not benefited from the opportunities created. In terms of the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), introduced by UNDP, the Arab region ranks lower than any region except sub-Saharan Africa. Arab countries have the lowest rate of women’s participation in the workforce and the lowest rate of representation in parliaments. More than half of Arab women are illiterate. ⁵ The situation in Turkey, a non-Arab country in the region, is no different from its Arab neighbors. Turkey ranks 92nd out of 177 countries in the Gender Empowerment Measure of the Human Development Report for 2006. ⁶

5 United Nations Development Program, The Arab Human Development Report 2002 (New York: UNDP, 2002). 6 United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report 2006 (New York: UNDP, 2006).

In this picture, the collective mechanisms aimed at controlling women’s bodies and sexuality continue to be one of the most powerful tools of patriarchal management of women’s sexuality, and a root cause of gender inequality in the region.

In the last decades, issues related to sexuality and women’s bodies have increasingly become sites of political contestation in the Middle East due to the contradictory impacts of socio-economic and political developments. The rise of the Islamic religious right and the increasing mass support for religious right ideologies, which has recently gained new dimensions due to increased militarization and new wars in the region, including the US occupation of Iraq and the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006, has tightened the existing space for liberal reforms, including those concerning sexuality. On the other hand, the rise of new feminist and civil movements, globalization, the increasing influence of a global human rights discourse, and changing socio-economic conditions affecting population patterns have led to the emergence of new discourses, demands and patterns regarding sexual behavior, and a growing push for change from below.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, an increasing number of NGOs in the region have started advocating for sexual and bodily rights, on issues including the eradication of customary practices such as honor killings, ⁷ female genital mutilation (FGM) and forced virginity tests; sexuality education; penal code reforms to ensure legal recognition of women’s sexual autonomy; and the human rights of LGBT persons.

7 Honor killing is a term used for the murder of a woman suspected of having transgressed ‘acceptable’ sexual behavior as defined and imposed according to tradition – specifically engaging in a pre-marital heterosexual relationship or suspected extra-marital affairs.

Recently, sexual politics in the Middle East and customary practices such as honor crimes, FGM, or the stoning of adulterers have increasingly drawn media, academic and political attention in the West. The post-9/11 context has contributed significantly to the erroneous portrayal of such practices as Islamic, or as resulting from the conservative culture of the ‘other,’ that is Muslim. It is strikingly paradoxical that such practices are regarded as ‘Islamic’ in the West, considering that they have in fact come to the international agenda as a result of successful campaigns by Muslim feminist or LGBT movements, struggling to raise public consciousness that these practices are not only blatant human rights violations, but are also in contradiction with the essence of Islam.

The post-9/11 context has also increased the dilemmas faced by activists, scholars and health professionals advocating for human rights issues related to sexuality in Muslim societies, such as the eradication of customary practices, promotion of women’s autonomy over their bodies, and recognition of different sexual identities. While on the one hand globalization has created an environment where international networking for human rights has gained importance, on the other, many feel that international engagement in the promotion of these rights ironically serves to exacerbate existing stereotypes both about the women living in the region – as suppressed, passive or unable to defend their rights – and about the region as a whole – as backward, static, and having a culture that is irreconcilable with ‘Western values.’

The tendency in the West to view Islam and so-called Muslim culture as the sole parameters that determine sexual politics in Muslim societies, and the portrayal of the sexuality of Muslims as the ‘other’ remains strong and pervasive. For example, it is striking that although the Bush administration and its Christian conservative allies, including the Holy See, Poland, Malta and Ireland in the European Union, as well as certain Latin American countries attack issues such as sexual autonomy, sexual orientation, and the right to safe abortion at the national, regional or international levels, conservative and religious right politics on issues of sexuality tend to be primarily and often exclusively associated with Islam, rather than with right–wing conservative ideologies.

A recent article by Norris and Inglehart, published in Foreign Policy, goes so far as to argue that the basic cultural fault line that divides the West and Islam concerns issues of sexual liberalization and gender equality, and not, as Samuel Huntington asserts in his popular thesis on ‘the clash of civilizations,’ political values. ⁸ Norris and Inglehart conclude that ‘the cultural gulf separating Islam from the West involves Eros far more than Demos.’ ⁹ An editorial in Middle East Report responding to Norris and Inglehart’s article declares that their conclusions serve to obscure ‘the endlessly bitter battles that rage within the US’ over gay marriages and abortion. ¹⁰ As Radhika Coomaraswamy, the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women notes: Contrary to the prevalent view in the West, in recent decades, there has been a surge of scholarly interest and activism in the Middle East and North Africa around issues related to sexuality. For instance, a mere two weeks after 9/11, a conference was held in Istanbul with academicians and representatives of prominent women’s NGOs involved in advocacy and lobbying on issues related to women and sexuality in the region. ¹² The meeting aimed at an analysis of women’s human rights issues related to sexuality, power, and gender roles. While many meetings in the region and around the world were cancelled for fear of further attacks and possible military escalation after 9/11, the great majority of invited participants were adamant that the meeting should not be postponed despite the atmosphere of threat and insecurity, underlining the significance of sexuality as a political issue for women activists in the region.

The fight to eradicate certain cultural practices that are violent to women is often made difficult by what may be termed ‘the arrogant gaze’ of the outsider. Many societies feel that the campaign to fight cultural practices is often undertaken in a way as to make the third world appear as the primitive ‘other,’ denying dignity and respect towards its people… This ‘arrogant gaze,’ many feel, has increased since 11 September. ¹¹

8 Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, ‘The True Clash of Civilizations,’ Foreign Policy, 135 (March–April 2003): 63–70. For Huntington’s thesis on ‘the clash of civilizations,’ see Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996). 9 Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, ‘Islam & the West: Testing the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ Thesis’ (working paper, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University Faculty Research Working Papers Series, 2002). 10 ‘Editorial,’ Middle East Report, 230 (Spring 2004): 46. 11 Radhika Coomaraswamy, Integration of the Human Rights of Women and the Gender Perspective: Violence against Women (report to United Nations by the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, Doc. E/CN.4/2003/75. Geneva: Commission on Human Rights, 2003). 12 The meeting ‘Women, Sexuality and Social Change in the Mediterranean,’ was organized by Women for Women’s Human Rights (WWHR)–NEW WAYS, and held in Istanbul between 23–27 September 2001. The participants included NGO representatives and academicians from Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Yemen, and the UN.

This was also reflected in a press statement issued at the end of the meeting, emphasizing the link between sexuality and political power: The solidarity network Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies (CSBR) that emerged in the aftermath of the Istanbul meeting has expanded to include more than 60 leading women’s and human rights NGOs and academics in the Middle East, North Africa and South/Southeast Asia since 2001, aiming to break taboos on sexualities and sexual rights in the Muslim world. ¹⁴

Sexuality is not only a private issue, but it is also linked to systems of power politics and domination in society. The means to control sexuality are institutionalized not only in cultural and social norms and customs, but also in legislation and the administration of justice. For instance, various legal systems sanction crimes committed against women, such as early and forced marriage, virginity tests, discriminatory divorce laws, female genital mutilation, or murders committed in the name of family honor… During periods of militarization and war, oppression of sexuality is exacerbated because such systems promote rigid notions of masculinity and femininity and perpetuate a culture of aggression and intolerance. ¹³

13 ‘Press statement,’ 30 September 2001, <http://www.wwhr.org/meetings_confs_workshops.php> (accessed 26 October 2007). 14 For more information on the activities of the network, see Liz Erçevik Amado, Sexual and Bodily Rights as Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa: A Workshop Report (Istanbul: WWHR–NEW WAYS, 2004); and WWHR–NEW WAYS, ‘The Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies,’ <http://www.wwhr.org/csbr.php> (accessed 26 October 2007).

Sexuality as a Contested Political Domain in the Global Arena

The notion of ‘sexual rights’ first appeared on the international agenda during preparations for the 1994 United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo. Put forth by advocates from the international women’s health movement, the term was ultimately not incorporated into the final consensus document of the conference, the ICPD Program of Action, as reaching a consensus on the term ‘reproductive rights’ proved challenging enough; however, the document did include several allusions to sexual rights. ¹⁵ A year later, ‘sexual rights’ became a topic of major debate at the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995, where an alliance of conservative Muslim and Catholic delegations strongly objected to its use. Issues of sexuality – especially sexual orientation, women’s control of their bodies, and abortion – were the most controversial issues at the Beijing conference. Barbara Klugman, a participant at both conferences, identifies several key factors that influenced delegates’ positions on the concept of sexual rights: the relative openness of their constituency to public discourse on sexuality; the impact of religion on women’s ability to make independent decisions ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Sexuality as a Contested Political Domain in the Middle East
• 2 Criminal Law, Women and Sexuality in the Middle East
• 3 How Adultery Almost Derailed Turkey’s Aspirations to Join the European Union
• 4 Fighting Honor Crimes: Evidence of Civil Society in Jordan
• 5 Sex Education in Lebanon: Between Secular and Religious Discourses
• 6 Contesting Discourses of Sexuality in Post-Revolutionary Iran
• 7 Who Said That Love is Forbidden? Gender and Sexuality in Iraqi Public Discourse of the 1970s and 1980s
• 8 Militarization, Nation and Gender: Women’s Bodies as Arenas of Violent Conflict
• 9 Towards a Cultural Definition of Rape: Dilemmas in Dealing with Rape Victims in Palestinian Society
• 10 The ‘Natasha’ Experience: Migrant Sex Workers from the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in Turkey
• Index