Abstract:
This paper explores the reasons why, in the aftermath of 9/11, the
interests of Muslim women and Muslim gays have become the civilizing
mission in the “war on terror.” In critically examining how
pervasive American and European notions of patriotism, liberalism,
secularism, and freedom have been couched within the discourse
of sexual rights, I explain why this new politics of belonging is inseparable
from the new politics of exclusion. This shift has had consequences
for progressive social movements. Whereas in social and
cultural analysis nationalism has long been associated with male
dominance, sexual control, and heteronormativity, certain articulations
of feminism and lesbian/gay liberation are now intimately
linked with the reinforcement of ethno-cultural boundaries within
the western framework. A required allegiance to sexual liberties and
rights has been employed as a technology of control and exclusion
– what Joan Scott calls a “politics of sexclusion.”
Machine summary:
Islam, Sexuality, and the “War on Terror”: Luce Irigaray’s Post- Colonial Ethics of Difference Shaireen Rasheed Abstract This paper explores the reasons why, in the aftermath of 9/11, the interests of Muslim women and Muslim gays have become the civ- ilizing mission in the “war on terror.
” In critically examining how pervasive American and European notions of patriotism, liberalism, secularism, and freedom have been couched within the discourse of sexual rights, I explain why this new politics of belonging is in- separable from the new politics of exclusion.
I con- clude by discussing bodies as a site for the materialization of power and resistance, as related to Luce Irigaray’s notion of an “ethics of sexual difference,” in an attempt to provide the phenomenological Shaireen Rasheed is a professor of philosophical foundations in the College of Education at Long Island University, Post Campus.
Despite criticism from the Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan (RAWA), which has argued that Afghan women’s rights have brought with them different disciplinary restrictions under the new regime, discourses surrounding the oppression of Muslim women have become the yardstick by which to measure the West’s secular stand on liberal rights, especially in the manifestation of rights pertaining to Muslim women’s sexuality.
”27 By relegating such differences and particularisms as race, sex, class, and ethnicity to the private sphere, liberalism supports the notion of the abstract public and the disembodied political subject as separate from the body, race, and sexuality.