Western and Muslim Genders?

Abstract

Mihçiyazgan approaches the question as to how differences in the constitution of the subject in men and women in the west and in Islam can be empirically measured. She takes an anti-essentialist perspective, referring primarily to Judith Butler and Michel Foucault. Going beyond both, however, she develops a model of plural discourses with which gender constructions that are contingent on culture can be understood. On the basis of interviews, in which she connects her approaches through an interactional and discursive analysis, she makes visible different zones of the speakable and the unspeakable in western and Muslim gender discourses. She points to partially discursive incongruities, referring in particular to Muslim men in marginalized positions. The model presented offers a contribution to understanding discourse analysis as an empirical method. It needs to be made more dynamic, however, in order to avoid cultural codification.