Excerpt

This article problematizes the exclusion of women from Islamist public space, situating it within a cycle of sexual suppression. To this end, I analyze some of the immediate consequences of Islamists' extreme obsession with controlling the fetishized female body. From the outset, I want to make clear that the arguments advanced in this article are not necessarily applicable to all or even most Muslim-majority societies. My focus is on Islamism, what Bassam Tibi defines as a form of “religionized politics.”¹ While Islamism has been on the rise for decades, it is by no means the dominant ideology in most Muslim-majority…