In addition to marking International Women’s Day 2024, this International Workshop on Islamic Feminisms and Dependency will also take place during the Research Area E thematic year on "Gender (and Intersectionality)" at BCDSS.

Prof. Cooke's approach to the discourse surrounding Islamic feminism(s) may prove especially helpful to scholars of asymmetrical dependency when we place her work on "multiple critique" in conversation with intersectionality theory. Over the course of several decades, Prof. Cooke has traced the ways in which "some are developing a multilayered Islamic feminist discourse that allows them to engage with and criticize individuals, institutions, and systems that limit and oppress them" (Women Claim Islam, 109). The oppositional stance adopted in this discourse can be termed "multiple critique." Like intersectionality theory, multiple critique acknowledges multi-faceted and multi-vectored webs of marginalization experiences so that they can be constructively targeted by oppositional discourses. 

The relationship between Islamic feminism(s) and enduring forms of asymmetrical dependency has yet to receive substantial attention. Nevertheless, Islamic feminism has long engaged with structures that we at BCDSS might define as asymmetrical dependencies. Twenty-four years ago, Prof. Cooke asserted, "Some women are joining religious groups despite their gender conservatism. Others are fighting these same groups, fearing the dangerous chemistry of politics and religion. Whether through or against religion, they are choosing to become part of the struggle for a better world" (55). Within the discourses that emerge out of diverse experiences of religious and gendered identity, "Islamic feminism works in ways that may be emblematic of postcolonial women’s jockeying for space and power through the construction and manipulation of apparently incompatible, contradictory identities and positions" (59). Indeed, "the term 'Islamic feminist' invites us to consider what it means to have a difficult double commitment: on the one hand, to a faith position, and on the other hand, to women’s rights both inside the home and outside" (59).