Letting Go of the Veil: Sites for Islamic Feminist Intervention in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This paper attempts to highlight some of the most successful Islamic Feminist movements and organizations currently making progress in the META region (Middle East Northern African), in the hope of finding methodologies that could be effective in improving the lives of Muslim women in Saudi Arabia. By using Islamic feminism as a lens through which to view the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia, and other MENA countries, the reader's tendency toward an ethnocentric interpretation begins to diminish and a clearer picture of the trials and potential entrance points for empowerment begins to take shape. The goal of this research is to remove barriers of Western feminist ideologies in the effort to better understand the lives of Muslim women in Saudi Arabia.