Liberal Feminism and Religious Rights of Muslim Women: Relationship between Politics, Gender, and Religion

The purpose of the present research is to study challenges and contradictions of the political theory of feminism, especially the liberal trend supporting women's right to have religion. The results showed how the tenets of western contemporary political philosophy such as freedom, equality, justice, power and so on have brought about challenges in this regard. Using descriptive analysis, it was attempted to review religion and feminism in general and then refer to two approaches of this school toward Muslim issues in order to explain some challenges in the relationship between religion, politics, and gender. Besides, the aspects and factors of liberal feminism in handling this triplet relationship between religion, politics, and gender was surveyed using philosophical analysis. The reconciliation attempts between liberal Feminism and religion, the evaluation of political ideas in this regard and their pros and cons in relation to religion and gender were among other issues under research in this study. The results showed that the majority of liberal feminists traditionally assume that the life of religious women is lacking freedom, independence, justice, basic rights, and equality. It is just within the recent years that the above-mentioned perception has been doubted with Muslim women's increasing activities reflecting their experiences. Instead, some theories such as multiculturalism along with reconciliation between liberalism and religious groups have emerged. It seems that both liberal and feminist trends are incapable to resolve the existing contradictions in this regard as they are loaded with the heritage of modern political philosophy.