Towards a Model of Muslim Women's Management Empowerment
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administrative sciences Article Towards a Model of Muslim Women’s Management Empowerment: Philosophical and Historical Evidence and Critical Approaches Eugenie Samier 1,* and Eman ElKaleh 2 1 School of Education, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0LT, UK 2 Admissions and Registration Department, Zayed University, Dubai P.O. Box 19282, United Arab Emirates; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] Abstract: This paper constructs a culturally appropriate model for Muslim women’s empowerment in management and leadership positions that addresses sustainability goals of quality education, gender equality, economic growth and reducing inequalities, as well as national and cultural differences from Western women’s empowerment models. The approach to model building begins with two sources of evidence for women’s empowerment—first, the empowerment of women recognised in the Qur’an and Sunnah, and in the historical-biographical record, particularly in the early Islamic period that draws to some extent on hermeneutics. This is followed by identifying four approaches that can be used in constructing a comprehensive model of Muslim women’s empowerment: Bourdieu’s social, cultural and intellectual capital theory; multiple modernities theory that recognises societal diversity; cultural security arguments for the preservation of cultures; and postcolonial critiques that argue for diversity through decolonising. The main argument of this paper is that sustainability goals cannot be achieved without a model appropriate to the valuational, cultural and societal context in which women are educated and work. The final section of this paper proposes a multidimensional and Citation: Samier, Eugenie, and Eman ElKaleh. 2021. Towards a Model of multilevel model that can be used as a guidance for empowering Muslim women in management Muslim Women’s Management and leadership positions. The model construction is based partly on Côté and Levine’s psychosocial Empowerment: Philosophical and cultural model that identifies multiple levels and dimensions of identity, role and social institution Historical Evidence and Critical construction. This article contributes to the current literature by proposing a theoretical foundation Approaches. Administrative Sciences and a multidimensional model that can inform and shape the empowerment of Muslim women in 11: 47. management and leadership positions in different societies. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci11020047 Keywords: empowerment of women; empowerment model; Muslim women; women in management Received: 15 February 2021 and leadership Accepted: 17 April 2021 Published: 29 April 2021 Paradise is beneath her (mother) feet’ (Sunan an-Nasa’i 3104, vol. 1, Book 25, Hadith Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral 3106) with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- 1. Introduction iations. The literature on Muslim women has expanded rapidly in recent decades, reflecting to some extent the changing conditions in many countries that have allowed for more education, opportunities in the workplace, and assuming increasingly senior-level man- agement and leadership positions (Zahidi 2018). A number of sources have reported these Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. increasing numbers and levels of participation in all fields, including many that have Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. been conventionally seen as a male domain, such as the corporate world, policing, the This article is an open access article military, engineering and IT, clearly evident in countries such as the United Arab Emirates distributed under the terms and (Augsburg et al. 2009). In addition, many books have been published on women’s place conditions of the Creative Commons Qur’an Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// in Islam in the and Sunnah, many of which are reinterpreting the reading of these creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ core sources (e.g., Wadud 1999), and supported by historical and biographical studies 4.0/). in Muslim societies (e.g., Kamaly 2019). This literature is part of an expanding study of Adm. Sci. 2021, 11, 47. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci11020047 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/admsci Adm. Sci. 2021, 11, 47 2 of 24 women in many historical periods and parts of the world. For example, information on women’s activities, including leading roles, has been made available from the prehistorical period (e.g., Adovasio et al. 2016; Barbert 1995) and in ancient history in all societal sectors (e.g., Bahraini 2001; Brosius 1998; Halton and Svärd 2018; Lion and Michel 2016; Vivante 2017), which also had influence on women’s roles in the Islamic period (Ahmed 1992). Many of the historical studies, such as El Cheikh’s (2015) work on women’s identity in the Abbasid Caliphate, investigate actual roles that women played in all societal sectors and classes in politics, economics, religion and culture in response to and contrasting with the stereotypical views of women as simply subjugated and dispossessed of capabilities, roles, influence, and power while retaining the complex gender politics of society. Walther’s (1993) overview of Muslim women’s history described their integral roles in social and economic life in early pastoral societies through to their variable roles in later periods rang- ing from the highly engaged and even leading roles to those of suppression due primarily to political and cultural practices. It is the contention of Walther, like many other recent writers, that the misrepresentation of Muslim women has been constructed in the West to support feelings of superiority and political aims, and that many political and cultural causes of oppression are mistakenly attributed to Islam. While patriarchal individuals and cultures existed, the attitude of Islam towards women as an egalitarian perspective is part of a general tolerant view that also extended to Jews and Christians even in some of the most senior administrative positions (Walther 1993). To some extent also, this literature is a response to Islamophobia and the marginalisa- tion of Muslim minorities in non-Muslim countries (e.g., Pratt and Woodlock 2016). For example, Khan(2019) argues in It’s Not About the Burqa that Muslim women and Islam are misunderstood in the West. The theologian Hans Küng, in his book on Islam (Küng 2004), argues that the ‘walls of prejudice’ (p. xxv) need to be replaced by actually existing bridges, based largely on ideological constructions that are historically inaccurate, politically driven, and grounded in ignorance. It is this approach that has been adopted by the Humanistic Management Network in reaction to a dominating functionalism in management by ad- vancing a humanistic paradigm grounded in human dignity, well-being and cooperation, values that are shared by many belief systems including that of Islam (e.g., Amann and Stachowicz-Stanusch 2013). The purpose of this article is to construct a culturally appropriate model of Muslim women’s empowerment in management and leadership studies related to key UN sus- tainability development goals—quality education, gender equality, economic growth and reducing inequalities—and the Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council on 30 September 2016, “Cultural rights & the protection of cultural heritage”, which “Calls upon all States to respect, promote and protect the right of everyone to take part in cultural life, including the ability to access and enjoy cultural heritage” (United Nations 2018). Em- powerment is part of a cluster of core human rights values—of human dignity and social justice. As such, this article is a theory- and model-building treatment of Muslim women’s empowerment to counter many negative stereotypes and Islamophobic assumptions that affect views on Muslim women and Islam, a purpose shared by a large body of recent literature in depoliticising Islamic studies to reconstruct the actual principles and values in Islam as they relate to women and their empowerment, quite often highly divergent from the cultural and political conditions in many societies that deviate from Islam. This purpose is line with Lynham’s (2002) discussion of theory-construction in applied disci- plines, focussed on creating an understanding and explanation of a topic, making more explicit something that often remains implicit. It also follows general principles in Glaser and Strauss(1967) for reviewing theory, data, and various critiques that have arisen in the international literature in the way that Islam is often reduced to faulty or misguided practice that are referred to as Islamic, but actually do not conform to its philosophical and theological principles—in this case, the actual rights and empowerment of women that are embedded in the core texts of Islam that at times, in the historical record, took empirical form, from which to build a model that should guide laws, policies and practices. Adm. Sci. 2021, 11, 47 3 of 24 It is this intent that guides the selection of material examined, the myths and falsehoods, the philosophical foundation, the history of exemplary practices, and a number of critical perspectives that need to be taken into account in reconstructing the authentic Islamic conception of women’s empowerment. In exploring the potential for Muslim women’s empowerment, there are many factors that need to be considered. Empowerment is a complex construct involving values, cultural and other societal factors in which women are educated and work. It also consists of the many individual and social levels in which it forms: self,