Contention One is Imperial Masculinities
Gender is a site of power ignored in analysis of the Arab revolutions.
However, local feminist organizations are actively pushing for democratization.
Moghadam 11 (Valentine, Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies, Purdue University, “Engendering Democracy: Women and the Mass Social Protests in the Middle East and North Africa”, March 5)
Engendering Democracy I propose that the .... as well as the protests of this year.
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Unfortunately, US democracy assistance ignores relations of gender that structure democratization processes, making exclusionary, failed policies inevitable
Handrahan ‘2 [Lori, Professorial Lecturer, School of International Service, London School of Economics' Sociology and Gender Institute, Gendering Ethnicity: Implications for Democracy Assistance. Issues in Globalization Series, pp. 66-74]
USAID's failure is due in part to the fact that democracy assistance is not engaging with ... supported by US AID funds were 100% men (Zairash 1998).
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And, US discourse of the Arab revolutions is mired in gendered exclusions and fear of islam which position Arab women as passive victims and willfully ignores their driving of the uprisings.
This positioning is fueled by Western liberal feminism and imperialism to justify violent intervention in the name of humanitarianism.
Solidarity with the diverse voices of women challenges this masculinist frame.
Naber 11 (Nadine, an Associate Professor in Arab American Studies, the Program in American Culture and the Department of Women's Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, “Imperial Feminism, Islamophobia and the Egyptian Revolution”, February)
We’ll go down and demand our rights, ... and thirty-plus years of repression in Egypt?
This distorted construction of Arab women is nothing new – it has historically been used to justify and mask US military violence.
Zine 6 (Jasmin, Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department at Wilfrid Laurier University, “Between Orientalism and Fundamentalism: The Politics of Muslim Women’s Feminist Engagement”, Muslim World Journal of Human Rights, Volume 3 Issue 1 Article 5)
There are contradictory desires at the heart ... small price to pay for maintaining public safety (Freedman, Ch 8).
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These militaristic imperial discourses distract from the multiple forms of violence that disproportionately affect women. The perspectives of Muslim women are critical to fight this multiple oppression but are excluded from international feminist movements.
Zine 6 (Jasmin, Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department at Wilfrid Laurier University, “Between Orientalism and Fundamentalism: The Politics of Muslim Women’s Feminist Engagement”, Muslim World Journal of Human Rights, Volume 3 Issue 1 Article 5)
In this discussion I have indicated that ...and faith-based Muslim feminists.
Imperial gender ideology towards the Middle East is responsible for endless wars and masculinized forms of military control and colonialism
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Gender Studies at Syracuse University, 2011
[3/26 “Imperial Democracies, Militarised Zones, Feminist Engagements” Economic & Political Weekly vol xlvi no 13]
The post-11 September 2001 consolidation of ... educational systems, and na- tional values and identities (Enloe 2007).
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United States Federal Government should support dialogue on gendered processes of democratization in topically designated countries.
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Contention two is transformative politics
The US should foster dialogues between women’s groups in the topic countries in order to build networks of civil society that ensure women’s interests get translated into policy.
USIP 11 (United States Institute for Peace, The Institute employs more than 70 specialists with both geographic and subject-matter expertise. These experts are leaders in their fields. They come from the government, military, NGOs, academia, and the private sector. “Women and the Arab Spring”, May 5)
How women will fare as a result ... their newfound civic roles and responsibilities.
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US democracy assistance must engage meaningfully with women in civil society.
Current assistance focused on the male state results in gendered exclusion and structural violence.
Handrahan 2 [Lori, Professorial Lecturer, School of International Service, London School of Economics' Sociology and Gender Institute, Gendering Ethnicity: Implications for Democracy Assistance. Issues in Globalization Series, pp. 81-85]
Despite USAID's assertion that civil society promotion ... successful democratic assistance programming.
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Diverse feminist dialogue is crucial to transformative politics and law reform attentive to marginalized voices.
Complexity theory proves the necessity of dialogue to avoid assimilation of difference.
Carline and Pearson 7 (Dr. Anna, lecturer in law at Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom, and Dr. Zoe, lecturer in the School of Law, Keele University, “Complexity and Queer Theory Approaches to International Law and Feminist Politics: Perspectives on Trafficking”, Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, Volume 19, Number 1, 2007, pp. 73-118, project muse)
Complexity theory and queer theory both ...inevitably proposals and reforms are always partial and exclusive.
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US support for Muslim women’s dialogue centered on their activism corrects the gendered narrative of their total oppression by Islam.
This reorients US engagement and understanding of world politics.
Weirich 6 (Sarah, MA Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers, “The New Muslim Intellectuals: Gender Equality, and the Public Sphere”)
The question of Muslim transnational ... but actually move beyond it” (Barlas 2005:106).
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And, the current liberal feminist political strategy entrenches patriarchy and ignores marginalized women’s voices by calling for integration into the current political order.
Only creating spaces for disempowered women to speak politicizes a feminist strategy of diversity that transforms the gendered order.
Verloo 5 (Mieke, Senior Lecturer in Political Sciences and Gender Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen and Research Director of an EU-funded comparative research facility, “Displacement and Empowerment: Reflections on the Concept and Practice of the Council of Europe Approach to Gender Mainstreaming and Gender Equality”, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society 12.3 (2005) 344-365)
As Judith Squires notes in her excellent overview ... underlying the displacement argument.
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The diversity within the category of “woman” means political reform must occur based around constant dialogue.
Transnational feminist dialogue creates space for previously silenced voices to rearticulate imperialist western-centric conceptions of universality.
Carline and Pearson 7 (Dr. Anna, lecturer in law at Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom, and Dr. Zoe, lecturer in the School of Law, Keele University, “Complexity and Queer Theory Approaches to International Law and Feminist Politics: Perspectives on Trafficking”, Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, Volume 19, Number 1, 2007, pp. 73-118, project muse)
Diversity and plurality have also caused concern ... open to cultural translation and transformation.
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US engagement with diverse civil society groups of the Arab revolutions fosters a counter-narrative that reorients American exceptionalism in the Middle East.
Yucesoy 11 (Hayrettin, PhD, Associate Professor of History at Saint Louis University and author of Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics, “Revolutions and Teaching in the Middle East and Islam”, May 3)
One can argue that the revolutions in the Middle East ...a decentralized narrative of world history.
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Specifically, Muslim women’s transnational dialogue engages in “multiple critique” which results in new forms of knowledge production that transform politics
Weirich 6 (Sarah, MA Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers, “The New Muslim Intellectuals: Gender Equality, and the Public Sphere”)
The New Islamic Intellectuals and “Globalization from Below”
When applied to the question of Muslim ... Muslim forms and spaces of political practices.
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And, Attempts to combine challenges to gendered power relations with another goal results in gender being framed as a means to ends.
This ensures liberal feminist calls for integration are the only voices heard and the status quo power relations are maintained at the expense of marginalized women.
Verloo 5 (Mieke, Senior Lecturer in Political Sciences and Gender Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen and Research Director of an EU-funded comparative research facility, “Displacement and Empowerment: Reflections on the Concept and Practice of the Council of Europe Approach to Gender Mainstreaming and Gender Equality”, Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society 12.3 (2005) 344-365)
Some studies that focus on assessing the ...of certain feminist voices.
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The revolutions gesture towards the complexity of emergent causality—The uncertain engagement with new perspectives allows us to confront the complex uncertainties of the status quo.
Connoly 11 (William, Johns Hopkins University, “The Politics of The Event”, April, The Contemporary Condition)
The rebellions in Eastern Europe, the collapse of the S...in politics and ethics, literary and artistic