Restricted moral choices can still constitute real agency through self-cultivation.

Evidence

When viewed from a feminist perspective, the choices open to the mosque participants appear quite limited. The constraining nature of these altema.. tives notwithstanding, I would argue that they nonetheless represent forms of reasoning that must be explored on their own terms if one is to understand the structuring conditions of this form of ethical life and the forms of agency they entail. Note that the various paths followed by the women do not suggest the application of a universal moral rule (in the Kantian sense), but are closer to what Foucault calls ethics: the careful scrutiny one applies to one’s daily ac. tions in order to shape oneself to live in accordance with a particular model of behavior. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 1261

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Foucault’s ‘ethics’ as self-fashioning vs. Kantian universal moral rules; also resonates with the broader feminist critique of agency as necessarily subversive.
• DEEPTHINKING: The move to decouple agency from resistance/choice is paradigm-shifting for feminist theory — a woman exercising piety within constraint is still agential, just not in the liberal sense.