State Islamization forced feminist politics into a resolutely secular oppositional stance

Evidence

Zia ul.. Haq’s top..down policy of “Islarn ng” Pakistani society through the use of the media, the educational system, and, more important, the judiciary (which in.. eluded the promulgation of a number of discriminatory laws against women), cemented in the minds of progressive feminists like myself that our very sur.. vival depended upon an unfl stance against the Islamization of Pak.. istani society. If there was any shred of doubt in our minds that Islamic forms of patriarchy were responsible for our problems, this doubt was firmly removed given the immediate targets of our day—to— struggles: feminist politics came to require a resolute and uncompromising secular stance. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 19

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the book’s core tension: the author’s inherited conviction that secularism and feminism are inseparable, which the rest of the study will problematize.