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Focal point 3	Fundamentalismen and Women's Rights
Workshop 3.6	"Fundamentalisms and the exclusion of women from the public sphere"

Saturday, 10.09.2005, 3-4.45 pm
Offices of the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation in Palestine, Nigeria, India, Thailand, Pakistan, Turkey, Berlin/Germany
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   | Speakers

• Judith “Judy” Pasimio, APWLD, Thailand
• Frances Kissling, Catholics for a Free Choice, USA
• Durre Sameen Ahmed, National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan

Fundamentalist concepts based on divine rules deny rights of the individuals. They have in common a special concept of society, based mostly on the understandning of family as the main cellular of society and with a certain role women have to play inside the families and the societies. These family based concepts reduce the role of women mostly to a servant of family interests: education of the children, obedience to the husband who is considered chief of the family and whose sexual demands have to be fulfilled. The space of women in this concept is restricted to the family sphere. Education of young girls, the participation of women in the political and economic sphere is considered to be in contradiction with the ideal concept of those fundamentalists. The female and male space in the public is intended to be separated, women have to be excluded from male spheres. 

On the other hand, globalization tends to a privatization of public space. Former public places in cities are more and more privatized, put under control of private business owners. This includes the right to define, who is allowed to use these places. Access to public sphere is denied more and more to certain groups. In Germany, for example, in recent years, it was debated, if shops and groceries are to be defined as private or as public spheres. The question behind this debate was, if the owner of the groceries could prohibit female workers wearing headscarves. Interestingly enough, the court decided that groceries are to be considered as public sphere and that therefore the fundamental right of individuals cannot be restricted. Imagine, this decision would have ended just with the opposite. It once more clearly shows that we have to analyse the economic and political interest behind those forces.

In this workshop we want to point to main trends in fundamentalist politics concerning public – private sphere and the main threats women are facing in this context by fundamentalist trends. The aim is to tackle the main problems and to develop a strategy.

   | Contact

Ulrike Dufner, Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Istanbul, Türkei 
E-Mail udufner@boell-tr.org, Homepage http://www.boell-tr.org/

Aktualisiert: 01.09.2005, hbr