Men, Muslims, and Attitudes toward Gender Inequality

Abstract

Gender-based inequality is often regarded as a salient characteristic of Muslim societies, yet few works have systematically compared the status of women in Muslim and non-Muslim communities. Fish (2011) finds a gender gap in structural indicators of inequality in Muslim-majority countries that cannot be explained by levels of economic development, raising questions about whether attitudes favoring inequality are more prominent among Muslims. We investigate the impact of structural-situational factors and religious identification on attitudes toward gender-based inequality using hierarchical-level models. We find that: (1) Muslim self-identification and the size of a country's Muslim population predict attitudes supportive of inequality; (2) an individual's gender has a stronger effect on attitudes than does religious identification; and (3) measures of structural inequality also shape attitudes. The effects of these variables remain strong when we consider other contextual elements, such as gross domestic product per capita, education, age, location in the Middle East, and fuels dependence.

Re-Understanding Religion and Support for Gender Equality in Arab Countries

“…The Bahrain 2014 survey does not include denomination, but virtually all native Bahrainis are Muslim and considered as such here. Unfortunately, a more refined distinction among either Muslims or non-Muslims was not available in the majority of the surveys; comparing Muslims and non-Muslims does make our results comparable to other studies (e.g., Lussier and Fish 2016 ; Norris 2009 ). Age is a continuous scale; respondents under 18 were excluded as they were not sampled in all surveys.…”

“…Whereas previous quantitative MENA studies have predominantly drawn on unidimensional socialization perspectives (e.g., Alexander and Welzel 2011 ; Inglehart and Norris 2003 ; Lussier and Fish 2016 ; Price 2016 ), our multidimensional framework emphasizes that different dimensions of religiosity link differently to socialization and support for gender equality. First, attending religious services entails exposure to the MENA’s structural “ruling patriarchal establishment,” which generally preaches gendered worldviews of men and women being complementary and hierarchically related ( Al-Hibri 1982 , ix; Bolzendahl and Myers 2004 ).…”

“…Both gendered interests and gendered socialization thus lead us to expect that women will support gender equality more than men, but also that religion’s impact will vary between women and men. Still, as Lussier and Fish (2016 , 35) note, “surprisingly little has been written about the intersection between sex and religious identification with regard to attitudes about gender inequality.”…”

“…To understand how religion can be both a source of emancipatory reinterpretations and patriarchal socialization, we argue that it is necessary to take a more refined approach to individual-level religiosity than to focus on differences between Muslims and non-Muslims, as is done in most MENA public opinion studies (e.g., Alexander and Welzel 2011 ; Lussier and Fish 2016 ; Price 2016 ). We therefore disaggregate the concept of religion and conceptualize it multidimensionally.…”

‘My Husband is My Key to Paradise.’ Attitudes of Muslims in Indonesia and Norway to Spousal Roles and Wife-Beating

“…Scholars disagree on the causal factors for these findings. Some assume that individual interpretations of Islamic doctrines may be one of the several causal explanations (Abou El Fadl 2008;Alexander and Welzel 2011;Lussier and Fish 2016). The rival position argues that such explanations are based on stereotypes and superficial deductions (AbuLughod 1999;El Guindi 2003).…”