Sexuality and the Moral "Construction" of Women in an Islamic Society

Abstract

judgments. In Iran women could talk abstractly of moral behavior that differed from normative generalizations. Women could make judgments about actions and relationships but were constrained publicly from acting on them by what was considered moral behavior in their social class. The contradiction between their own judgments and my observation of what they did (as well as their own accounts of these contradictions) underscores that the construction of women's personal and moral identities can be independent of socially located decision-making. Women rarely had the opportunity to make decisions that affected their own morality given class and other constraints on behaviors, but they could and did when their actions were less visible. Moreover, their abstract moral thinking sometimes focused on principles of individual rights and sometimes on responsibilities; sometimes women agreed with interpretations of Islamic prescriptions and sometimes they didn't. While this paper focused on how sexuality and sexual behavior are bases for the moral construction of women, women themselves made specific moral judgments regarding behavioral obligations to others, This content downloaded from 157.55.39.102 on Mon, 03 Oct 2016 05:12:46 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms WOMEN IN ISLAMIC SOCIETY 128 sometimes on the basis of kinship or social relations and sometimes on the basis of more universal principles of need and concern. Rural women were more likely to see a moral obligation to assist anyone who was sick, old or unemployed because of their need; urban men and women were more likely to feel these obligations were based on kinship relations to those afflicted. These examples of women's thinking on social responsibilities are based on abstract considerations of obligation, sometimes related to religious prescriptions and sometimes to personal interpretations. Women's notions of selfhood and their ability to talk abstractly about self or about relations to others were also affected by region and class differences because of variations in individual exposure to and education in religious and secular knowledge. The degree to which women could make abstract choices and conceive of things that did not seem possible under current conditions was partly reflected in degree of education and class circumstances. Presented with hypothetical situations for moral behavior or decision-making, more rural (and nonliterate) women than urban (and more educated) women were unable to conceive of possible scenarios-to say to whom one could talk or what they could do under certain circumstances. When choices were put in terms of concrete and immediate situations, these women deliberated and delivered judgme ts. Access to information and education may prepare people to abstract themselves from situations and to consider the abstract motives of action, although not all researchers believe education is so pivotal in the process (Street 1984). There has been a call for new frameworks to understand the development of gender differences in moral thinking and action as well as self-identity, to which the present discussion has been tied (Young 1984). Any such framework must consider both developmental aspects and contingency aspects of moral thinking in a way that (a) takes into account class and cultural differences, especially in normative conceptions of morality,9 and (b) clarifies the role of social relations in women's morality, in both normative constraint and cognitive, individual selection of behavior. Although much of the debate on women and morality has developed outside of anthropology, these debates may be informed by anthropological approaches to understanding the complex relationship between individuals and society. Anthropologists, especially those working in the Middle East, have a tradition of investigating the negotiation of cultural ideals and individual acceptance of these within social and economic contexts.