Paper short abstract:

Paper focuses on relationship between religion and gender equality from Lithuania's female Muslim perspective. Analysis seeks to debunk Orientalist tropes of ‘oppressed Muslim woman’ and shed light on how interlocutors themselves perceive gender equality and need for it in their life practices.

Paper long abstract:

In the West, including Lithuania, following the centuries-long Orientalist tradition, it is generally regarded that Muslim women lack their own agency and are at a double mercy of their purportedly misogynist religion and their equally misogynist men – fathers, husbands, and other close males. The perceived lack of gender equality in Islam is often seen as a stumbling stone in the emancipation of Muslim women worldwide but also in Europe, something that arguably prevents their integration and, quite oppositely, leads to their marginalization in the societies they live in and isolation from a fruitful and satisfactory involvement in the social life.

The paper, which is based on the data of the semi-structured interviews with Muslim women of Lithuania, both Muslim-born and converts, focuses on the construction of religiosity and religious identity as well as the relationship between religion and gender equality in Islam from the female perspective. The analysis seeks to debunk the Orientalist tropes of the ‘oppressed Muslim woman’ and shed light on how the interlocutors themselves perceive gender equality and a need for it in their religious and mundane life practices. The findings of the research, which suggest that Muslim women in Lithuania are well aware of their, as humans and citizens, rights and also fully emancipated members of the society, lend themselves for meaningful comparative analysis of women of different confessional backgrounds.