Secular Feminist Analysis

advocacy, claiming it to be a sign of betrayal to their cultural heritage. Indeed, proclaiming human rights to be “western” is one of the strategies used to prevent human rights regimes to be established in some communities and states. At the same time, some western scholars and political leaders have built their discourse of human rights referring to it as West vs East problem. Such attitudes ignore the human rights efforts done by women, particularly in the East, as well as limits their chances of success. Human rights is not a western notion, it is a human notion. Even if I attentively listen to the arguments of those who claim that in different parts of the world people can have different conceptions of human rights, such arguments should

Secular feminist discourse does not satisfy women of faith, as it can push them away from feminism altogether. Secular discourse can be seen as distant, either ignoring religion or calling for departure from it entirely. While leaving religion is not acceptable for some women, the ignorance or distancing of feminism from the question of religion is not a solution for many confessed feminists either. It is not a solution because they do not want their religious institutions to be excluded from feminist reforms. Secular feminist discourse aims for a complete separation of social and political life from that of religious life. It looks for a revolution, a radical change in the conflict between women’s liberty and religion. However, I do not believe that encouraging women to depart from religion is an effective strategy. Feminism should not act as a substitute for spirituality, one should not be forced to choose between political and religious beliefs. I believe the task of feminism consists of making a bigger effort for the reformation of religion as more favourable towards women. I will describe this task more precisely as feministization of religion. It is Ttime to switch roles, it is no longer up to religious dogma to penetrate feminism, but the very opposite. Secular discourse has failed in this exercise, and has neither the instruments nor the vision to conduct such work. In this task, secular discourse needs to converge with religious feminist discourse. I argue, that the religious feminist discourse is most effective in religious context with its effort to conduct a feminist reform of religious doctrine and institutions. Here is the true mission and greatest potential of religious feminist discourse. The goal of the secular discourse revolution in the relationship between monotheist religions