فصلنامه مطالعات راهبردی زنان
پیاپی 46 (زمستان 1388)

At the end of the 19th century، the first move of Feminism was made chiefly to gain the right to vote. At this stage، Liberal Feminism by stressing on the human nature of both or “united human essence” or superiority of women values called for equality in the role and status of men and women regardless of gender differences. The disposition in the second phase paid more attention to the various domains of family and developing theories in the humanities field. The third phase was affected more by postmodernism and capitalism as well as the fanatic disposition of the second phase. These three attitudes didn’t have room for gender justice and with their multiplicity any foundation for justice was not attainable. In this paper، Feminism is scrutinized and criticized and in doing so Islamic views on the matter were presented revealing the aspects of gender equality in Islam and the fact that Islam takes into consideration gender differences but prohibits gender discrimination.

Justice in language has several meanings such as: equity and equilibrium، equality in similar conditions، difference in different conditions، giving the right to the rightful person and putting things in their right place. This article investigates the concepts of justice and gender as viewed by Allameh Tabatabaei and Martyr Muttahari. It shows that the unique system of laws in creation، purposeful Divine acts، strong connection between; rights and obligation، right and justice and unity in nature، natural disposition، and ethics in Islam all play a role in the subject of gender justice. They believe that equality is indispensable and required for justice and justice has roots in equality and not discrimination and represents a fundamental factor in it. They think that similarity is basically out of the question since infinite equality is impossible and redundant because natural and acquired differences rule out the possibility.

Gender justice means that men and women should have proportionate access to all economic, social and cultural facilities without injustice on either of them. For the most part, employment applies to paid full time jobs done outside the house. In this article, the employment issue is viewed from an Islamic perspective based on scientific facts aside from criticizing sociological as well as feminist viewpoints and hypotheses regarding the issue. Women have a right to employment if they observe some general principles such as compatibility with female traits, hijab, chastity and avoidance of mixing with men and avoidance of any conflict between her career and her roles and responsibilities as a wife and mother. From an Islamic point of view and as far as women’s employment is concerned, gender justice has been attained once the above-mentioned criteria, rules and regulations are observed. Besides, it is recommended that women should normally take part-time jobs and careers to fulfill the criteria of gender justice.

Most of the feminist movements especially postmodern completely distinguish between education and knowledge of men and women anfd think that most of the widespread knowledge and education available are mainly masculine and that in gender justice all subject should be considered in light of sex and gender. In this paper, the epistemology of this group of feminists is criticized as per the studies of the Quran (Epistemology, and a special example from the semantics of the Quran). Views of different scholars like Mulla Sadra, Suhruwardi and ibn Arabi were also presented and the basis for the complete education and knowledge of men and women is thoroughly studied leading to the conclusion that gender justice disagrees with distinction between the education and knowledge of men and women.

In her article “Gender”، Linda Jackson differentiated between sex and gender and discussed the major dissimilarities between feminism and disposition. By revealing the various misconceptions of the feminists، she embarked upon the crucial definition of ‘women’ and at the end came up with a solution for the matter. During her analyses of feminist thought in the second part، she presented the approach of Divine disposition. This approach takes into consideration natural rights and actual differences between men and women and she believes that the role of disposition of men and women have to be acknowledged. In fact، this approach overrides the thoughts of Feminism.

Management of human societies، assigning laws and rules can only be done by Almighty God creator of mankind leaving this responsibility to his prophets and their successors so that they carry them out in the community. Accepting or rejecting the Divine rule is actually participation in political life by each person. Women who believed in Islam and the Prophet (P) and his leadership، obeyed and listened to his teachings and participated with him in political life. Some supported him and other refrained. This article talks about political participation of Muslim women then and mentions some who followed the leader of the society and others who didn’t.

Islam’s political approach has always assigned either of sexes with duties and responsibilities within the extent of their capacity and capability while considering equal human rights for them. In this approach, justice is met where both sexes have equal chance of political participation and social presence no matter what differences they have Further in this article, the meaning of gender justice as well as women’s social and individual responsibilities are highlighted in order to reflect the significance of justice and its role in linking gender and politics. The author has also provided some of the misunderstandings about the right of women in social and political participation providing reasonable answers to clarify them. It seems that the best way of achieving gender justice is to refrain from excessiveness and immoderation.