Existential inequality and women’s empowerment in selected Muslim-majority countries: preliminary considerations

Abstract

This paper surveys the state of the play with regard to women’s inequality and the processes of changes leading to potential empowerment in selected Muslim majority countries. This paper uses the framework of sociologist Goran Therborn’s existential inequality, which is complemented by the capability approaches of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. The main objective of the paper is to bring to light the steady, albeit tardy, empowerment of Muslim women amidst social structural adversities and to highlight diversities in women’s existential inequalities in the selected Muslim majority countries where the narratives of women are often reduced to unverified generalizations and stereotypes. The underlying purpose of the paper is to generate debates and promote further evidence-based investigations on the subject of gender inequality/equality, and gender justice in the Muslim majority countries.

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