Religious Freedoms versus Gender Equality: Faith-Based Organizations, Muslim Minorities, and Islamic Headscarves in the New Europe

The intersections of gender and civil society in the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe have been examined primarily through the lens of Western Aid to support feminist nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). What has received less scholarly attention is the growing number of NGOs advocating for a return to more conservative gender roles and more restricted public roles for women. Many of these organizations are so-called “faithbased” organizations (FBOs), and are bound to particular religious denominations. In this article, I will examine the presence of Islamic FBOs in Bulgaria and how they mobilize a liberal “rights” discourse to justify practices that could be locally interpreted as being oppressive to women. Their insistence on guaranteeing women’s “right to choose” certain religious practices puts feminists and women’s NGOs in an increasingly difficult position.