Gender Politics in the Sudan: Islamism, Socialism, and the State (review)

Gender Politics in the Sudan is a critical contribution to Sudanese women's studies and to broader debates concerning revolution and liberation. A great deal of its vitality derives from Hale's long-term dedication to Sudanese studies generally and the various political movements within Sudan itself. Her depth of knowledge and experience is evident throughout the text, synthesizing not only the work of indigenous scholars and activists into her own, but also weaving a personal narrative into the research. In this sense, Hale's own experience as a researcher is implicit throughout the volume and is theorized from the outset as an inherent conundrum of fieldwork.

Hale proceeds to locate Sudanese women's studies in a larger context before moving on to essential background details of a complex and dynamic state. This leads to a discussion of women in contemporary Northern Sudan, the main focus of Hale's research. From here, the book diverts into two case studies, one examining the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) and the Women's Union (WU), and another exploring Islamism and women within the National Islamic Front (NIF). The two studies are markedly different yet clearly have common theoretical parameters, with a major theme being the role of "tradition" within women's resistance and activism.

The SCP is celebrated for its challenging ideology and relatively large mobilization within Sudan during the peak of its existence. Hale delves more specifically into the WU and its relationship with the SCP. By doing so, Hale, like so many other scholars of various "liberation" movements, questions the SCP and "how strong its commitment to transforming the social position of women may be." (152). More innovation flows from the WU, which has a history of mass organization, protest, and discussion of sensitive and often overlooked issues such as female circumcision and facial scarification. As Hale explains, however, the party is also a fractured movement, divided largely between members who adopt or coexist with "traditional" and "moralist" practices and new, progressive members.

The former exemplify a problem faced by many other women's movements, that of compromise and conciliation with men. To these ends, Hale found that "women of the SCP and WU, to appease conservative male Muslims (and Christians) in the society at large, must have acceptable social reputations" that are linked to a perceived level of acceptable female morality, which is relied upon by women in order to allow them to speak and debate (174). Yet it is this very appeasement that riles the new generation of female activists. Hale smoothly splices their protestations into the text, capturing the feeling of disunity and difference among women who are essentially struggling for "women's liberation" but by different means, and even with differently perceived ends. Such a disjuncture points to the larger problems of unifying female voices within a singular movement and demonstrates the complexity of liberation struggles more generally.

Hale's final two chapters offer an interesting contrast. Islamism, as both a theory and a political practice, is frequently demonized, and women commonly become the objectified symbols of such attacks. Within the media and a great deal of shortsighted literature, women are either pitied for their veiled, secluded bodies or feared as an armed, revolutionary mass. Either way, an analysis of women as Islamists is rarely proffered. Hale skillfully examines the NIF, demonstrating how Islamist men "position women within the culture to serve the movement" (185). Since Hale's approach is broadly Marxian, part of her analysis turns to women and labor in addition to issues of education and personal status laws. As such, she concludes that in contemporary Sudan "women's jobs should not threaten the power structure and should be appropriate" (199). Indeed, the inclusion of invaluable opinions of female Islamists serves to reinforce this approach, with activists supporting female labor outside the home...