Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Inglehart and Norris suggest that the “clash of civilizations” between the West and Islam centers around issues of gender equality and sexual liberalization, not democratic values as Samuel Huntington posited. However, when gender equality values of Islamic nations are discussed, men’s and women’s values are often assumed to be concordant. Using data from nine majority-Muslim nations surveyed in the fourth wave of the World Values Survey (2001), this paper examines whether men’s and women’s gender equality values are in agreement. The results demonstrate that men and women have different values pertaining to gender roles on specific issues. These issues, which include obedience, political leadership and polygamy, align with a progressive movement that recognizes women’s equality within an Islamic context. In order to understand whether the gender differences are attributed to modernization and economic development, this paper employed Inglehart and Norris’ modernization theory, which predicts that younger people with higher levels of education, greater socio-economic status and more secular values will have more progressive gender equity values. The results demonstrate that these modernization indicators do predict more progressive gender equity values within the Muslim world. However, gender remains the greatest predictor of more progressive gender role values. While a fault line may exist between the West and Islam over gender equality, fault lines also abound within the Muslim world between the old and young and the higher and lesser educated. The deepest fault line of all over gender role values in the Muslim world lies between men and women.