Towards Global Feminism: A Muslim Perspective

Author : Mahnaz Afkhami, Spinifex Press

Waging their struggle in the colonial environment, Third World feminist thinkers have achieved a multicultural ethical and intellectual formation and a plethora of experience relevant to the development of an internationally valid and effective discourse addressing women’s condition on a global scale. The question is whether this foundation can become a springboard for a global…

Resisting Fundamentalisms

Author : Mahnaz Afkhami, Canadian Human Rights Foundation

Fundamentalism is a militant reaction to modernism; that is, to changes that have come about as a result of the development of science and technology, secular­ization of social relations, and movement from collective to indi­vidual forms of identity and moral valuation. Fundamentalists are found in all societies and reli­gions. Their approach to religion is basically…

Rethinking Women's Human Rights in the Middle East

Author : Mahnaz Afkhami, Kendall Hunt Publishing Company

I am privileged to speak here today, not only because it is an honor to be on the same forum with such distinguished colleagues, but also because of the issue that is the subject of the discus­sion. This, as I understand, is the first time that women’s human rights have been the subject of plenary…

Early Inspiration

Early Inspiration

Mahnaz was born in 1941 in Kerman, Iran to a traditional family. When she was eleven, her mother, an independent-minded woman, separated from her father and later left Iran for the United States and worked her way through college. Mahnaz followed her mother’s example and worked various jobs, including as a sales clerk at a…