From "Just Add Women and Stir" to Engaged Study of Gender: Teaching Zahra Ayubi’s “DeUniversalizing Male Normativity”

In this presentation, I will discuss Zahra Ayubi’s 2020 article “DeUniversalizing Male Normativity: Feminist Methodologies for Studying Masculinity in Premodern Texts” in Gender, Sexuality, and Islamic Mysticism to give students a clear, rich, and nuanced understanding of pre-modern masculinity. This article is valuable to the study of Islam because Ayubi offers a methodology for studying masculinity that is applicable to any premodern text, which allows an instructor to use it in any course on premodern Islam (or other religions). Moreover, because Ayubi addresses both patriarchal interpretations by Muslim authors and anti-Muslim stereotypes held by Western feminists, this article helps students to resist a Western hegemonic vision of feminism when studying gender and Islam. I will share my specific pedagogical experience teaching the article in a course with the focus on premodern Sufi texts and offer considerations for how Ayubi’s article could enhance other courses on Islam.