This article critiques feminist theories about Islamic feminism being an emancipatory alternative to non-religious feminism, focusing on how gender relations have been Islamisized in Iran, creating what the author believes is an oppressive patriarchy. Despite an increasing call for separation between church and state among certain Iranian intellectuals, women activists apparently have not acknowledged the failure of the Islamic project; Western feminist theory is criticized for endorsing fragmentation of women into religious, ethnic, national, cultural and racial spheres, and feminism is threatened by the universality of patriarchy.
