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Women in Malaysian Islamist Politics 187

Conclusion

e (re-)appearance of women in Malaysian Islamist politics is a relatively
new development. Since the 1990s, changes ranging from huge advances
in women’s education to mounting criticism of PAS’s ‘fanatical’ image have
prompted the party to reconsider its practice of excluding women from formal
politics. e term ‘appearance’ may also be taken more literally, as a visual
communication. Ambiguities surrounding women’s visibility and (bodily)
exposure are at the core of patriarchal structures and female Islamist activists’
own reluctance to demand a more public role. Tracing the struggles of women
candidates and representatives from the early 2000s through GE14, I have
tried to draw out the tensions and counterintuitive juxtapositions of images
and languages produced in the context of contemporary debates about female
Islamist leadership and political representation. I have argued that individual
candidates’ success depends not just on space granted or demanded —in
other words, on ‘agency’—but also on the creative blending and strategic
alternation of di erent outward styles, including the manifestation of the
woman as a caring or motherly gure (a central trope in the global Islamic
revival and its social and intellectual pedigrees; see, e.g., McLarney 2015) and
a professional persona.
I conclude with two brief re ections. First, the tensions and connections
between gendered norms and cultures of professionalism re ect a broader
development in both Malaysian and global Islamism. One of the conspicuous
aspects of GE14 was a modest shift in balance away from the big rallies (ceramah
mega) that characterized the election of 2013 and (certainly in the case of PAS)
back towards a focus on grassroots campaigning (ceramah kelompok, house-
to-house canvassing or ‘walkabouts’). is shift can be ascribed to PAS’s
12
decision to leave the larger opposition bloc and the need for Pakatan Harapan’s
component parties to challenge UMNO and PAS in the places in which these
parties feel most comfortable, that is, rural and semi-urban areas dominated by
ethnic Malays. Grassroots campaigning, commonly described in Malaysia as
the strategy of the ‘personal touch’, is traditionally considered a major strength
of PAS. It is also seen as a strategy in which women are particularly important
because of their intimate knowledge of, and informal networking in, local,
village, or neighbourhood settings, as well as families and households. Parties
know, but seem reluctant to emphasize, that their women’s wings are, or can
be, extremely e ective campaign machines (see also Zaireeni Azmi 2016: 119).
Seen from this perspective, Muslimat PAS, with its neo-traditionalist etiquette,
may be regarded as a trendsetting organisation in Malaysian politics.

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