As political scientist Mervat Hatem watched Egypt's revolution unfold in Cairo, she saw very positive signs for the Islamic feminist movement.
"If you've been following what's been happening on TV, the majority of women protesting were Islamically dressed young women," she said.
"The large presence these women had in Tahrir Square goes against the idea that women in traditional dress would be unlikely to support the Muslim Brotherhood and engage in politics," Hatem told students and faculty at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School on Tuesday.
Secular feminists have long maintained that the only way to advance women's rights in the Middle East was to break from religion and Islamic law. But a new generation of women who have voluntarily adopted Islamic dress and supported the rise of political Islam sees the oppression of women originating not in the religion itself, but in the way regimes have interpreted it.
Hatem, a political science professor at Howard University, focuses on that debate in her forthcoming book, "The History of Discourses on Gender and Islamism in Contemporary Egypt."
"The problems in Egypt are an example of the extent to which national modernizing projects have failed in that part of the world," Hatem said. "They have not delivered the kinds of rights secular feminists had hoped for."
Political and legal reforms in Saudi Arabia brought expectations for significant improvements in women's rights. However, when women demonstrated and asked for the right to drive, a subsequent crackdown made women's prospects worse.
"But you cannot use the record of Islamic governments to say that they are essentially opposed to women's rights," Hatem argued. "The religion itself is not complicit in the subordination of women, and just because governments are Islamic does not mean what they do about women's rights will be the same."
She cited the 1979 Iranian revolution, which initially seemed likely to bring major setbacks for women's rights. Yet when women supported the movement and organized to demand additional rights, the government proved responsive.
"Islamic feminists don't see the Islamic mode of dress as clashing with their aspirations for public work, and they've basically been very successful in engaging with the Islamic political movements since the 1980s," Hatem said. "But there's a huge debate between secular and Islamic feminists about whether it's a step forward or backwards."
Islamic feminists have gone back to the Quran, the sacred book of Islam, and developed their own, "women-friendly" interpretations of the verses, she said.
"Looking at these verses, you can come up with interpretations that show Islam is not systematically oppressive of women," Hatem said. "But in order for that to happen, women need to claim it and begin that critical process."