In this paper I draw from a project on understanding the interrelatedness of influences on women’s employment in Muslim societies. From that project, I distil the general mechanisms that can translate very general social theories on complexity to directly applicable theories on the participation of women in politics, economics, and society in general. Only by understanding the complex interrelatedness of influencing factors it can be assessed how policies affect gender and other (participation) inequalities. This paper is a first step towards such a framework and provides guiding questions in translating general notions of complexity to specific issues. It also show how cross-cultural differences and diversity are not just assumptions underlying theories, but can become part of the empirical knowledge derived from testing a theory. In other words, I offer a framework that helps to theorize and test how effects different across contexts.
