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Ending oppression in the Middle East: A Muslim feminist call to arms
(This one's for you BainsBain)
Saudi Arabia's religious police have recently allowed women to ride bikes in parks and recreational areas on the condition that they are accompanied by a male relative and dressed in an abaya. I wonder if the male relative has to be riding a bike too? Or does he simply hold the leash attached to the bike?
In 2011 women were allowed to work in lingerie stores in Saudi Arabia. Previously, men were selling women bras and panties because the avoidance of "mingling" between the sexes at work meant that most shops had male assistants. So a man staring at your chest to guess your bra size was acceptable, but driving a car is not.
Every day it is a struggle to reconcile my deep conviction in, and devotion to, the Islamic faith with the sickening reports of abuses of many women in the name of Islam. Not for a moment do I think that the oppression and brutality directed against women stem from sincerely held religious beliefs. Whether it is targeting girls who seek an education in Afghanistan or treating women like second-class citizens in Saudi Arabia, the fact is that the oppression of women is essentially about coveting power and dominating women - a lust for control that is both illogical and pathetic, collapsing under the slightest interrogation.
As a devout Muslim woman, I find it abhorrent that Islam is used to justify the subjugation of women in many parts of the Muslim world. I refuse to be an apologist, to minimise this appalling state of affairs. But equally, I am no Ayaan Hirsi Ali or hysterical Femen-devotee who peddles a vulgar form of Islamophobia in the misguided belief that a liberated woman is a woman who has rejected Islam. While I'm sick to death, as a Muslim woman, of the hypocrisy and nonsensical fatwas, I confess that I'm also tired of white women who think the answer is flashing a bit of breast so that those "poor," "infantilised" Muslim women can be "rescued" by the "enlightened" West - as if freedom was the sole preserve of secular feminists.
Ultimately, I do not see Islam as the problem; I see it as the platform for change. I believe in gender equality - including the rights of Muslim women to dress as they please - because, as a Muslim feminist, I value agency, choice and autonomy. Moreover, I have deep conviction that these values are integral to the Islamic tradition, and are not simply ideals imported from the West.
In 2011 women were allowed to work in lingerie stores in Saudi Arabia. Previously, men were selling women bras and panties because the avoidance of "mingling" between the sexes at work meant that most shops had male assistants. So a man staring at your chest to guess your bra size was acceptable, but driving a car is not.
Every day it is a struggle to reconcile my deep conviction in, and devotion to, the Islamic faith with the sickening reports of abuses of many women in the name of Islam. Not for a moment do I think that the oppression and brutality directed against women stem from sincerely held religious beliefs. Whether it is targeting girls who seek an education in Afghanistan or treating women like second-class citizens in Saudi Arabia, the fact is that the oppression of women is essentially about coveting power and dominating women - a lust for control that is both illogical and pathetic, collapsing under the slightest interrogation.
As a devout Muslim woman, I find it abhorrent that Islam is used to justify the subjugation of women in many parts of the Muslim world. I refuse to be an apologist, to minimise this appalling state of affairs. But equally, I am no Ayaan Hirsi Ali or hysterical Femen-devotee who peddles a vulgar form of Islamophobia in the misguided belief that a liberated woman is a woman who has rejected Islam. While I'm sick to death, as a Muslim woman, of the hypocrisy and nonsensical fatwas, I confess that I'm also tired of white women who think the answer is flashing a bit of breast so that those "poor," "infantilised" Muslim women can be "rescued" by the "enlightened" West - as if freedom was the sole preserve of secular feminists.
Ultimately, I do not see Islam as the problem; I see it as the platform for change. I believe in gender equality - including the rights of Muslim women to dress as they please - because, as a Muslim feminist, I value agency, choice and autonomy. Moreover, I have deep conviction that these values are integral to the Islamic tradition, and are not simply ideals imported from the West.
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/04/29/3747543.htm
This is a very interesting read.
21 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
I don't understand religion from an emotional level, or faith I guess--I don't seem to be made that way. I understand it from an intellectual level. There a number of books written by Muslim women about this. One in particular called "Standing Alone" was the story of an American Muslim women going on her Hadj, and what she encountered (for instance, as an Unmarried women, she needed her fathers permission) she concluded the book with a "Muslim Womens Bill of Rights" although the book impacted me, her attempts to change the American Islamic culture were mixed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asra_Nomani
In Judaism, there's this (I've been following "Women of the Wall" for some time"
Five women have been arrested by Israeli police at the Wailing Wall for wearing prayer shawls that Orthodox tradition states should only be worn by men.
The women were all members of the Women of the Wall group that opposes police-enforced segregation of worshippers according to sex at the Jerusalem holy site.
The arrests occurred during a monthly prayer session organised by the group.
"Police detained for questioning five women who prayed with religious garments at the Wall," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
The group's monthly gatherings at the Western Wall often end with arrests of women who don prayer shawls or read publicly from the holy scriptures, a rite also reserved under Orthodox ritual for men.
Jewish modernisers have long called on senior rabbis to relax laws in Israel preventing men and women worshipping together at the Wall.
The women were all members of the Women of the Wall group that opposes police-enforced segregation of worshippers according to sex at the Jerusalem holy site.
The arrests occurred during a monthly prayer session organised by the group.
"Police detained for questioning five women who prayed with religious garments at the Wall," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
The group's monthly gatherings at the Western Wall often end with arrests of women who don prayer shawls or read publicly from the holy scriptures, a rite also reserved under Orthodox ritual for men.
Jewish modernisers have long called on senior rabbis to relax laws in Israel preventing men and women worshipping together at the Wall.
http://news.sky.com/story/1076751/israel-police-arrest-five-women-at-wailing-wall
And we are familiar with Christian Fundelmentalist views on women.
Yet religion and faith seem to be a profound part of the human condition, so I admire women who battle the very pillars of it. Perhaps winning WOULD change the constant of patriarchy, it's hard to say. That's a whole lot of change.
