While out with my sister in her mostly white neighbourhood, we walked by an elderly woman dressed in a velour tracksuit, plastic visor, and sunglasses I’m certain were purchased from an infomercial. She was speed walking but slowly strolled towards us, pulled down her sunglasses, looked us both up and down and hissed, “Jeeeeeezuuus.” It took a few seconds to register exactly what happened, but my sister and I couldn’t continue walking – we were laughing too hard.
Another time alone at a bus stop one late night after work, a man came up to me and said, “Why are you wearing that? You shouldn’t have to wear that.” He didn’t shout (usually my cue to walk away) but he seemed unstable and aggressive. I was too frightened to respond, I didn’t want to encourage him and I couldn’t laugh it off. The vibe he was giving off showed me he was capable of much more than aggressive unsolicited advice. I quickly walked away to a more crowded bus stop a few blocks down the road, only to keep looking over my shoulder in case he followed me. Not wanting to concern my loved ones and feeling slightly ashamed of not standing up for myself, I didn’t tell anyone.
In both instances, my sister and I were dressed normally – well, by our standards. I was wearing my headscarf and she her niqab (added face covering). Any variation of both cases have happened to every Muslim woman I know, regardless of whether or not they choose to cover. In my experience, it’s certainly not a daily or even weekly event – sometimes it doesn’t happen for months – but it’s happened enough times to be an ongoing issue in my life. These moments come in the form of the As Seen on TV sunglasses lady, which almost feels like being assaulted by an SNL character or the scary bus stop guy, or an innocent comment reminding me I’m Muslim (not that it’s easy to forget). Of course, not every interaction is unpleasant but the amount of stories I’ve swapped with my fellow Muslim women are countless, which is why it’s so frustrating to see our stories be told by other people.
Recently, I came across this story from the Australian Daily Telegraph in which a nice white lady learns a hard lesson. The author, Tanya Smart spends an afternoon dressed like a Muslim without actually having to be one. Dressed completely in black, she wears what Richard Dawkins respectfully likened to a trash bag: a traditional long loose dress called an abaya and a niqab. (I sometimes dress similarly to this, and it’s perfect if you’re cold and want to wear your pyjamas under a dress.) However, the author comes to the conclusion (after one day of dressing like the “other”) that life as a shapeless Muslim woman is hard. The poor girl can’t smile! Children laugh at her! Strangers gave her weird stares!
Regardless of how offensive this is, it’s also old, played out and boring. Having someone regarded as traditionally attractive play dress up to see what it’s like being marginalized in a controlled environment is hardly ground-breaking. Tyra Banks used to do it on her show all the time. Smart clearly thinks she’s being brave, and maybe she is. It certainly does take courage to wear a niqab; I don’t even think it’s something I could do. She thinks she’s experiencing or shining a light on the plight of poor, fettered Muslim women everywhere and perhaps she did get a taste of what it could be like for some. The thing is, I don’t care. I don’t wear a niqab, but there’s nothing she could have experienced that I haven’t already heard from any of the women I know who wear it every day. She could have just asked, but then again she probably wouldn’t have gotten paid for that.
I don’t live in a constant fear of being attacked, but, like any woman, it’s something that’s always in the back of my mind. Sometimes, the thought goes too far back and I assume that because I grew up and live in a relatively safe and diverse Canadian city, that sort of thing wouldn’t happen to me. Unfortunately, reality hits and I realize it could happen anywhere. Just this summer, a Saudi Arabian student in the UK was stabbed 16 times on her way to school. Like me and thousands of other women in United Kingdom, the victim was wearing a hijab.
Smart expressed her fear of being pushed in front of a subway car, but at the end of the day she was on a paid assignment and won’t ever have that fear again. She went home, took off those clothes and now has a fascinating story to tell over cocktails. When attacks against Muslims or anyone who appears to be Muslim are on the rise, when just being brown is actually just enough to be pushed in front of a subway car, racist orientalism isn’t going to help anyone.
The silencing and total lack of engagement in regards to Muslim women is dangerous. Under the false pretense of concern, time and time again I see my reality be dissected. It’s true, there are Muslim women who are oppressed and there are definite problems within our community. However, there’s almost only that one narrative. Being painted as a homogenous group of silent, invisible women puts me in the position of a victim before I’ve even had the chance to speak up for myself. Most recently, a video of Ben Affleck’s appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher went viral, it was great to see a sensible response on racism. The takeaway for me (other than how weird it is to now have to rely on the star of Gigli to defend Muslims) is the noticeable lack of female opinion in these discussions. Our absence proves to me that Bill Maher or Sam Harris aren’t at all concerned about women not driving or getting beaten by their husbands. To them, we’re nothing more than a political point or a device to push their racist and xenophobic agenda.
When I picture myself, it’s as a pretty average 23-year-old woman, and I can only hope I will someday be given the right to be average. So many times I’ve had people who’ve never met a Muslim before say to me, “You’re nothing like I expected!” I would usually just smile and change the subject to avoid confrontation, but once I asked, “What did you expect?” To which a co-worker responded in a way they variably thought of as a compliment, “You’re just so open!” If we are all as persecuted they say, if we truly can’t think for ourselves and need to be saved, who exactly are they trying to save us from? Because I can’t help but feel as though people like Bill Maher and Tanya Smart have a lot more in common with the guy at the bus stop than anyone who’s ever been on my side.
“she wears what Richard Dawkins respectfully likened to a trash bag”
ugh, that motherfucker.
Sarah, thanks so much for this, it’s great! If you could ever get some of your other Muslim women friends to write about these experiences, I would read any number of those pieces…
Ooh I would so write some! White Muslim here, also raised Muslim, teen goth, wore niqab for 13 years…I still wear hijab just don’t cover my face. I’ve had plenty of hassle over years but mostly people are just surprised that I speak not just English but posh English 🙂
Anyway I enjoyed the article and so agree with the premise. Don’t speak for me please, random people who would like to dictate how I live.
I would read the heck out of everything you just described.
@Jameela: Petition to read whatever you right in the future pls.
Dammit you guys, I am inspired! As soon as I’ve got the cats’ meds and read an essay on Northangar Abbey and fixed my laptop I will be free to write something. New to Toast so hello.
I would read the hell out of a teen goth+niqab piece-did the two coincide?
Yes a bit. ..I loved all the black, obviously.
also fuck Bill Maher. The idea that he’s a prominent public face of liberals, though I don’t think he considers himself a liberal, infuriates me. Liberals are far from perfect, but he’s so awful.
Let’s put Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins on one of those tiny, one-palm tree islands (like from The Far Side and other cartoons) and let them eat each other.
We wouldn’t want to leave out Sam Harris. He would be so disappointed if he missed out on that island.
i hate him SOOO much. There’s a Julie Klausner bit about anthony bourdain and being an “edgy” old dude that reminds me of deeply of Bill Maher. Oooh so daring, being politically incorrect! How edgy! How daring! How out there it is, to be like, “fuck PC!” That’s edgy. Literally no one has ever earned a talk show or you know, tons of money, doing that. All the big money is in pushing the PC edge, stopping anyone from not toeing the liberal trans line. That’s why all those folks in Ferguson are just rolling around on their piles of police shooting cash and Anita Sarkeesian is always speaking to sold out engagements where everyone just hugs her and calls her the messiah.
Bill Maher is more frustrating than say Bill O’Reilly whose views I don’t expect to be any good, because Maher probably does think Ferguson is bullshit and he seems to get why inequality is bad! and health care! (well except for being an anti-vaxxer), so his islamophobia and sexist bullshit is so annoying. It’s like he should know better, even though he (and many others like him) clearly don’t.
Oh man and I saw the thing with Ben Affleck and its like, oh my god you assholes. Your point is that any particular religion produces MORE religious extremists is the most insane bullshit.
Especially since you have chosen to completely ignore the geopolitical issues. You are talking about so many places with scarce resources who have been totally screwed up by colonial world building and exploitation, which deliberately included exacerbating the tensions between religious and cultural minorities and majorities and then leaving everyone to their own devices around 1970, then meddling again during the cold war, and so on, and then say that those people are somehow inherently held back in their thinking on things like women’s rights?!
Maslow’s hierachy of needs applies! So does violence begets violence! UGGGGGH. I wished so hard that Ben Affleck had been more able to really skewer them- he was just so disgusted I don’t think he managed to really run them through with the point.
Believe me there are many varied voices speaking- check out altmuslimah.com for example..
Children laugh at XYZ!
–News at 11!
yesss, pieces like this are part of why i love the toast. wonderfully written.
Agreed! Loved this. Thank you, Sarah.
I live in a mostly-Muslim part of my city, and to be honest, the women in niqab, hijab or burka don’t seem oppressed. They seem quite cheerful, and they’re often shopping or going to the cinema or whatever without the men. I think maybe certain white, non-Muslim males are projecting what they secretly wish they could still get away with?
I was raised Catholic but no longer follow any religion. As such, I am typically curious about any religiously based garb, because I think it is interesting that someone believes in something so much that it affects how they dress (I’m talking everything, from crosses to head scarves to Mormon sacred garments).
But rarely do I ask someone about these things, because a) it feels invasive and personal, and I have no business asking about their choices, and b) as a gay person, I hate being asked silly questions that someone could just look up with a solid Google.
I get that there is a difference between, “Why do Muslim women wear these items?” and “How does your choosing to wear these items affect your daily life,” but sometimes I’m afraid to even ask the latter because I don’t want to come across as nosy or ignorant or offensive.
Essentially, I’m asking this: How does someone outside the Muslim religion start this conversation with you, Sarah, without messing up from the get-go?
I think that just asking Muslim women to write the op-eds and articles about what it is like to walk down the street in hijab is the best conversation-starter! For in-person interactions, I have no idea, I too would feel weird asking unless I knew someone very very well.
(I hopped in bc I wrote the title, and I do not want to make it seem like Sarah is necessarily telling people to ask Muslim women questions about religious garment choices, like, on public transit or anything.)
Yes, I agree. And like I said, I’d never just ask a woman on the street about her clothing choices (unless it’s raining and I’ve got an extra raincoat to see if she wants it). Perhaps I misread the “or you could ask us,” thinking it meant all people, not just the media.
I fully agree that media should be publishing Muslim women on matters concerning Muslim women.
Hahaha, yep, just clarified that I wrote the title bc that is EXACTLY what just occurred to me!
That actually brings up a really interesting point to me – when people see nuns covered from head to toe, they talk about dedication to one’s religion. When they see a woman in hijab or a niqab + abaya, they talk about how ignorant and oppressed they are. Why aren’t we trying to save the nuns? Oh wait.
I just can’t not, you know?
Because nun’s by definition are in that garb by choice. They chose their order, they chose their vows and they can leave at any time.
There are many Muslim women who don’t have a choice in how they dress. There are many Muslim women who are assaulted or imprisoned for failing to meet the local thugs’ idea of Islamic modesty.
Having said that, I have no respect for Islam, Catholocism, Orthodox Judaism among others because they exclude women from leadership roles. If you don’t believe in equality, you don’t deserve my respect.
There are many Muslim men who don’t have a choice in how they dress (or groom) too. That’s not necessarily a fact of Islam, so much as a fact of oppressive regimes that use religion to control people.
The Muslim women I have known who wore hijab did so because they wanted to, because they had put thought into it and decided it was right for them based on their interpretation of the Koran.
This was so good! Thank you for sharing.
Ugh the Daily Telegraph is the worst, but I understand that’s probably a pretty typical occurrence. Reading sites like The Toast makes me very impatient when non-marginalized people speak “for” marginalized groups – if I want to read about Muslim women’s experiences, I generally want the author to be a Muslim woman! I know you don’t speak for all, of course, and like another commenter said, I would read any number of pieces like this from varied viewpoints.
PS – “Or You Could Ask Us” – great title!
“Or You Could Ask Us” would make a great series, not just for Muslim women, but other marginalized groups!
My book club was creating our future reading list, and someone recommended a novel about a Mexican woman mistaken for an illegal immigrant and was deported without her children. It was not by a Mexican American author.
VETO
Good call!
I mean, maybe that person did a great job of describing how that stuff goes down, but we will not really know until a woman who has lived it shared her experience. Actually, I’m sure it is out there somewhere, but it just might be in Spanish.
As a counterpoint to the New Statesman Daily Telegraph article I was reminded of the blog post earlier this year titled I Took Off My Hijab by the woman whose winter gear completely obscured her hijab and how she noticed others treated her when they couldn’t tell she was wearing it.
[edited to replace New Statesman with Daily Telegraph, not sure where my head was when I wrote that….]
I used to do this in Alaska at uni. So much fun to see who would still be nice to me.
Oh crumbs, I read the ‘I took off my hijab’ post and then made the mistake of going down and reading the comments. Help! The Toast has egregiously restored my faith in comments sections! Send aid!
‘Oh crumbs’
Yeah, I also get a whiff of “they [women] don’t know what’s best for them, but *I* sure do!”
(this is a reply to swizzard)
Also, I couldn’t even watch the Ben Affleck thing, because Bill Maher interrupting was so freaking irritating. Ben, come sit by me.
I need to hear more thoughts on the video! Affleck seemed so flustered (as I would be).
The other non-racist Nicholas Kristof (?) seems really on to it.
the audience clapping was weird and … weird.
I feel like with folks like Dawkins, Harris, etc. that there is something special and different there. I’m reminded of a quote from Jingo that I can’t find at the moment, where Sgt. Colon and Cpl. Nobbs are arguing about how sure, maybe the Klatchians are clever, and maybe they are hard workers, but they’re *just not the same as us* when it comes right down to it. Sure, Mennonites and Amish and Mormons are “weird,” but they’re, you know, “Western” weird. OUR weird.
‘I heard where they’ve got a lot of odd gods’, said Nobby.
‘Yeah, and mad priests,’ said Colon. ‘Foaming at the mouth, half of them. Believe all kinds of loony things’.
[…]
‘So how exactly are they different from ours, then? I mean, some of ours are…’
‘I hope you ain’t being _unpatriotic_’ said Colon severely.
Yes, thank you! All my Pterry books are made of dead trees so I can’t carry them with me always, alas.
That picture is too, too perfect. The essay itself is a great example of succinct argument with tons of wit and panache and I feel like Richard Dawkins withered a little at the moment of it’s publication.
When I was in Istanbul and visiting mosques and had to cover my head, I was mostly annoyed because I couldn’t find a way to do it that didn’t make me look like a total goober/somebody’s grandma. Thus when I came back I was thrilled to discover a channel of teenage, observant Muslim girls from Indonesia on the message board that I moderated for work. So I got to respectfully ask them how you make a headscarf look cool* and they were happy to answer!
In conclusion, the shocking secret to finding out something about Muslim women’s lives is … ask them! Nicely! With respect! Who knew? [not men]
*The answer is “pins”
What message board you moderated if you don’t mind me asking? I’m Indonesian too, and even thought I don’t wear any kind of hijab (my sister and my mother do), it’s not weird here to see mix of women wearing hijab, jilbab, niqab, or not at all. There are even some internet famous young adult women who post tutorial how to make pretty hijab, the slang term is hijabers, not really that different than the next make up tutorial on youtube.
Hijabers is a fascinating thing to know about! Thanks kuzu!
For the record, I think the editorial intent of the title “Or You Could Ask Us” came across clearly: that it’s addressed to the outlets and editors who continually privilege non-Muslim viewpoints even in editorials about aspects of Muslim life.
Because, yes, if editors and their readers would like to know about a life experience, it makes sense to ask people who have that life experience to write about them. (Thank you, The Toast, for amplifying voices of first-hand life experience, like this essay!) But the popularity of the Daily Telegraph’s approach suggests they just want their own preconceptions mirrored back.
The word “relatable” gets used to justify articles like this, and it’s become a big red light for me when I see it now.
Of course I am in no way suggesting that Muslim women need to answer every single hurr-durr invasive question about themselves from every ignorant dork off the street. Just that, you know, non-Muslims really don’t need to speak for Muslim women every damn second of the day. Hope that was clear!
ok so on topic on this post and not ranting about annoying white guys, I really like this and would love to read multiple pieces from people who wear a niqab. I worry about the dangers of the single story (as so well put by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) and would love multiple perspectives.
The Toast needs to write a piece on Little Mosque on the Prairie!
Nice Sarah! I edit a Muslim women’s magazine and we talk about hijab so much that we only cover it (giggles) in a semi-annual all hijab issue. Anyone who wants to read more search “hijab” on WordPress, tumblr or blogspot.
Tell us the name of your magazine tho!
Oh yeah huh? https://www.sisters-magazine.com/
Yes, why not ask us? That was why I wrote From My Sisters’ Lips and who knows how many articles afterwards but it’s like *stick fingers in ears* ‘We can’t hear youuuuuuuuuuu!” Loved this article and totally share the sentiment. Masha Allah, sis, well done. And yes, this is totally relevant to Chimamanda’s description of the dangers of the single story.
What a lovely piece! Thank you for writing it. And thanks to the Toast for publishing it! What I also find incredibly infuriating is when some folks actually refuse to believe the accounts of the minority person being harassed even after they share their stories. “Surely you’re exaggerating” or “You’re just being too sensitive”. It’s like it has to be told through another (white, often male) source before it gains legitimacy in their eyes.
THIS! I’m part of the atheist community and one day at a discussion group a (relatively) recent immigrant from Pakistan started to explain what it was like to live in an Islamic state. I for one wanted to hear him but I must have been the only one, because someone – very white, very North American, has never crossed the Atlantic as far as I know – interrupted him and said “no, it’s like this”. THAT IS ACTUALLY WHAT HE SAID. He then proceeded to explain to the Pakistani gentleman what it’s like to live in an Islamic state while I sat there with my mouth hanging open. When he finished I tried to get the Pakistani to tell us about living in Pakistan, but everyone continued interrupting him/me. Everyone genuinely believed that a man born and raised in Pakistan in a Muslim family had nothing to say worth listening to on the topic of Islam society. He never attended a meeting again and I don’t blame him one bit.
This was terrific. I was perversely reminded of an interview with Courteney Cox from back when ‘Friends’ was still airing, wherein she commented about her experiences wearing a fat suit to play flashback scenes of her character as a teen, saying, “It’s really hot being fat!” No, honey, it’s hot to weigh 97 pounds and put on an enormous outfit of sleeping bags. Much better to go to the source and avoid like the plague anyone who wants to perform your identity without understanding it in the least.
I was just going to comment that this is a lot like how interviewers are always going “undercover” as fat people by wearing fat suits to find out what life is like when you are fat – or you could, y’know, ask a fat person. I’m reminded particularly of the woman wearing a fat suit and dating which is going around tumblr at the moment because I hate the whole premise so much.
Sorry to derail, because I really enjoyed this and would read more articles about this!
“I can only hope I will someday be given the right to be average” — great line.
People stared at the reporter because she was hanging around Martin Place on her own, right near the Channel 7 studios, looking like she was doing a secret undercover report on niqabs. Which….she was.
You had me at ” a traditional long loose dress called an abaya and a niqab. (I sometimes dress similarly to this, and it’s perfect if you’re cold and want to wear your pyjamas under a dress.)”
The abaya saves me so much time and hassle, plus it’s comfy. The times I don’t wear it it takes me ages to put together something normal looking to wear outside…but I am fashion-challenged anyway…
Why would we not want to wear our pajamas under our dresses if it’s cold?
Thank you for writing this, I am +100 for more pieces like this!
This. This this this this this. Beautifully written and said.
This. This this this this this. Beautifully written and said.
I am torn between my general support and love for this post and my broad standing hostility towards all religion. Yeah for anti-Islamophobia and freedom to express belief through any sartorial choice without the judgment or explication of people demanding certain affiliative western norms driven mostly by their own projected fears… but tagged with general sentiments of anti-clerisy and despair.
eta: I suppose I liked this post much better than the Unitarian Toast post on that front.
If the Bill Maher & As Seen on TV people of the world had shown themselves to be consistently pro-equality, up for personal choice, or anti-fundamentalism in all forms, their jumping to that as the reason to be vehement about Muslim women might hold water.
Other than the fact that this prompted me to go watch 10 minutes of Maher et al bloviating, I throughly enjoyed this piece.
I’m very confused about the support of religion from the Toast community–isn’t organized religion one of the most patriarchal institutions in any society? Christianity, Judaism, Islam, among others, all historically subjugate women. Don’t get me wrong, Maher’s pro-Western nationalism was scary. But the greater argument that Harris and Dawkins have always made is that any faith-based belief system is inherently flawed. I’ve read all of Dawkins books and watched many of his specials and debates, and he consistently criticizes all religions equally. That said, in recent years he has become a controversy-seeking gadfly asshole on Twitter (a role that Maher is all too happy to play). I don’t believe that religious people are stupid, but as an atheist, I hope that all religions will eventually become irrelevant in every culture. I do believe there is a difference between criticizing Islam and Muslims, just as I see a difference between criticizing Christianity and Christians.
I can understand why you feel confused. My two bits, as a adamant Christian Feminist? It’s about the right to choose, and the moral obligation, no matter one’s system of belief or unbelief, to not be a dick.
Calling someone a dick does nothing for Feminism or Christianity. I agree with VCF that the fading out of all religions might be a good thing for the world. Holy wars are something we could definitely do without. I’ve never met an atheist who wanted to prevent anyone from worshiping whatever it is they want to worship. We simply request the right to be left alone in our disbelief too. As a woman, I wonder if it’s a challenge to be Feminist while subscribing to a faith that blames a woman for the loss of paradise and expects her to be a helpmate who submits to her husband’s will. Maybe you don’t follow the Old Testament, just the New. Jesus was more of a Feminist than Jehovah, even though they’re the same entity.
I was not calling you a dick in any way. I’m sorry you read my comment as a personal insult; it was not intended as such. The point of my comment is that we *can* support religious expression (or no religious expression) so long as people aren’t jerks about whatever it is they believe or don’t believe in.
Again, I am so sorry for the unintended hurt–I hope you can see now that my words were an explanation of how the Toast can support religious expression, and not a personal insult to you.
Civil debate or agreement to disagree is the best we can strive for, as you’ve just displayed. Opening our minds and hearts to others and being respectful is what matters. The various religions have things to teach each other if it can be done without strife or bloodshed.
I know this is totally off topic, but the “JEEEEEEEZZZUUUSSSSSS” thing happened to my boyfriend while in the south on his band’s first tour. He was wearing a death metal band t-shirt.
On topic, this was charmingly written and very well-said.
This was so well written and i feel like I should make copies to keep with me when I hear people say things about Muslim women in passing. Here’s to the right to be average!
Great points, well made and beautifully written. Refreshing to read, so yes, why don’t “they” just ask?!
And by the way, allowing people, women, to have a voice is not supporting a religion. It’s about celebrating the plurality of the human voice and it’s expression.
Coming from a fellow hijabi: you seem really bitter against the wrong person. Tanya Smarts article aimed at increasing awareness and she approached it without bias. She also included perspectives of Muslim women.
You seem to either wish that she’d been dishonest about her experience or that the media completely ignore the issues muslim women deal with. Either way it’s counterproductive that you went ahead and insulted her good intentions by comparing her to racists.
I wrote this. She purposely acted in a strange way to get a certain kind of attention, she had cameras following her and nothing about her shtick was organic. Yes, i AM bitter that it take a non-Muslim to cast a light on what Muslim women face especially when there are MILLIONS of Muslim women who seem to go unheard. I don’t care about her ‘good’ intentions when it seems the entire thing was done for her benefit and popularity than for the benefit of actual Muslim women.
also, there is absolutely no such thing as reporting without bias unless the reporter is a robot, but i’m not fully convinced robots aren’t biased either.
I appreciate your perspective as a Muslim woman living in a first world country, but what about women living in impoverished third world countries in the Middle East. Do you think in those countries the abaya and a niqab are used to discriminate against women?
Yes, exactly! A Muslim woman in Canada, the United States or Europe no doubt has a much different experience from that of those in Iraq, Afghanistan or Egypt. No one is trying to take driver’s licenses away from women in the First World. If you’re raped or beaten here, you might have the chance to get help or escape.
For me, it was really instructive to have a Muslim woman tell me (via a blog post much like this one) that, ‘What the fuck are you thinking, that Muslim women can’t stand up for themselfs?’ I was like… Yeah, what the fuck am I thinking?
It’s White Saviour complex all over while also perpetuation the infantilisation of grown up women.
Privileged women need to learn to respect the fact that, holy fuck, less privileged women can also fight and we best support them by amplifying their voices, not by trying to take over the discussion and make it all about us.
This post isn’t about Muslim women in Muslim theocracies. It’s about Muslim women in a mostly Christian-leaning democracy. And I’m pretty sure that the author, after asking not to have women who aren’t in her position talk for her, she’s most certainly not goin to talk for women in yet another different situation.
If you want to support women in Muslim theocracies, ASK what they’d like you to do to support them, because they know best. And ASK what life is like for them, because, again, they know best. Don’t assume you know their problems or how to solve them.
I hope that Muslim women all over the world can stand up for themselves, but even Western women have needed and still need a little support now and then. I agree it’s about amplifying voices, not taking over and drowning them out. All I know about the needs of women in Muslim theocracies comes from mostly American news sources because I don’t know anyone directly living in those countries. Based on the stories we get, it seems they have a very restricted existence with threats of violence hanging over their heads. While there are many Western women in the same predicament, it’s not generally state-supported. I do hope that Muslim women reading this will try to remember that most Westerner’s concern for them is well-intentioned if ill-informed. We don’t have any monopoly on how to best live, but we have tremendous sympathy for anyone who seems to be denied freedom. Articles like this make it clear that many Muslim women are just fine and don’t need any intercession. Good for you! Now we can concern ourselves with the mistreated and disenfranchised within our own society.
I’m in the exact same boat at you. Whenever I’m in my women and gender studies class, I can sense that some people are tiptoeing around their words because they’re afraid I’ll be offended or get conservatively and uncomfortably shift in my chair. The ‘wow you’re so open,” is basically my everyday. Thank God I read this, because now I feel a little less alone. (I don’t know if this is weird but I live in the Toronto area too so if you ever want to chat about how horrible white people are and bitch about how we’re ‘so oppressed,’ then just reply back! I enjoyed this read.
I can never understand issues some people seem to have with people wearing headscarves etc. I am old enough to have had a grandma for whom leaving the house without a hat was unthinkable and remember a time when ladies always wore hats in Church (as they still do in some cultures). I do have to say that I would have some issue with communicating with a lady whose face was completely covered, this seems to go against the human need to see facial expressions when we talk to people.
I can never understand issues some people seem to have with people wearing headscarves etc. I am old enough to have had a grandma for whom leaving the house without a hat was unthinkable and remember a time when ladies always wore hats in Church (as they still do in some cultures). I do have to say that I would have some issue with communicating with a lady whose face was completely covered as seeing facial expressions seems important for human interaction.
Thanks for sharing, hope that it can be a goodness for us all. be a modest muslimah , Keep istiqomah. ^^