How feminists have let down Muslim women and girls

Hope you're feeling better now! I want to read Unveiled - it's on my list.

How patronising to assume that any Muslim woman is not mentally capable to fully understand what hijab means TO HER whether she is for or against it.

I don't assume that.

By the way, the thread and podcast are not about the hijab alone. The discussion seems to have focused on that, but the thread was intended to allow discussion of all the issues raised in the podcast, which go way beyond hijab alone.

You may dislike Islam/Muslims

What a strange thing to say. I don't dislike Muslims! As for 'disliking' Islam - I'd say I don't have any more respect for it than I do for any other religion. And aspects of Islam, such as Sharia law, seem self-evidently anti-woman and dangerous.

People like Yasmine and Ayaan are not speaking for Muslim women, they are speaking over us, silencing us, minimising us, making it harder for us to integrate into society because the only way they paint us to others is oppressed, weak, trapped, no mind of our own, slaves to men etc.

Could you please quote or link some examples of this? Timestamps from the podcast maybe? Because I haven't observed either woman painting that picture in the way you suggest. In what I've read and listened to, they talk about women who do not have the freedom of choice in how they live - for example, women in Iran. Certainly I don't see them charactering women as weak, rather the opposite. I think it's bloody incredible to see Iranian women risking their lives to fight for their freedom. Nothing weak about that!

Besides, how does Yasmine want the society to stop women from wearing hijab? Shaming? Fines? Job terminations? Denying healthcare? Prison? Forceful disrobing and hijab removal on the street? I can tell you right now none of these would stop me from wearing my hijab. So, what is the answer?

Did you listen to the podcast? She isn't campaigning against the hijab.

What I don't and cannot support is demonising an entire religion (any religion) and all its followers. This is nothing short of hate speech and extremism and it just makes such individuals lose all credibility.

I'm not sure I know which individuals you're talking about here? Links?

Support Muslim women by supporting our decision to wear the hijab or not to wear it.

Yes, as long as it's a woman's free choice, I don't see the hijab as problematic in itself. But much of this particular discussion has been about the forced wearing of hijab and the forcing of girls to wear hijab. As you say, we should support the decision not to wear it as well. I support the women in Iran who are laying down their lives for their right to choose.

Please don't try to tell us how we should be feeling. Some of us already get enough of that.

No problem. No intention of telling you how to feel. As I've said many times, I wanted to discuss the issues raised in the podcast. Would love you to let me know what specifically in the podcast you disagreed with and could provide a different point of view on. Or if you want to stay focused on the issue of wearing hijab, did you read the resources a pp linked, from Muslim women arguing for the wearing of hijab? I responded to those upthread. What did you think of them? Did you agree with their points? Why? What did you disagree with in my responses? Let's talk about it.

Thanks TheBio. I genuinely welcome people bringing other views and voices and I'm happy to engage with anyone who disagrees with me. I just wish that people would actually read and listen, too, so we can have a useful conversation!

Having said that, in between the nonsense there have been some really interesting discussions on this thread and some brilliant contributions. And I'm happy to see the best arguments from the opposing side, too.

Thank you, tea. I have a feeling you are right!

I'm pissed off with the bullshit people have been throwing at me on this thread so maybe I am being a bit defensive, but you did say "you can claim" - the paragraph break didn't do anything to alert me that you meant something different.

But I apologise for being defensive. I spent a long time reading and responding to resources a pp posted and instead of engaging they just flounced! It's almost like some people don't actually want to discuss the issues, they just want me to shut up.

It's not me who made that claim about women politicians wearing hijab; it was Masih Alinejad. I agree with her, but you should at least have the respect to attribute people's words accurately, especially on a thread where I'm repeatedly being told I'm not respecting Muslim women's voices. At least I'm listening enough to know who's saying what.

I did state it clearly! It's about the podcast and what people think of the issues raised in the podcast.

The thread veered off into talking about the hijab but that's not what the OP is about. I tried to keep the thread on topic but got told that's not fair. So here we are.

Yes. Although I'd say the misogyny is far from unconscious.

Strange that you haven't engaged even with the articles that you shared, which I read and responded to in quite some detail.

Okay bye then.

But no one is being excluded from the conversation. The podcasts we've talked about are from Muslim women. And I've listened and responded to the other voices you've shared. So can we stop with this bollocks now please?

Also as I've said repeatedly, we can talk about hijab but that's only one very narrow part of the discussion. You seem to be resistant to seeing the bigger picture?

But unless you leave room for female Muslim voices to join the conversation, and to voice whether they do actually want to wear the hijab or not then all you are doing is pushing women out of feminism because they don't fit the western ideal.

Literally the podcast in the OP and the other podcast with Masih Alinejad are female Muslim voices. They still count, even if they're saying something you don't want to hear or makes you uncomfortable.

What "western ideal"? Do you think feminists are wanting Muslim women to meet western beauty standards in order to be included in feminism? I think this is very obviously not happening.

Would you still have this attitude if we were talking about another fundamentalist religion? It seems to me if we were talking about fundamentalist Christianity marrying off young girls, flogging them for showing their hair, killing them as a punishment for being raped etc, it would be a lot easier for some women to get the picture.

Otherwise how is feminism any different to the patriarchy in this respect? If men are standing there saying 'you must wear this' and feminists are standing there saying 'you must not wear this' it's two sides of the same coin - policing womens clothing

Yes, but that's a total mischaracterisation of the debate. It's men and women saying "you must wear this" (and in many cases there's a consequence to not doing so) and feminists on the other side saying, "you should be free to wear what you like, no one should rape you or harm you or disown you, your body is your own, you deserve dignity, you deserve a childhood" etc etc.

In "Muslim feminists reclaim the hijab to fight patriarchy" - again we're solely focused on hijab. This article is a very woke and wordy explanation of how some Muslim women feel the hijab represents "an emblem of female inclusivity. The Safra Project, a group that advocates for lesbian, bisexual, queer and transgender Muslim women’s rights is one. It claims hijabs and burqas are part of a Muslim woman’s queer identity. Its members want to embrace their sexual identity with the help of Islam rather than be forced to choose between the two."

I'm not sure this has anything to do with feminists? I don't believe there's such as thing as a transgender Muslim woman for a start.

If women want to claim hijabs and burqas as part of their queer identity, that does not make it incumbent upon feminists to stop campaigning against the oppression of girls and women under Sharia law.

With real and painted veils, women reject the sexualisation of female bodies by covering them. They gain a sense of self-respect without adhering to capitalist norms of beauty. They promote a new version of feminism.

Okay. That's fine by me. But I don't subscribe to the "new version of feminism" (which just looks like woke, queer politics to me.) And I think that other posters have commented on the way 'modesty' is used to sexualise girls and women, and some of the downsides of that.

Democratic discussions about veiling are welcome but ultimately the public needs to acknowledge a woman’s freedom to choose not only her own form of a dress but also to shape its meanings – whatever they may be.

I actually agree with that. As I've said before, the main issue I have as far as hijab goes is girls and women being forced to wear it. We can't pretend that just because some women choose it, that all women choose it. We know for a fact that is not the case.

So, "the war on Muslim bodies" describes how the writer was not allowed to play in her basketball match unless she took off her hijab. The coach was male, don't know about the referee. The writer says that it was this moment that inspired her in her campaign against what she calls Western feminism, which later in the article she calls "white feminism". She describes other instances where girls have been asked or forced to remove hijab.

So first of all I'd say I'm completely against forcibly removing hijab from girls. That is a violation of their bodily dignity and I'd hope that no feminist would be in favour of this. It strikes me as very strange that the writer associates this with feminism when it's not at all clear that this is behaviour undertaken or supported by feminists.

She then says: So, what does white feminism do for us? This “empowering” movement trying to “liberate” Muslim women? It takes away our agency. It denies us the opportunities to function as mothers, athletes, and students. It puts fear in our hearts just to walk down the street. It makes every interaction a battleground for our identity. Choose between being an athlete or practicing your religion; choose between an education or practicing your religion; choose between being a good mom or practicing your religion.

But she's presented literally zero evidence that this is what feminists are doing, or what they're concerned with at all. As we've seen on these threads, Muslim women like Masih Alinejad are begging western feminists to stop with the cultural relativism and take a stand. So I'm struggling to think of examples of how feminists are denying Muslim women the opportunity to be mothers, etc. This seems like baseless hyperbole to me.

She talks about colonialism and imperialism and compares the urging of Muslim women to take off the hijab (by whom?) to the imperialist aggression of the French in Algeria. She then goes on to say that actually Islamic cultures are matriarchal, and western women don't have things any better so they have no grounds for superiority. In her critique, feminism is part of the colonial project.

To this day, Muslim women keeping on their hijabs is a symbol of resistance, a refusal to be an object of possession, and a refusal to be undertaken by our oppressors.

Okay. But much of what we've been talking about is the oppression of girls. It's one thing to choose to wear hijab as a symbol of your religion; it's another thing completely to be told if you don't wear hijab you'll be raped and your hair ripped out. The writer sees the hijab as a symbol of resistance. Masih Alinejad sees it as a symbol of oppression and slavery. There are competing views here. Surely it's legitimate for Western women to weigh up both views and decide which they're more persuaded by? I'd also like to know how the writer squares the circle between her idea of Muslim women as fighters with the hijab as their proud symbol of resistance, and the actual women fighters in Iran who are sacrificing their lives for the right to take the hijab off.

Also, although this discussion has veered more towards talking about hijab, that's only one element of what the podcasts and resources are talking about. I think most people would agree that it's an adult woman's choice to wear hijab. But when it comes to children, it's a different matter. And when we look at niqab and burka it's different again. And when we think about Sharia law, it's something different again.