To think latent Islamaphobia is as prevalent as ever

[Lesschubtolove]

This is based from several posts I’ve now seen in MN, about burquinis, wearing the hijab, in fact anything vaguely Muslim related on MN and in print media as well as the real world.

Most comments from posters on MN are fairly neutral but there are a fair number that then state some pretty (pulls yikes face) comments, especially about women’s clothing or integration. There also seem to be a lot of misconceptions about what Muslims actually believe.

It seems to me as though yes most people won’t come out and say that they dislike Muslims or think they are stupid, backwards, oppressed (insert adjective here) but the disdain comes out in more subtle ways.

im genuinely quite surprised at the misconceptions I read on MN, but I guess they must apply to real life too, but just that people don’t wish to voice them.

ps I am a Muslim myself. I did an ama a while back

Did you miss that muzlim meeting babe? Aisha brought baklava. I couldn’t make it either was on hols. Missing all the big meetings where we as a collective religion of over a billion make our unilateral decisions on these things… what are we like eh.

see you at the next one!

@Cuckoosheep

Op, i don't and wouldn't want to silence others but you cannot change what it means to be a feminist to support a misogynistic religion in order to be inclusive of women in that religion or for those women to be able to call themselves a feminist while buying into the misogyny.

What you're basically saying is feminism is for white women only, or that black and brown women (or white converts) can only be feminist on your narrow terms.

No wonder black women are running away from white feminism.

You don't own feminism. Islam had had its feminists from the time of Khadija, Prophet Mohammed's first wife.

But as you've shown in this thread Islam is misogynistic and while I know you've said it's changing it (scarf) represents the suppression of women more so than just having to be modest its everything else too, it's the representation of all the values and beliefs behind it.

I can find it in myself to support individual women who will be in difficult situations and this is the best they can do to go against it but they shouldn't be in that position in the first place. I can't support the ideology behind it as a whole no. As much as yourself and other posters are inclusive or standing up against certain things these are things that haven't changed as a whole until then it represents all the inequalities that come with Islam.

I know you've used the Queer word as an example I do know men who have been offended by being called this and wouldn't use it themselves likewise I have a severely disabled child and would be appalled if there was a effort to reclaim retard as a label.

Ive been trying to answer your original post and explain my situation/ thoughts. You were asking why there was so much islamophobia I don't think there is, I don't think the majority of people are against Islam I think it's aspects that don't match with their beliefs. You've implied you welcome the changes and you've made comparison with the progress other religions have made, hopefully in x years this argument won't be valid as Islam will have evolved to be more in line with modern life or not if that's what Muslims want, it isn't my choice.

I do believe conversations like this need to be had, if only the people in charge would do this...

lesschub I respect the way that you have posted on here. I don't agree with you on many issues, but you have always posted thoughtfully.
As a Christian, I also have a lot of respect for Muslims, in that your faith is central to your day-to-day existence in a way that my faith feels more peripheral.
(By this, I obviously don't mean all people of those faiths, but how it feels to me).
But I still feel that Islam is essentially misogynistic. Many women, like you and other posters on this thread, have the ability, intellectually, to deal with to your own satisfaction, but that leaves a lot of powerless women who don't have that ability.
When I ran conversation classes, I made friends with several Muslim women, but they also told me of friends of those, who couldn't speak English, whose husbands wouldn't allow them to attend. So those women are powerless.

As a brown woman who vehemently opposes the veil, I completely disagree with this. You can call it feminism and claim it’s empowerment, but I completely disagree.

Whether or not you are wearing it by choice does not excuse the fact that MOST women are forced or coerced into it. You might have the choice, but the millions and millions of women in Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi, and increasingly places like Pakistan do not have that luxury.

when my mother was growing up in Pakistan, rarely were women veiled outside the tribal areas - now everyone is. This is not choice or progress, it is regression and misogyny.

Look at photos of places like Iran pre 1979, then look at it now. Women are forced to conform to ideals of chastity and piety that are entirely for the benefit of men.

So yes, I am allowed to speak up and call it anti-feminist because changing your behaviour to please men - be it the veil or a miniskirt - is not a feminist action in my definition of feminism.

Silencing dissenting voices on the basis of Islamophobia or racism is not helpful to anyone.

Give it a rest, that clearly isn't what I've said and not what I think. You can't just say racism as a response to every critism or are you saying that any critism is racist?

Definitions shouldn't be forced to change to include another group for the sake of it. This is where I made the comparison to the current trans debate.

And for those talking about how Islam brought increased rights for women - nonsense. Zoroaster’s teachings held men and women as equals. This wasn’t upheld in laws (see patriarchal society for that one) but it is there in the religious texts.

I'm not silencing anyone?

You are saying women who wear the hijab can't be feminists. That's patently untrue. Come and meet some of the hijab wearing women I work. They would mincemeat if you in minutes.

And I didn't call you a racist or even say the word. Funny that's how you saw yourself based on my post.

I wasn’t responding to you.

I am another brown woman who has serious concerns about Islam and misogyny. Shutting down people’s legitimate concerns by shouting “Islamophobia!” and “white feminism!” is certainly an attempt to silence them, in my view. It is also a lazy argument in response to rational debate by other posters.

You brought race into it "What you're basically saying is feminism is for white women only, or that black and brown women (or white converts) can only be feminist on your narrow terms" this isnt what i said, the flip of it is it sounds like what you wat it to mean do you have an argument back but that isn't the case. I hate to disappoint you but the racism card isn't one you can play.

As for making mincemeat out of me 1) why would they be violent? 2) is that some sort of threat?

Sorry I'd misinterpreted, my mistake.

Easy enough for you to say if you're non Muslim / don't wear hijab. It's not you being discriminated against by white women in the name of feminism.

Firstly, you know nothing about me.

secondly, how exactly have white women, specifically, discriminated against you? Disagreement does not mean discrimination.

I know nothing of you nor do I want to. You know nothing about me either.

If you think the attitude that Muslim women or hijab wearing women are oppressed / controlled does not result in othering Muslim women, underestimating them or treating them differently in the workplace, then you're under a delusion.

when my mother was growing up in Pakistan, rarely were women veiled outside the tribal areas - now everyone is. This is not choice or progress, it is regression and misogyny.

There has been an increase of women having acid thrown in their faces for not veiling.

And as far as women's safety, below is a link to site showing the 10 worst countries for women's safety. Pakistan is 10, Afghanistan is 1, Syria is 2, Sudan is 6 and Somalia 8. All of these are Islamic countries.

10 of the worst countries for women's rights (concernusa.org)

I should clarify that the acid-throwing is in Pakistan and is increasingly a problem in Bangladesh, too.

No I was discussing religion and misogyny.

You seem to be the one having difficulty comprehending the discussion and resorting to playground name calling as opposed to using sound reason to join the conversation. Not every criticism is racist or Islsmophobic and what you're doing is demonstrating the point some of us have been making in that conversations are often shut down on this basis when in fact is nothing of the sort.

Again, I didn't mention racism, you did. But since you did, the worn out defence that Islam isn't a race doesn't hold true, we both know that most Muslims in the UK are brown/black.

No, you just want to have the conversation on your terms, and are having a tantrum because I won't play ball.

Projection?

@Cuckoosheep our own government's assertions about race, immigration, religion, threats, etc are not coming from a neutral starting point. The Prevent review was not led by someone with a history of objectivity and has been widely criticised. However, dissenting voices are known to get de-platformed.

The fastest growing area of concern for Prevent is extreme right wing radicalisation (42% of Channel cases), with Islamist radicalisation at 19% of Channel cases. Even looking at Prevent referrals as a whole, in 2021/22 for example, extreme right wing radicalisation concerns accounted for 20% of referrals and Islamist radicalisation for 16%.

Prevent statistics can sometimes appear misleading, as the threshold for a referral is that someone has a concern. Referrals then get screened, assessed and not all need acted on - the figures for cases picked up by Channel are a better indicator of where actual areas of concern lie, as Channel cases are those where multi-agency professionals have agreed that there is a concern.

@Bingbangbongbash what area in Pakistani is your mother from? My husband is Pakistani and his mother wears a dupatta as a scarf, no face covering and she’s said she’s never really seen face covering until she came to the Uk. She goes to Pakistan on a semi regular basis (every other year) and she’s not from a well off, educated or even metropolitan background. Now I’m not from Pakistan so I take her word at face value, but I wonder if there is an aspect of regionality here. I follow a woman on Instagram who is of Pakistani descent and doesn’t wear a scarf in the UK or uae (where she now lives) but when visiting Pakistan she would cover her face with her scarf ‘out of respect for the males in her family’. I think she was visiting Peshawar or Sindh province