How feminists have let down Muslim women and girls

[beastlyslumber]

This is a brilliant conversation with Yasmine Mohammed, talking about how liberal feminism has betrayed women and girls, what the wearing of hijab really means for girls, how women are being enslaved and tortured by Sharia law. And why feminists need to start caring.

open.spotify.com/episode/4yNPedvPGE2lZ4uPtYViot

That's the spotify link. I'll link it on apple music as well: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e208-yasmine-mohammed-discusses-how-western-liberals/id1437447846?i=1000587384528

Hopefully one of those links will work for you!

Yasmine Mohammed, author of Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam , shares her story of growing up in a fundamentalist Islamic home in Canada. At 13, when she tried to report the abuse she suffered at the hands of her step-father, she was told by a judge “you come from a different culture, and that’s how your family chooses to discipline you, so we just have to accept that.”

And here lies the inherent contradiction in the way in which the West views fundamentalist Islam versus other fundamentalist religions, and turns a blind eye to the abuse and suffering of millions of girls and women. She and Bridget discuss how alienating that is, the message those girls receive is “we don’t care about you, you are ‘other.'”

They cover the escalation of rape culture, sexual harassment, the problems with celebrating the hijab, the indoctrination of attitudes towards girls and women in Muslim culture, and being called Islamophobic for criticizing a tool and system of oppression. They bond over shared traumatic experiences and discuss their belief that if you can use your own trauma to help others, it has not happened in vain. If you only ever listen to one episode of Walk-Ins Welcome, this is the episode.

Is it mormonphobic of me that I thought their underwear was very funny? I may have snorted just a bit. 😂

Probably not, just rude. Maybe not for the private snorting but for telling us all about it as if you want to invite us in to what you think is a joke.

Personally, I think that thongs are fucking hilarious, usually made of synthetics and apt to cause injury including chaffing, abscesses and clitoral injuries.

I can’t think of an equivalent for boys in any of the major religions.

There are a few as have been pointed out and some branches of Judaism demand quite a lot from boys and men in the clothing department - some of which looks quite uncomfortable.

The main issue for boys, though, is circumcision in some major religions. It is for girls too, of course, and the consequences are far worse, but it is more mainstream for boys and more socially accepted.

To be fair, Mormon dress code rules are hilarious -Jesus breaks the lot! www.ecosia.org/images?q=mormon%20dress%20code%20sign#id=A5627A12F0FA6C856373ADEE11940D79FDA8B972

I think it’s okay to be honest about your feelings, if something seems ridiculous and makes you want to laugh. It is ridiculous that someone, probably a bloke, has been so prescriptive about what underwear you should wear as part of your religion. Just, why? It’s completely insane that it is so uncomfortable. Just, why?

Obviously it would be horrible to go out on the street and point and laugh at people, but I think the excessive suppression of ridicule has been a bad thing. It has led to delusional men, looking and acting ridiculous, but if you don’t pretend they look normal, or even amazing, if you dare smirk - you are toast. It’s a suppression of freedom.

As for thongs, I don’t find them funny, they actually make me feel a bit sick.

Personally, I think that thongs are fucking hilarious, usually made of synthetics and apt to cause injury including chaffing, abscesses and clitoral injuries.

I know you are just making a point (and dont actually find it funny) but that's not funny at all 😳

I know you are just making a point (and dont actually find it funny) but that's not funny at all

No, it's not funny and I was making a point but the thing is this often isn't talked about. I think I came across it on MN for the first time and then looked it up and it's actually a thing. But we don't see thing wearing in the same way as hijab-wearing even though they cause actual injury and I think we are more apt to buy the choice narrative re thongs too.

thong wearing

It was always the norm for all Christian / Muslim and Jewish women to wear hijabs. And in the countries with the oldest Christian / Jewish traditions they still do.

Same origins as nums' habits.

The hijab, burkha and niqab are NOT problematic. It's an expression of faith and brings peace to most of us that wear it. Being forced to wear one however IS problematic. But at the same time, being forced to NOT wear one is also problemtic. Will the feminists who are on this thread standing up for the women who are forced to wear a hijab also stand up for the women in countries where the hijab and niqab are banned?

Not quite the something but in the space of a week I advocated for a woman who was scared to travel to classes because she was a hijab wearer and got spat on while on the train and I commiserated with another in a predominately Islamic nation because she was spat on for refusing to wear one.

hmm. Please don;t blame feminists for what is essentially a convenient and lazy form of Western misogyny. Maybe some liberal feminists have colluded, but it's not a trend led by or endorsed by the majority of feminists and it is feminists who fight heartily for better freedoms for women living under opporessive regimes.

I hate the practice of women blaming each other for minor infractions instead of going to the misogynistic, power-driven male centre of the problem.

Beautifully put @NonnyMouse1337 👌

I understand NewToWoo but isn’t the frustrating thing about fighting patriarchy (and the misogyny that oils it) that every harmful aspect of it that feminists criticise, is reframed as “what women prefer/choose/do to each other/are empowered by doing” and thrown back on us, as though all we are doing is harming other women and supporting patriarchy, by criticising it?

Also, in the podcast, the author explains that it is not intended in an accusing way, she writes from the perspective of being on the side of the intended audience.

These boards are usually full of intelligent - informed - discussion.

As soon as we get into Islam (in any form) everybody is an expert. Although clearly, very clearly, without any expertise save a little bit of knowledge and a lot of opinion.

Muslim women are not a homogenous group. They don't speak the same language or share the same culture. They don't share the same family traditions or styles of dressing. Some hold double PhDs, some are illiterate. There's no "Muslim woman" nor are there "Muslim women".

It's really embarrassing.

It should be about choice. That's all.

I'm not well up on the various requirements of clothing in religions. But, i believe in freedom of religion and at the same time i believe in freedom from religion.

But. I'm not about to go around telling anyone what they should and shouldn't wear and i am not about to start telling a hijabi what to do.

I have a problem with pps assertion that millions of women are perfectly happy to wear a burka or niqab. I haven't ever heard any of them express an opinon outside of reports I've read about how disappointed many Afghani women are to be shoved back into them and their lack of freedoms generally. But again, I'm not about to encourage a wholesale invasion of a country to free the women (mostly because nobody would actually do that, and when they say they have done exactly that, they haven't)

People are opressed if they feel they are oppressed, and it is entirely possible to be as against enforced Hijab as much as it is possible to be against forbidding Hijab. In each case i will take my lead for the women asking for my support.

Muslim women are not a homogenous group.

Neither are ‘Western women’, but for the purposes of discussion, it makes sense to generalise.

Otherwise it’s a bit like a bloke coming into a feminist discussion and ‘not all men’-ing all over the place. It’s predictable and tedious.

Well, that seems to have annoyed you @YetAnotherSpartacus

I don’t like thongs either, and thankfully no social code has forced me to wear any either.

I meant no religious code has forced me to wear thongs.

It didn’t seem to me that the point of this thread was to imply ALL muslim women are forced to wear a hijab. I reckon people know that many don’t.
But that some do, and feel forced to do so, and could we please Open a discussion on that.

tThe issue of it being an actual choice vs being forced.
The issue with modesty clothing; that women are the keepers of the family honour.

I know there are requirements for men in the fringes of the major religions, and in the more minor too, but it does not seem to be as widespread.

apart from that - I reserve the right to laugh at anything I find funny 🤡

I think we would need a new thread to open that discussion unfortunately

The OP has been quite clear that this thread is only to discuss the podcast, to the point of telling two Muslim posters that their contributions on hijab wearing aren't welcome unless they listen to the podcast

I'm not sure any conversation on how feminism can help Muslim women can be productive if Muslim women are not allowed to contribute their own life experiences without jumping through hoops first. Its very white saviour (although granted I don't know the race of any posters, I merely mean it comes across as white saviour)

Not really. I just asked people to listen to the podcast before commenting on the podcast. But it seems like people just want to talk about hijab generally without reference to any of the ideas discussed in the podcast so my attempts to keep the thread on topic were futile.

Obviously Muslim women are welcome to contribute. I have no idea what religion any pp have so you can stop with the accusations.

Both @Emmmie and @CleanTheChicken made it clear they were Muslim.

They are not the only people on the thread to not have listened to the podcast. They were the only ones who were told their contributions were unwelcome.

You may not wish to admit to bias, unconscious or otherwise. But there is a difference in your tone when you are posting to the two people I've mentioned compared to other posters.

In the podcast they do touch on that. Both of the women were brought up thinking that they would burn in hell if they didn’t do xyz. Yasmine as a Muslim and Bridget as a Catholic. Yasmine mentions a passage in the Qur’an where the prophet has a vision of women hung by their hair and their brains are boiling because they showed their hair in public. The point was in the discussion, if you believe that one option leads to eternal damnation and the other to heaven, it’s not much of a freely taken choice. Or if you choose one option you are a dirty, hateful slut, and if you choose the other you are a good woman or girl, which choice are you going to take? So covering the hair doesn’t need to be mandated by law for it to not really be a choice.

Both Emmmie and CleanTheChicken made it clear they were Muslim.

That wasn’t all they had in common. They both posted prohibitively.

I don't think I was unfair at all in what I said in response to their comments. They both made it clear they had no interest in the podcast and thought it was hateful and shit. So I think it was fair enough to say their comments were not relevant.

You can call me whatever names you like but it's just bullying and it won't work on me.

Yes it seems like that they wanted to stop any criticisms of their patriarchal religion on a feminist board BeastlySlumber.

I'm not bullying you, I'm giving you my perspective. You can tell me I am a bully and making accusations but it doesn't change the fact that the only people who have been asked to leave the thread are Muslim.

Out of interest, if Muslim people are not allowed to join the conversation, or are only allowed to join if they have a view point you agree with, how precisely is feminism going to help them?