Feminism and Islam how to navigate with my 9yo DD.

[Rosiefifi]

Apologies this isn't a goady thread. I'm extremely against hate or prejudice of religions. A imam came to visit my daughter's school they were discussing Islam and islamophobia. One of DDs closest friends is Muslim which is all good. DD started discussing how she could become a Muslim but she loves pork too much. She started discussing hijab and the niqab. To be honest I think all Abrahamic religions are patriarchal in nature it isn't inclusive to Islam.

I've also explained how some Muslim majority countries are more liberal than others in regards to women's rights. Turkey for example, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan have poor women's rights. I explained everyone has different views and people interpret their religion differently . DD asked me my views and I said I personally don't mind what others do but I wouldn't want to wear a headscarf or niqab as men don't have too.

It's such a sensitive subject , I don't want to impose my views but I feel very passionately about women's rights.

‘Women’s rights’ also include freedom of choice for women to be able to identify as they wish and practise their choice of religion or culture freely. I guess the argument FOR your daughter is that she is very privileged to have the benefit of ‘choice’ in deciding that she may even want to become a Muslim (likely a phase given her young age), and it’s not something that has been forced on her or she has been born into. It is her freedom and right to do so, having been brought up in a liberal country and to open-minded parents.

That said, and as someone from an ethnoreligious abrahamic group not dissimilar from Islam, I would focus on teaching your daughter about the more ‘traditional’ roles of women in these religions and the expectations. While every religion has varying degrees of adherence extremity in any of them tends to result in the same gender specific roles.

I would place emphasis on teaching your daughter some of the expectations placed on women in any one of these religions (dressing codes, behavioural codes, family life) and let her investigate this herself a little too. I think the likely result is a gradual disinterest when she realises the commitment and many of the restrictions that she would face.

As an FYI I have gradually become less religious despite being brought up in and raised in a pretty strict environment; predominantly because it was so hard to adhere to in the U.K. and based on the rigidity of many rules (like not wearing trousers or showing certain parts of the skin, among others.) This level of piety tends to be pretty isolating outside of the native countries they originate.

Did your DD understand that wearing hijab/niqab/burka is meant to be a choice each woman makes for herself & that lots of Muslim girls & women [in the UK] will go through different levels of “modest” dress (including not at all!) as they grow up, grow older & grow old?

Obviously there are still instances where that isn’t the case. One aspect of a friend’s abusive [arranged, on leaving school] marriage was that she was forced to cover completely, even to wearing gloves: I got the shock of my life when she spoke to me at a train station - she’d worn short skirts & vest tops in Sixth Form, (no hijab!); & just a few months later there she was in a niqab, abaya & gloves. Once she escaped her husband & his family she went back to Western dress & stopped covering her hair (other than at the Mosque, obviously). But “men can be controlling & abusive” is not news; & religion just allows for varying expressions of that control, whether it’s Hindus/Buddhists/Jains shaving off their hair, or Muslims/Jews/Christians covering it - but the fact that some men weaponise faith & exploit belief systems doesn’t invalidate the fact that women are meant to make those choices for themselves as a reflection of their unique & individual relationship with God/spiritual journey.

Lots of discourse about hijabs is heavily politicised & ignores what Muslim women actually have to say: this JSTOR article gives a good overview of some issues & a brief history. An Oxford Student argues the hijab’s a feminist symbol in this 2022 Oxford Blue [student newspaper] article. And in 2017 Sidra Binte Islam wrote about being a “hijabi feminist” on the HuffPost contributor platform. There are absolutely places where it’s used as a tool of oppression - it’s difficult at the moment to think of hijabs & not think of the women & girls of Iran who are literally dying to be free of them. But that’s about corrupt & brutal regimes - are belts morally wrong because people use them to beat children with; or is it just wrong to beat children?