مہرین کسانه

267 notes

Whether Asian, Arab or African, the discussion over Muslim women’s agency (particularly of women of color) has been a one-dimensional, narrowed act of discourse where the agency of Muslim women is rarely discussed by her own terms. She, therefore, becomes the inferior Other. Less than a human being, she is rendered invisible yet visible. She is there but she is not in the sense that her voice does not matter as long as her image is presented before the ‘liberated, progressive’ Western feminists as they choose to interpret it. Her concerns are relegated to the issues of the veil, clitoridectomy, beatings from male members of the family and/or society. As Azizah Al-Hibri says, “The white middle-class women’s movement has bestowed upon itself the right to tell us […] what are the most serious issues for us—over our own objections.” As an Asian Muslim female participant in this oft-occurring discourse, it becomes very obvious to me to see that these issues are over-simplified and ignored by Western feminists with their ‘preference’ for issues that have been used as symbols to demonize the culture and religion in these regions. Most importantly, issues rooted in political and historical contexts are nearly never discussed because, in simple words, the finger is then pointed at the West. e.g. U.S. backed dictatorships in the Middle East and Asia, economic disparity, former Empire’s (Britain) exploitation of religion in the Asian diaspora, U.S. invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more. The equality debate strictly revolves around the veil (be that the Hijab, Niqab, Burka, Chador) and are consequently decontextualized and overtly politicized in hegemonic discourse(s) to demonize Islam and Muslims. As a result, Muslim women are viewed with the Orientalist Gaze. It is the lens with which the veil is seen as an exotic and erotic object to fuel fantasy and Islamophobic assertions that “it must be removed” in order to “liberate Muslim women.” The realistic occurrence and posibility that the veil is donned by many as a choice, and that it enables them mobility and agency is rarely considered. It is simply seen as an emblem of Islamic oppression, violence and “rejection of modernization.” The West (colonizer) therefore defines the parameters for which emancipation is achieved for the Muslim women of those regions (the colonized). Western culture is shown as the “right culture” while the East is treated with xenophobic bigotry. It is, basically, a war shown in a dichotomy of Us VS Them. In this war of ideological differences, Muslim women become the battleground over which oppressors from the West and oppressors in the East fight each other to maintain claim over. Naturally she becomes Invisible.

267 notes

Whether Asian, Arab or African, the discussion over Muslim women’s agency (particularly of women of color) has been a one-dimensional, narrowed act of discourse where the agency of Muslim women is rarely discussed by her own terms. She, therefore, becomes the inferior Other. Less than a human being, she is rendered invisible yet visible. She is there but she is not in the sense that her voice does not matter as long as her image is presented before the ‘liberated, progressive’ Western feminists as they choose to interpret it. Her concerns are relegated to the issues of the veil, clitoridectomy, beatings from male members of the family and/or society. As Azizah Al-Hibri says, “The white middle-class women’s movement has bestowed upon itself the right to tell us […] what are the most serious issues for us—over our own objections.” As an Asian Muslim female participant in this oft-occurring discourse, it becomes very obvious to me to see that these issues are over-simplified and ignored by Western feminists with their ‘preference’ for issues that have been used as symbols to demonize the culture and religion in these regions. Most importantly, issues rooted in political and historical contexts are nearly never discussed because, in simple words, the finger is then pointed at the West. e.g. U.S. backed dictatorships in the Middle East and Asia, economic disparity, former Empire’s (Britain) exploitation of religion in the Asian diaspora, U.S. invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more. The equality debate strictly revolves around the veil (be that the Hijab, Niqab, Burka, Chador) and are consequently decontextualized and overtly politicized in hegemonic discourse(s) to demonize Islam and Muslims. As a result, Muslim women are viewed with the Orientalist Gaze. It is the lens with which the veil is seen as an exotic and erotic object to fuel fantasy and Islamophobic assertions that “it must be removed” in order to “liberate Muslim women.” The realistic occurrence and posibility that the veil is donned by many as a choice, and that it enables them mobility and agency is rarely considered. It is simply seen as an emblem of Islamic oppression, violence and “rejection of modernization.” The West (colonizer) therefore defines the parameters for which emancipation is achieved for the Muslim women of those regions (the colonized). Western culture is shown as the “right culture” while the East is treated with xenophobic bigotry. It is, basically, a war shown in a dichotomy of Us VS Them. In this war of ideological differences, Muslim women become the battleground over which oppressors from the West and oppressors in the East fight each other to maintain claim over. Naturally she becomes Invisible.

121 notes

I had to rethink my feminism when I felt like Western feminists treated brown women like me like as if we’re endangered species. My voice wasn’t important to them. They just wanted a picture to misunderstand and exaggerate about.

61 notes

Between patriarchy [of the insurgent narrative] and imperialism, subject-constitution and object-formation, the figure of the woman disappears, not into a pristine nothingness, but into a violent shuttling which is the displaced figuration of the “third-world woman” caught between tradition and modernization.

65 notes

As an “eastern” woman who has lived nearly half her life in the “west,” I can admit to a personal interests in debates that tackle issues of gender, race, colonialist history and sex. […] I remember that I decided within three months of living in NYC as a teenager that I would never date two categories of men: one, those who professed an interest in India; and two, those who had travelled to India. The first, I had discovered, very quickly were looking for their personal fantasy of the “Kamasutra girl,” an impossible female caricature who was at once intellectually inferior, psychologically submissive and sexually voracious. The second category of men, I admit, seems to be a vast generalisation at first glance. Yet I realised that those who had refused to sample the local flavours at an Indian brothel during trip - due to an innate sense of decency, social or moral qualms, or plain good old upbringing - still nursed the same fantasy: the afore-mentioned Kamasutra girl. They want the final souvenir of their travels East, sex with the Oriental fantasy.

77 notes

What woman here is so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her heelprint upon another woman’s face? What woman’s terms of oppression have become precious and necessary to her as a ticket into the fold of the righteous, away from the cold winds of self-scrutiny? We welcome all women who can meet us, face to face, beyond objectification and beyond guilt.