In February of 2018, #MosqueMeToo began trending on twitter. Feminist, scholar and Muslim woman Mona Ethalway encouraged Muslim women across the globe to participate in sharing stories of being sexually harassed while on hajj. Much like all women participating in the mainstream Me Too movement, these women had stories of trauma that were brought to light. However, the fact that this discussion was separate from the established movement brings about questions of inclusivity and validation of Muslim women. In fact, there is a common misconception that Islam cannot coexist with feminism and that Muslim women are “oppressed”. This argument only serves to undermine Islam and elevate the west.
However, contemporary Muslim women have agency over their bodies, dress, and decisions. The notion that Muslim women are being tyrannized by their own religion is a form of neocolonialism in and of itself by denoting Islam as a premodern society. The ways Muslim women in society are seen, portrayed and heard are narrated by western ideologies and oftentimes paint an image of weakness and acquiescence. However, these women such as Mona Ethalway are prominent figures within the movement and serve an important role in creating intersectional change within the framework of modernity. There is irony in the fact that this “mainstream” feminism is not transnational and in turn, many Muslim women have turned to different discourses of feminism. For many, this includes a version of their own “Islamic feminism”, rebranding the term to fit and conform to their ways of life. However, the current debates in the Muslim community over whether a rebranding is necessary or whether to take on baseline secular feminism still persist.
This argument exists within the convoluted configuration of what can and cannot be classified as contemporary. These definitions of modernity are not stagnant. In many cases, modernity is defined in relation to western values of what is considered “modern”. Most of the time modernity is defined through sanctions of different power relations between cultures, “As a result, contemporary ways of being are only considered modern when they align themselves with European intellectual tradition”[1]. In this sense, holding values of western feminism as a marker of what is “modern” assumes that the Islam community is superannuated. However, many values of western feminism do not assist or succor Muslim women. “Today’s ahistorical narratives of the Muslim world and the West ignore the political contexts in which these categories were born”[2].
These narratives of Western feminism are inherently exclusive. They make assumptions about Muslim women- that they are oppressed and subjugated to a religion that does not represent them and thus this version of feminism must be rescued. As argued by author and scholar Fatima Seedat, these norms ostracize Muslim women from the conversation, “Paradoxically, in this equation, Western women and liberal feminism remain the normative standard while other women and different feminisms remain othered”[3] There are common discussions and arguments to be made against Islam and its’ “mistreatment” of Muslim women, “What violences are entailed in this transformation, and what presumptions are being made about the superiority of that to which you are saving her? Projects of saving other women depend on and reinforce a sense of superiority by Westerners, a form of arrogance that deserves to be challenged”[4]. The response to these categories is the construction and branding of Islamic feminism.
In acknowledgment of such exclusion, many scholars theorize that Islamic feminism fills in the gaps in which Western feminism cannot. Ideals of this version of feminism are contextual, “The significant element in the term is in the qualifier ‘Islamic’. The adjective ‘Islamic’ refers to the key framework under which this knowledge is to be situated”. Patriarchal analysis of the Qur’an is used to suggest that Islam is against its women. However, by using analytical frameworks within the religion of Islam, these scholars state that feminism exists and functions differently in different spaces. Discourses of Islamic feminism are more radical in the sense that they sprawl across the typical boundaries of “secular” Western feminism, Others turn to specific examples within the Qur’an.
On the contrary, many scholars feel as though the term Islamic feminism is too confined. When defined under very specific terms, many argue that by creating a separate category for Muslim women, they are being further deviated and ostracized. Some argue that Islamic feminism is confined to religious scholars with specific religious literacy and interpretive skills. Al-Sharmani makes the argument that this idea excludes Muslim women from the general conversation, “Islamic feminism, whether in the form of a knowledge project or a political movement, has been either too quickly celebrated or dismissed. Too wide a range of different and divergent knowledge projects and activist efforts have been lumped together under this term”[6] In this sense, the work being done under the term does not get the recognition that it would if it had no label.
In the end, it boils down to whichever discourses help Muslim women navigate their space in the world. In certain cases, both versions of feminism can be used cohesively, “Secular feminism and Islamic feminism [are] two named phenomena. While they are mainly seen as different and often in tension with each other, they are seldom seen as flowing in and out of each other”[7] However, this discussion also entails a conversation about overarching colonialism. The true goal of feminism is the advocacy of equal rights for all women. To achieve this the west must reexamine the virtues of “white-feminism” and deconstruct the idea that Muslim women lack their own sovereignty and jurisdiction, “The reason respect for difference should not be confused with cultural relativism is that it does not preclude asking how we, living in this privileged and powerful part of the world, might examine our own responsibilities for the situations in which others in distant places have found themselves”[8]. In order to support and uphold the intersectional values of feminism, the change must be sparked internally by the systems that created this same division.
[1] Seedat, Fatima. “Islam, Feminism, and Islamic Feminism: Between Inadequacy and Inevitability.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 29, no. 2 (2013): 25-45. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/530623.
[2] Aydin, Cemil. The Idea of the Muslim World: a Global Intellectual History. USA, HARVARD UNIV Press, 2017.
[3] Seedat, Fatima. “Islam, Feminism, and Islamic Feminism: Between Inadequacy and Inevitability.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 29, no. 2 (2013): 25-45. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/530623.
[4] Abu-Lughod, Lila. Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.
[6] Al-Sharmani, Mulki. 2014. “Islamic Feminism: Transnational and National Reflections”. Approaching Religion 4 (2), 83-94. https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.67552.
[7] Badran, Margot. “Between Secular and Islamic Feminism/s: Reflections on the Middle East and Beyond.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 1, no. 1 (2005): 6-28.
[8] Abu-Lughod, Lila. Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.
Works Cited:
Abu-Lughod, Lila. Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.
Al-Sharmani, Mulki. 2014. “Islamic Feminism: Transnational and National Reflections”. Approaching Religion 4 (2), 83-94. https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.67552
Aydin, Cemil. The Idea of the Muslim World: a Global Intellectual History. USA, HARVARD UNIV Press, 2017
Badran, Margot. “Between Secular and Islamic Feminism/s: Reflections on the Middle East and Beyond.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 1, no. 1 (2005): 6-28. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40326847.
MIT Media Lab. 2018 Disobedience Awards at the MIT Media Lab . Photograph. Creative Commons . Cambridge, MA : Creative Commons , n.d.
Omari, Dina, Juliane Hammer, and Khorchide Mouhanad. “Islam and Feminism: Global and European Variations on a Common Theme .” In Muslim Women and Gender Justice: Concepts, Sources, and Histories. Abingdon, Oxon : Routledge, 2019.
Seedat, Fatima. “Islam, Feminism, and Islamic Feminism: Between Inadequacy and Inevitability.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 29, no. 2 (2013): 25-45. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/530623.