The Dallas Morning News’ Alessandra L. González writes about Islamic feminism. But she gets some facts wrong, which really worries me because she is director and principal investigator of the Islamic Social Attitudes Survey Project at the Institute for the Studies of Religion at Baylor University. Hmmmmm. For someone who is the director and principle investigator for such a fancy-sounding project, she doesn’t seem to know what she’s talking about.
Now, Ms. González seems like a nice woman. I can identify with what (I think) she’s trying to do. And I’m a graduate student myself. However, although it seems like she’s trying to present Muslim women in a better light, I take serious issue with this poorly-researched article.
She writes, “News of the recent Saudi ruling of 200 lashes as punishment for a victim of a gang rape reminds us that honor killings, female genital mutilation, polygamy and wife-beatings continue to be popularly justified by Islamic culture, and must continue to be fought against.” Apparently, Ms. González thinks that lashings are inherently tied to honor killings and other horrific behavior that is billed as “Islamic.”
How many times do we need to go over this?! Just because a Muslim does something doesn’t make it Islamic. Is self-immolation considered Buddhist because some Buddhist monks have done this as a protest? Come on.
And…uhhhh…popularly justified? What? While I agree that these things are atrocious, I don’t agree that they’re popularly justified by Muslims or Islamic behavior.
She also states that in Iran, “one of the dreaded corners in the ‘axis of evil,’ women serve as deputy cabinet ministers and even judges.” Hey, thanks for reiterating the idea that Iran is horrible, dreadful place! However, my real beef with this statement is the fact that it’s not correct. Women cannot become judges in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Unless Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel-prize-winning human right lawyer, was incorrect when she told the world that she could no longer serve as a judge after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Then Ms. González uses Christina Hoff Summers as a source for what Islamic feminism really entails. Seriously, Alessandra? You don’t want to ask any Islamic feminists what being an Islamic feminism means? You don’t even want to ask any Muslim women what Islamic feminism is about?
If you don’t know who Ms. Hoff Summers is, she’s the author of a book entitled The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men and articles such as “A Feminist Threat on Campus”. Sounds like an expert on all types of feminism to me!
Ms. Hoff Summers seems to think that Islamic feminists’ motto is: “If you can’t beat patriarchy, join it.” WHAT?! While I could potentially agree that Islamic feminists in Muslim-majority countries “pick their battles,” I don’t agree that they seek to ally themselves with patriarchy. They simply work within patriarchy to achieve their ends—it’s not unrealistic to work within a structure to bring about its eventual dismantling.
Finally, Ms. González takes the cake when she says, “Islamic and American feminism are not entirely comparable because Muslim women currently live within societies where rigid gender roles and traditions are still enforced…” This implies the following:
Assumption #1: Islamic feminism and American feminism are incompatible and mutually exclusive.
Assumption #2: Rigid gender roles are not enforced in the U.S. Bwaaaaaaaaaahahahahahhahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Assumption #3: American feminism is a monolithic entity that has no different views or sects within it. Same goes for Islamic feminism. If you’ve seen one feminist, you’ve seen ‘em all!
Assumption #4: All Muslim women live “other there” in the Middle East. I guess Ms. González isn’t aware that there are over three million Muslims in the U.S. alone.
Wow. With friends like these, who needs enemies? If you’d like to give Ms. González a piece of your mind, you can email her at Alessandra_Gonzalez@baylor.edu.
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As far as the whole “Islamic culture” dispute goes, I agree that this person is sadly misinformed. My observation is that there’s a tendency among Westerners to view Islamic culture as monolithic, which is ridiculous. As with all religions, local populations fuse existing cultural norms and customs into their religion, creating a patchwork of different customs under the same faith. Lazy or ignorant observers often cherry-pick the uniqueness of different communities, and apply them to the faith at large, which is a woefully irresponsible approach to any anthropological study.While that particular “expert” or even those Muslims in question she was referring to, might believe their actions are part of “Islamic culture” the mere fact that you adamantly oppose that view is proof that there is no unified Islamic culture.For another example, the majority of my family is Catholic, yet we wouldn’t view a celebration of the Day of the Dead or a parade of the Saints by our counterparts in Mexico as a part of our Catholic culture.Different communities in the same faith can have wildly different ideas about their religion, something that expert should take note of.
Gah! Hoff Summers?? She used the most anti-feminist (she is to me) person as a source for Islamic feminism? *headdesk*But to address a few things here, yeah I undertood that she was trying to present Muslim wome in a way in which they don’t seem “oppressed” but from her article it seems to me she ends up doing just that. Also, it doesn’t seem as though she did her research well enough. But I’ll leave it alone, it is an opinion after all. Wonderful blog by the way, just started reading it.
Welcome, Sakura Kiss! Thanks for your comments!I agree with Henry, and I think the Catholic/Day of the Dead analogy is a great one!
I’ve started thinking cynically about the term ‘Islamic feminism’ after attending a seminar at my university which was ‘Engaging Islam: feminisms, religiosities and self-determinations.’ [yes, it was awesome] One of the speakers pointed out that one would scoff at the terms ‘Christian feminism’ or ‘Jewish feminism,’ so why is ‘Islamic feminist’ widely acknowledged as a legitimate construction or concept? It seems to be just another way of making Islam some whole other weird thing in an inaccessible category of its own.
Dykonoclast, personally, I wouldn’t see anything odd about the term “Christian feminist” or “Jewish feminist”; I would assume it’s similar to Islamic feminism in that that particular type of feminism was guided by that particular faith.
Another objection she raised was that it’s outsiders who most frequently employ the term, assuming that if a woman is Muslim AND a feminist, then it’s Islamic feminism, by jingo. Obviously the speaker did a much better job than I of expressing why the term ‘Islamic feminism’ isn’t necessarily one’s friend.And while I’m commenting, I just want to say that this is really an incredibly awesome blog you’ve got here. I found you via feministing, I liked, I went through and read all your archives just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I’m not sure if you’ll be flattered or horrified to learn that your team maintains a blog even a queer atheist anarchist feminist could [and does] love. You’ve got some really valuable insights, you’re saying stuff that needs to be said, and I’m hooked. Keep writing, I’ll keep reading!Also, it’s really refreshing to read a blog where Al Jazeera is recognized as an awesome, solid news source. I’m beyond confused that it’s ever seen as anything else.
Adrienne Marie–I’m flattered. We work very hard to maintain that this website is a safe and friendly place for all (Muslims and non-Muslims), and I’m glad we have fans of all walks of life!