Last Wednesday, the BBC’s World Service radio program World Have Your Say discussed the topic, “Do Muslims treat women badly?” in light of the recent report from Human Rights Watch on the status of Saudi Arabian women.
Peter van Dyk from the show graciously invited me to speak on the program; however, due to scheduling conflicts, I was unavailable. So I’ll do the next best thing: critique!
I was incredibly pleased that all the speakers were Muslim and at least half of those were women. The panelists consisted of Baroness Uddin (the first British Muslim woman in Parliament), Muhammad & Yousef (Muhammad was a former diplomat; we are not given these men’s surnames or their relevance to the topic past this introduction), and Saeed Khan (instructor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit). Dr. May Yamani (Saudi political analyst) and Yvonne Ridley (high-profile British convert to Islam and journalist) also participated heavily in the conversation via phone. Also, the show’s callers were Saudi Arabian women.
The calls from Saudi women impressed me most: letting these women give their own perspective about a report that details their treatment in their own country is not something that many other media outlets would do, regrettably. It should be a cardinal rule of journalism: let subjects speak for themselves!
These callers all put in invaluable contributions (except a few I took issue with, which I’ll discuss later) to the debate. But the debate itself is a problem: the question “Do Muslims treat women badly?” is the wrong question. Asking whether a certain religious/ethnic/etc. group treats another group badly is implying that the treatment of the latter group is an inherent feature of the former group. Asking if Muslims treat women badly attaches the idea that treating women badly is a “Muslim” thing to do, rather than a human thing to do; the question makes it seem like it’s a tenet of Islam to mistreat women. It is a function of all patriarchal societies to treat women badly, and patriarchal interpretations of religion are a facet of patriarchal society. It’s unfair to single out Muslims when you’re trying to lay blame for the mistreatment of women.
The question itself is also a very leading one: it implies a “yes” or “no” answer. As with all religious interpretations, cultural practices, etc., there are no black-and-white answers. But, since the question was placed in context of the recent report on women’s rights in Saudi Arabia (moderator Chloe Tilley threw in other negative examples of a considered ban on mingling between sexes and the death sentence for a journalist who obtained an article online that questioned women’s role in Islam—both in Afghanistan), it seems as if the program wanted to elicit a “Yes.” Since the BBC presents itself as respectable, objective journalism, giving negative examples that only illustrate one side of the story is reprehensible, especially since these are the only faces of Muslims that many non-Muslim listeners hear about.
Also, putting this question primarily in the context of the report on Saudi women confuses Muslims with Saudi Arabians, as if all Muslim women are forbidden by Islamic rather than Saudi law to drive and must have permissions from their male guardians (or mahram) to do things. This is how stereotypes are made, people. During their brief segment on the program, Muhammad & Yousef cautioned listeners against doing just this.
Another thing that irritated me about the moderator was her unwillingness to make comparisons between the state of women in the west and women in Saudi Arabia: Tilley interrupted Baroness Uddin in the middle of a statement about the unfairness of criticizing the state of Saudi Arabian women when figures for abuses of women in the west aren’t comparably pretty, which Yvonne Ridley also posed. Dr. Yamani made the excellent comment that abuses against women in the west are usually not legally sanctioned, while in Saudi Arabia, they usually are. This is an important distinction to make. But I get very tired of people refusing to admit that women everywhere have it badly because of a cultural superiority inherent in the “We’re not like them” mindset. Let me say it again: women everywhere have it badly; the dangers we face simply come under different names. So can we please stop the “I’m so much freer than you are” garbage?
That being said, the Saudi speakers were the most helpful and enlightening. I want to stress how important it is that Saudi Arabian women speak on the issue of treatment of women in Saudi Arabia. Yvonne Ridley’s comments on chauffeuring in Saudi Arabia manifested this. Her comparison of Saudi women being chauffeured to Bill Gates being chauffeured wasn’t an apt one, and showed a lack of understanding in regard to the problems (sexual assault by drivers, lack of practicality, inability to afford a driver, etc.) that Saudi women face by being unable to drive. Of course there are Saudi women who would agree with her that having a chauffeur is a status symbol; but there are many who don’t, evidenced by the fact that several of them have an ongoing petition to the government for the right to drive. On issues like these, it’s best to get the perspectives straight from the Saudi’s mouth.
Finally, I want to look briefly at the blog post for the broadcast. While the on-air episode may be considered something of a success, the blog post definitely won’t be. The entire post and all of the comments talk about Muslim women, but at the time of our comment, only two out of 137 commenters were Muslim women.
This brings me to the question: Why do any opinions other than Muslim women’s opinions matter in this debate?
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I’m looking at the blog. This makes me cringe: Are women treated fairly by Muslims? Is it possible to generalise or do we need to look at specific countries, or specific interpretations of Islam? Is there a danger that some critics are judging Islam and Muslims by Western or Christian values, and fundamentally misunderstand the way Muslims want to live? (Emphasis mine.) It’s dripping with “othering” and the cultural supremacist attitude you discuss.By the way, that’s really cool that they asked you to speak!
Salaam Alaikum,Masha Allah that they asked you to speak.Obviously Muslim women are downtrodden and suffer from a form of Stockholm Syndrome, so we cannot be trusted to speak our minds.P.S More nonsense from Jezebel.http://jezebel.com/384922/ayaan-hirsi-ali-vs-irshad-manji-which-infidel-would-you-rather-have-a-beer-with#c5415551
salaam alaikum,i dont think their voices should matter when it comes to muslim women, all the time i hear people speaking about muslim womens rights and they arent muslim, including having someone tell me to my face why im so oppressed. for me its like i heard in a lecture on youtube lol… if you want to know about muslim women , ask muslim women. dont ask cnn , fox news or whoever. we are the only ones who can speak for ourselves, and ppl need to learn that we do speak our minds and we arent brainwashed.
A very insightful critique. I believe everyone is entitled to their opinion (maybe you believe this too!)…and although I say when it comes to the topic of muslim women, let the muslim women speak out, its also worth remembering many suffer in silence or its not in the cultural norm to speak out against your “own”. Unless the women themselves speak out, and demand change, nothing significant will transpire in my opinion. But yes, admittedly I am tired of hearing how muslim women have it oh so bad from all those sitting in self erected loftier positions.
I think the last line of this piece says it all. Sure, as Sofi says, people are entitled to opinions. I don’t hear anyone demanding we censor men’s or Christians’ or Buddhists’ thoughts on Muslim women. But it’s no longer just an opinion when it’s featured on CNN, the NYTimes, the New York Post, FoxNews, etc. At that point, it has a new status, an opinion on steroids–a bunch of them together begin to create a master narrative, a framework of how people are defined.Plus, as you say, women just have it harder. Everywhere (that I know of). Today’s news where I live says girls are more likely to commit suicide, more likely to be assaulted, more likely to be poor, and on and on:http://www.minnpost.com/bethhawkins/2008/04/29/1670/new_report_and_focus_groups_address_troubling_findings_about_states_girls
well, Muslim men’s voices matter as well presumably – and i guess the voices of non-Muslims who live in countries with sharia law (me). the blog post is repugnant of course. it’s just a sneaky side way of saying “do you think Islam is inherently misogynist?” and if that’s what they mean they should come out with it instead of assuming that muslims have some kind of unified belief and practice.but this itself is key: in a religion where jurisprudence and male-passed hadith are given SO much weight, who is to say that the so-called patriarchal interpretations are not the right ones? some interpretations are wildly sexist, incomprehensible, contradictory: this i grant you. re-interpretation would go far in improving the status and treatment of muslim women (and us non-Muslims who live under their law). but there are quranic discriminations that simply cannot be argued away by feminist revisionists: the half-weight of a woman’s legal testimony, the permissibility of polygamy, the child custody laws, the concept of so much as “3awrah”, the concept of woman as fitna…just to begin with. How do you suggest that these are treated? yes, women everywhere are treated badly in comparison to men, but there are usually laws against that; and the laws aren’t said to come from god. a blanket answer to the question “do muslims treat women badly?” would have to be yes, because in many Muslim majority countries, they do. is that what islam dictates? maybe, maybe not, but i think there’s a strong case to be made that there are some inherent inequalities.
Forsoothsayer, the purpose of this post isn’t to answer the BBC’s Islamophobic question, and I’m not going to do that here. But I’m curious as to why you believe Muslim men’s voices and the voices of non-Muslims living under shari’a law matter when we’re struggling with the question, “Do Muslims treat women badly?” The question implies that Muslim men treat Muslim women badly–so why should anyone other than a Muslim woman answer the question?
ANONYMOUS–GREAT POINTS. GREAT. POINTS.
@anonymous – i agree with you entirely. the real damage in that, too, is that it not only reinforces the idea of men in the active role and women in the passive but that it actually alienates Muslim women from the question and from Islam, suggesting that they should comment on how “their men” treat them and to do so knowing it will be read as a commentary on their religion. i am not a Muslim woman but i felt a little irritated at the suggestion that these women should be asked to take a stance against the men in their society. this positioning of the Western interlocutor on the side of the Muslim woman against Muslim men is so counterproductive.