This was written by Jamerican Muslimah and originally published (with extras) at her blog Talking it Plain.
Recently, I was having a conversation with a group of my friends and were talking about what constitutes a gold digger. Are you a gold digger if you expect a man to have enough money to support your future family? Are you a gold digger if you want a man who is well-established and financially sound? Are you a gold digger if you expect a man to be the leader, the head of the household? What is Islam’s position on the subject?
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Typically, when the term comes up, people are speaking about a woman whose sole focus is how much money a man makes. She doesn’t care about his heart, his relationship with God, his family, his intelligence or anything else. She wants to know how much money he has and how much she can get from him. If she’s in it for the long run (as in marriage) she may want to know what kind of career he has and whether that career can financially sustain them. She wouldn’t even look in the direction of a man who doesn’t have a lot of money but is intelligent, spiritually grounded and ambitious. More than likely, she will not help the man strive for better, for more. This is my definition of a gold digger. (Though I don’t really like the term because it’s applied exclusively to women. Whereas a man who does the same thing is called what?) I know women like this. I have been friends with women like this. I could give you a 1001 reasons why they are the way they are, but that is not my focus today.
What I want to know is why a sister who expects her husband to be financially sound is suddenly considered a gold digger by some. I’ve heard Muslim men complain about sisters expecting “too much” from them. When I ask what is considered “too much” you find out it’s the basics; have a stable job, a decent place to live, money to maintain a wife (and a future family), and some ambition, some goals. Maybe an education. A decent mahr (dowry). There are sisters who have expectations a little higher than that. They may want him to own a house, have money saved in the bank, and a job that is at a certain level. Is she wrong? (Especially if she comes from a family that has all of those things or can provide those things for herself). Men are the protectors and maintainers of women. Is it a sin to want a man who can adequately maintain and protect her?
Some brothers barely have a job, barely have a place to stay (or none at all), no car, little money, no ambition and expect a sister to be content with that. They quote ahadith about women accepting little for a mahr and living on next to nothing. They use ahadith to chastise sisters for expecting more from them. But I have a couple questions: Where will you live? How do you expect to pay the bills? How will you support a wife and kids? Do you have a career? Do you have REALISTIC goals and dreams? What are your plans for the future? Do you possess a deep, profound understanding of this deen (faith)? Are you able to translate your deep, profound understanding of the deen into practice? Or are you doing the five daily, reciting a little Qur’an, but otherwise behaving like any other dude out here in the dunya (world)? Does your little practice of Islam make you so exceptional that a sister should overlook your financial situation? (Because you have so much to offer her deen-wise). Most importantly, why would a woman accept a man who can’t even financially maintain her in the way she is accustomed to?
Sorry ahki! My goal is to move UP, not DOWN…forward, not backward. Some brothers can’t face the truth. Some sisters settle for less. They allow brothers to escape their responsibilities. All the while these brothers are convincing sisters they’re sacrificing in the name of Allah, Islam or following the Sunnah when the brother is actually half steppin’, using Islam as an excuse for his irresponsibility. *kiss teeth* Sisters, don’t fall for the “halal game” ’cause that’s actually what some brothers are running.
bleghhh how ridiculous.
I’d rather be the breadwinner and i expect MY MAN to be the gold-digger here.
My understanding is that a “gold-digger” is someone who marries a rich man and splits after a few months. (Rich in this case meaning someone who has +million dollars stashed away.) I think owning a house, or planning to implies a willingness to take on responsibility. Those women aren’t gold diggers, they’re being pragmatic.
I thought a gold digger was a very young woman who married a very old man so that he would die quickly and leave her all his money…
In any case, I feel I can’t adaquately respond to this article because I am on a totally different page than the author. There’s no way I expect the man to be the breadwinner in a family, and many women in my life earn more money than their husbands. In fact, I feel that a lot of justifications for women’s inequality are based on the assumption that men have the ‘responsibility’ to financially maintain their wives. Thus women earn half the inheretence a man, because the man is expected to provide for his family and the woman is not.
I reject this assumption and all its implications. A lot of men tell me “You want equal rights with men, but you don’t want equal responsibilities — i.e. financial maintanence.” Actually, I do. I’m a financially independent person right now and I don’t expect that to change dramatically when/if I get married.
Salaam:
I think some of you are missing the point or half-reading what Jamerican wrote. This is not simply about a man taking care of the little lady. It is also about not giving many sisters what are their Islamic rights. Case in point the mahr.
I think one of the fallacies of some third wave feminism is the extent to which it complete erases difference thus making it easier for us to not gauge the ways in which women’s actual difference matters and negatively impacts us financially.
Ask any women who are on fast track careers-professors, lawyers, doctors-and they will tell you that Being a woman matters-that there is a need to have financial, structural and emotional resources that benefit us differently than men. It is not enough to say “I’m going to make my own so forget the man” when in actuality what tends to happen is not only will you be working but you most likely will still be doing double duty at home.
I also get tired of the”i’m doing for me” mentality because it centers the individual. My personal financial arrangement with my husband might be one of co-management (which it is!) but that does mean that I am not sympathetic to sisters who want to be cared for and maintained by their husbands and not manipulated into poverty as a show of their piety.
I don’t think a husband has to earn more than his wife or necessarily be the breadwinner but I do know where Jamerican is coming from. In Philly, especially and other some other American cities too, you will see brothers who have absolutely no ambition in life except “da’wah”. They don’t want a job at all, they don’t want an education at all. They don’t even help their wives with the children and the house. There are some brothers who will expect their families to live like peasants. They want their wives to stay at home, take care of the kids but then won’t get jobs themselves all in the name of “not being part of the dunya”. There are some brothers who get very menial jobs and expect the same thing. Then there are some brothers who want their wives to work and take care of home and the kids while again, they have no jobs of their own and seek the “noble” job of spreading the deen.
I remember when I was still in my courtship stage, one brother I spoke to wanted six children but he honestly had no way to provide adequetly for six kids (no college education or vocational skills). He wanted to be a da’ee. I also got the sense that he didn’t really approve of me being in college or wanting to pursue grad school. I wondered how the heck he expected to build a family like that?
It’s funny because these brothers who claim to have such a religiosity do seem to ignore that verse in the Qur’an that does say that men are the maintainers of women. I mean if you want to follow Islam so correctly, why not follow that verse too?
When I ask what is considered “too much” you find out it’s the basics; have a stable job, a decent place to live, money to maintain a wife (and a future family), and some ambition, some goals. Maybe an education. A decent mahr (dowry).
That’s a bit vague. “Decent” can have a huge range. For some, decent is a tiny apartment. For others, decent is a 2500+ sq. ft. house.
They may want him to own a house, have money saved in the bank, and a job that is at a certain level. Is she wrong?
Depends on what you mean by “wrong”, but I would say No. I wouldn’t approve of some of these, but I’m sure others disapprove of certain conditions I would make. I don’t think it should be the case of putting all “conditions” to bare minimums.
Some brothers barely have a job, barely have a place to stay (or none at all), no car, little money, no ambition and expect a sister to be content with that.
Depending on where you live (even within, say, the US), I think not having a car really shouldn’t be compared to the other points above. Public transportation is adequate in some places, and there are good reasons for not owning one. At the same time, I think it’s fine to limit choices to those who do have a car.
but otherwise behaving like any other dude out here in the dunya (world)?
Hey!
Sorry ahki! My goal is to move UP, not DOWN…forward, not backward.
I liked the post until I read this. It’s a very narrow minded view of things. As certain technical people say, “Life is not a scalar, it’s a vector.” Or put another way: “Life is not 1 dimensional.”
It’s an issue of different. Not up or down. You have a vision of where you want to go, and you call it up. That’s fine. But don’t put down other people’s choices with that language, because it’s often inaccurate.
Some of you need to consider the cultural and history experience I am coming out of. I am a descendant of slave women who have ALWAYS worked. In many instances, Black American women were the sole source of income in our families due to the men’s inability to obtain work or when the man simply was not around. I am the child of a single parent. I watched my mother work two and three jobs in order to make ends meet. She did this even though she was dog tired and stressed out. Consider what being “maintained” might mean to women like my mother. Consider the fact that some Black women don’t really see working and making their own money as a indicator of female empowerment. (Again, especially when historically we’ve *HAD* to work for free and damn near for free). Most Black women have never had the privilege of being taken care of because we’ve always been the caretakers.
Secondly, as Muslimahcomments so eloquently put it, “This is not simply about a man taking care of the little lady. It is also about not giving many sisters what are their Islamic rights. Case in point the mahr.” Exactly! If anything what I am responding to is a sister being deprived of her choice- whether I agree with the choice or not. It’s also about brothers trying to shirk their responsibilities in the name of piety.
@Rochelle. You said “In fact, I feel that a lot of justifications for women’s inequality are based on the assumption that men have the ‘responsibility’ to financially maintain their wives.” Which men are you talking about here? This has seldom been the situation for Black American women.
@Faith. Thank you. You see where I’m coming from right? I don’t see anything feminist or dynamic about sisters being coerced or manipulated into supporting “students of knowledge.”
your counterparts at slate are wondering about the same things today… http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2009/01/08/for-love-or-money.aspx
and http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2009/01/08/searching-for-my-sugar-daddy.aspx
Maybe the lesson here is that we need to be honest about our expectations of earning and responsibility of our partners (to ourselves first of all!). Conflicting expectations for women today no doubt foster confusion for all involved (woman as independent, self sufficient; woman as feminine, dependent, maternal). For all my feminist proclamations, I know I also internalized my own vision of being taken care of old school style…
@ Jamerican Muslimah:
I was refering to a lot of political justifications for institutionalized gender inequality in several Muslim countries. A good example would be Iran, in which the law stipulates that the husband is the financial head of household. If you assume this to be the case in all households, then it’s not such a logical leap to argue that women should only get half inheritance, should not have custody of the children, should not be able to ask for divorce, and should not have legal right to their mehr except in case of male-initiated divorce (which is very often the case.) All these inequalites are usually justified by the pith assumption that males are normatively and discriptively the financial head of households.
That being said, I’m afraid I did what I so often critique, which was to assume a level of homogeneity among Muslim women. And you are right, this is certainly not the case among Black American women, who on average make more money and have more education than their male counterparts.
But I think my bottom line is that Third Wave Feminism, far from erasing all difference, as Muslimahcomments avered, is about embrasing personal choice. Such that if you, Jamerican, consciously choose you want a partner with sound financial backing (me too!) who can support you and your children, then you deserve the right to make that decision without judgement. I, too, deserve to life a life without people making the assumption that somebody else is taking care of me.
As for men, I’m not going to tell them what their responsibilities are as Muslims, because that’s not my call. But I can tell them they’ll have a hard time finding a decent partner unless they have some ambition.
Salaam Alaikum,
Further to Jamerican Muslimah’s article, a lot of the these sisters being made to feel like “gold-diggers” are converts. I’m tired of seeing convert sisters being being expected to put up with situations that no born Muslim family would ever subject their daughter too.
Face it, money gives you choices. If a brother is hard working (not necessarily rich) and sensible with his cash and the sister is likewise, then finding good accommodation, child care (or deciding to stay at home/ go part time if you want to) become much easier.
The real issue here is work ethic. There are sadly, many brothers out there who use the deen as an excuse for utter laziness. Why should a hard working sister have to support a lazy man? Where is the piety in making your wife claim welfare so that you can sit on your backside?
For those who go on about “breaking down gender roles” e.t.c, trust me, these brothers wouldn’t become house-husbands either, because that would also be too much “dunya work”.
@ Rochelle-
Just a reminder that I said SOME versions of thirdwave feminism. I put the word some there very intentionally and deliberately.
I am mainly talking about a brand of third wave feminism that avails the individual-while not problematizing how this individual is ultimately always economically, socially and racially priviledged.
In this sense it becomes a celebration of the self and personal choice rather than a continued engagement with and negotiation of community.
“They want their wives to stay at home, take care of the kids but then won’t get jobs themselves all in the name of “not being part of the dunya”.”
I wonder if this has to do with lack of proper Islamic knowledge. The way *I* was raised was to believe that working, supporting your family, and fulfilling your responsibilities to your family was ALSO a form of worship and was just as important as any other form of worship. In fact, isn’t there a story from the Prophet’s time of him saying that the man who works and supports his family along with worshiping is better than the one who spends his entire day in the mosque worshiping while neglecting his duties to his family. Not to bring theology into it, but these “brothers” seem ignorant to me and are just using Islam as an excuse to avoid working.
Salaam Alaikum,
Sobia – It is a theological issue though, because a lot of these brothers are using the deen as an excuse for their behaviour, when in fact their actions are contrary to religious teachings. It’s pure ignorance/distortion.
What is worse is when sisters are made to feel like they are the bad Muslims for not wanting to marry these brothers – “Marriage is half your deen”, “You shouldn’t refuse a righteous brother”, “You’re too caught up in the dunya” and so on.
What is worse is when sisters are made to feel like they are the bad Muslims for not wanting to marry these brothers – “Marriage is half your deen”, “You shouldn’t refuse a righteous brother”, “You’re too caught up in the dunya” and so on.
It’s generally a universal “problem”. The same is said to the other side.
Dude: It’s not a universal problem. In fact, I would say that the problem mostly affects African American sisters and maybe some white American sisters. African American brothers don’t have to deal with this issue. They’re not pressured into marrying a sister because she is so righteous and virtuous.
I would agree with Faith. I know in the South Asian community it is expected that Muslim women (and even the non-Muslim ones) will marry someone who is equally or more educated/successful as them (preferably more). This however can make it hard when a lot of South Asian women are getting higher and higher educations. But the expectation is definitely at least the same if not more education.
OK – I can’t speak for African Americans in general, but what I meant is that the excuse is frequently given to the men where I’ve been. The reason may be different (might not be about education, etc), but the the method of coaxing is similar. I’ve heard all those phrases given to men.