{"id":23335,"date":"2014-09-16T05:00:44","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T09:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=23335"},"modified":"2014-09-16T15:11:49","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T19:11:49","slug":"the-hijabi-on-the-bus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2014\/09\/the-hijabi-on-the-bus.html","title":{"rendered":"The Hijabi on the Bus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Yesterday morning I posted about atheism and Islam<\/a>, and then went in to work for a few hours. After\u00a0I finished I read the comments on that post, some of them critical. Then I got on the bus to head home\u2014and in a\u00a0moment that serendipitous, I found myself sitting next to an olive-skinned woman wearing hijab<\/a>. I live in a university town, so this is a common sight. Coming right after reading comments arguing that Islam inherently oppresses women, it felt refreshing, somehow. She had a stroller with a little boy\u00a0about Bobby\u2019s age, so I struck up conversation, as I usually do\u00a0with women who have children my children\u2019s ages.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow old is he?\u201d I asked, gesturing to her son.<\/p>\n

\u201cEighteen months,\u201d she responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy little boy is two,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

And with that, we began to chat. She was interested in my studies, I was interested in her country of origin\u2014Morocco\u2014and we were both interested in talking about our children and our future plans. I learned that she was staying at home with her little boy while her husband is completing his Ph.D. She had finished her master\u2019s degree last year, she told me.<\/p>\n

We talked about challenges getting our children to sleep\u2014I gave her some advice on when to move her little boy from his crib to a toddler bed\u2014and whether we wanted more children. She said she wasn\u2019t sure if she wanted another child, and that while she was staying at home with her son for a time while he was little, she couldn\u2019t wait to go back to work, as being at home was hard. I laughed and said I didn\u2019t think I was cut out to be a stay-at-home mother either. She explained that\u00a0she\u2019d been headed\u00a0to the library with her son to get him out of the house, but that when the weather changed she\u2019d decided to head back home.<\/p>\n

And we talked about Morocco. She told me\u00a0about the ways it\u2019s modernizing, and about the differences between the city\u2014where children go to school and birth rates have fallen\u2014and the countryside\u2014where school attendance was growing but children were still expected to help out on family farms and family size was still high. I told her that in the U.S., birth rates had stayed higher in the countryside as well, and that child labor laws originally excluded farm labor. We both\u00a0found the comparison fascinating.<\/p>\n

And then she got off the bus, stroller and son and all.<\/p>\n

Coming right after reading comments insisting that all Islam oppresses women and is diametrically opposed to the West, it was nice to\u00a0be reminded, once again, that\u00a0so many of our stereotypes about Muslim women are just that\u2014stereotypes. I mean, think about it. You can tell very little about a woman based only on knowing she is Christian. She\u00a0might be politically progressive or politically conservative. She\u00a0might support gay rights or she\u00a0might not. She\u00a0may emphasize sins and hell, or love and social justice, or all sorts of things in between. She\u00a0may believe in female submission or she\u00a0may be a feminist. The same is true of Islam<\/a>. Yes, some women live the stereotypes, but many others do not. Our western understanding of the relation between Islam<\/em> and women<\/em> is overly simplistic.<\/p>\n

Can Christianity\u00a0be used to oppress women? Absolutely<\/em>. Can Islam\u00a0be used to oppress women? Once again, absolutely<\/em>. But women can also simply exist within these religious traditions, or wield these traditions\u00a0as tools of liberation. I don\u2019t know where the woman I met on the bus yesterday falls on this spectrum. She had a master\u2019s degree and wore hijab. She adored her son and can\u2019t\u00a0wait to go back to work. These things I know.<\/p>\n

I know more things, too. Turkey has had a female prime minister (Tansu \u00c7iller<\/a>). Indonesia has had a female president (Megawati Sukarnoputri<\/a>). Pakistan has had a female prime minister (Benazir Bhutto<\/a>). Bangladesh has had two female prime ministers, who have ruled by turns since 1991\u00a0with very little\u00a0interruption (Khaleda Zia<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Sheikh Hasina<\/a>). The U.S. has yet to have a female president. Malala Yousufzai, known across the globe for standing up for girls\u2019 right to an education against\u00a0the guns of the Taliban, is Muslim and draws strength from her faith.\u00a0\u201cThe Taliban think we are not Muslims, but we are,\u201d she said in 2012<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cWe believe in God more than they do, and we trust him to protect us . . . .\u00a0Islam says that it is not only each child\u2019s right to get education, rather it is their duty and responsibility.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps things aren\u2019t as simplistic as the stereotypes make them look.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

[edited for clarity]<\/p>\n

***Addendum***<\/p>\n

I found this comment by reader mythbri<\/a>\u00a0especially\u00a0pertinent:<\/p>\n

\n

And it\u2019s not criticism of institutionalized and organized religion that\u2019s the problem, especially if that religion enjoys governmental power and influence\u2014when there is no way for religion to be in any way separated from public life. This deserves to be criticized. It must be criticized. It must change, wherever it exists, to provide a more just and fair society for all of its citizens.<\/p>\n

The problem is people who think that the woman Libby Anne met on the bus is currently the greatest threat to Western society. It\u2019s people who think that her husband and little boy need extra attention at the TSA security screening when they want to go visit their family in Morocco. It\u2019s people telling this educated mother with a master\u2019s degree, with career ambitions, that she is oppressed by a visual expression of her faith. It\u2019s people who would tell this young family that simply existing while Muslim means that they condone terrorist attacks carried out by Muslim extremists. It\u2019s people breaking into and setting fire to mosques.<\/p>\n

There is a difference between criticism of Islam and Islamophobia that many people don\u2019t seem to be able to distinguish because of the successful campaign of justification for illegitimate war on Muslim countries. Many of the proponents of this kind of war claim that they\u2019re just criticizing Islam, when the results of the actions they\u2019re calling for result in oppression and hardship\u2014even death\u2014of people like this young hijabi, her husband, and her 18-month-old son.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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