The host of the show talking about the prevalence of images of Muslims in media and popular culture, especially post-9\/11, and the need to look critically at these.\u00a0 She spoke with particular suspicion about the \u201cso-called \u2018survivor stories\u2019 about Muslim women escaping to the freedom of the West [that] have become international bestsellers of late.\u201d\u00a0 The host explained the motivation for the show as originating in a feeling that \u201cwe must encourage a less judgmental and more open dialogue between Muslim and non-Muslim feminists.\u201d<\/p>\n The first interview was with Itrath Syed* (shown left), a long-time social justice activist in Vancouver, who is also a university and college lecturer, and has taught, among others, a course on \u201cContemporary debates in Muslim women\u2019s feminisms\u201d at Simon Fraser University.\u00a0 This interview was a great overview of some of the major issues that Muslim feminists deal with, both from within and from outside of Muslim communities.<\/p>\n One of the first questions was about the role of Syed\u2019s family and community in her identity as a Muslim woman.\u00a0 Although she acknowledged that family and community play a role, Syed emphasized that:<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s beyond an identity politics.\u00a0 It\u2019s what I believe, it\u2019s who I am\u2026 For me, my feminist politics comes out of that space where I engage in a relationship with the Divine, which I believe requires believers to strive towards justice, and definitely gender justice is a key portion of that.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I loved this acknowledgment that, for her, as for so many Muslim women, being Muslim is so much more than an identity label.\u00a0 I\u2019ve found myself in way too many spaces lately where \u201cMuslim\u201d has turned into a political identity above all else (and I think this is pretty common, especially given current political contexts where \u201cMuslim\u201d ends up as such a politicized and racialized term), and Syed\u2019s affirmation of the centrality of Islam in her life \u201cbeyond identity politics\u201d is an important way to begin a discussion about Muslim women\u2019s feminism.\u00a0 So is her statement that it is Islam that motivates her feminist politics, and that the two need not be seen as two separate ideologies (or as two contradictory identities, as they are so often portrayed.)<\/p>\n The interviewer asked Syed about the reactions to Muslim feminism within mainstream Muslim communities.\u00a0 Syed responded that there are at least two issues at play: one is the re-engagement with scripture, which involves its own debates, and the second is the challenging of sexist practices within the community, which, as she said, \u201cdoesn\u2019t really go well in any community.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, while Muslim communities may have our specific battlegrounds where sexism is being challenged, resistance to these challenges of the status quo is far from unique to Muslims.<\/p>\n Syed also made a point of separating the label of \u201cfeminist\u201d from politics relating to gender justice, arguing that the word is often too narrow, and that many communities have worked against sexism in different ways without necessarily identifying as feminist.\u00a0 She mentioned that, although she herself identifies as feminist, many women of her mother\u2019s generation, and even of her own, may not use the term, but that their lived experience may still reflect struggles for equality based on gender (and other categories.)\u00a0 The common images within much of feminist history of Muslim women as \u201cthe space against which white Western women measure the distance they\u2019ve traveled\u201d was also raised by Syed in a critique of dominant feminist narratives.<\/p>\n Shockingly, the topic of hijab came up (yeah, I know you\u2019re all surprised too. *yawn*.)\u00a0 The interviewer referred to an obsession over the veil among non-Muslims, and Syed agreed that \u201cit is clearly [a] mad, crazy obsession,\u201d but clarified that the obsession manifests itself among Muslims too.\u00a0 Like many of us, Syed expressed how tired she was of all of the discussions about covering, and described it as an \u201cinherent need to see ideological struggles play out over women\u2019s bodies, and to control women\u2019s bodies as sites of representation.\u201d\u00a0 Within many non-Muslim communities, she said, hijab is seen as \u201can absolute symbol of oppression and a marker of pre-modernity,\u201d but she also talked about the problems with it being seen within many Muslim circles \u201cas the only marker of Muslim identity for women.\u201d\u00a0 Syed described these as two facets of the same problem \u2013 or, to use her lovely expression, \u201csame shit, different piles\u201d \u2013 and argued that \u201ceither way, it\u2019s about controlling women\u2019s bodies and removing women\u2019s autonomy over their bodies.\u201d\u00a0 It was kind of refreshing to hear people on both sides get called out for being way too hijab-obsessed.<\/p>\n One aspect of the interviewer\u2019s questions that I particularly appreciated was her recognition of her own lack of knowledge.\u00a0 She asked Syed for recommendations of books or writers to read; Syed recommended staying away from the \u201csurvivor stories\u201d mentioned at the beginning of the show, and instead suggested work by people such as Asifa Quraishi, Jasmin Zine, Amina Wadud and Mohja Kahf, as well as an anthology entitled Windows of Faith<\/em>.\u00a0 As a final thought, Syed emphasized the multiplicity of identities and beliefs of Muslim women, and reminded us that \u201cMuslim women, above all things, are also human, and tend to have a wide diversity of experience.\u201d<\/p>\n The second part of the interview was with Farzana Doctor<\/a>, a psychotherapist, social worker, and writer, who lives in Toronto.\u00a0 Much of the interview focused on Doctor\u2019s first novel, Stealing Nasreen<\/em><\/a> (shown below right), which is about the relationship between a couple who have recently moved to Canada from India, and a a queer South Asian-Canadian woman.<\/p>\n Doctor described the book as one that looks at the intersectionality of South Asian, Muslim, and queer identities, a perspective that she felt was missing in the world of literature when she herself came out as queer*.\u00a0 Doctor described her own religious identity as more of a political and cultural one, based on the relatively secular household in which she was raised, although she said that she felt a need to engage more critically with her Muslim identity when she began to identify as queer, especially given the lack of examples she could find of others who were struggling with similar conflicts.\u00a0 She stated that her book has been very well-received among South Asian circles and within queer Muslim groups, by people excited to find a story that reflects parts of their own experiences.<\/p>\n Asked about the reactions within the mainstream Muslim community to her book and to her own identity, Doctor echoed Syed\u2019s reminder that there is no one \u201cMuslim community,\u201d and that the diversity of Canada\u2019s Muslim communities is reflected in the wide range of reactions, from those who simply state that it is impossible to be both Muslim and queer, to those who are searching for alternate ways to understand how these identities can coexist.<\/p>\n Overall, although at times I wished the interviewer could have gone into a bit more depth on some issues, I thought she raised some important questions, and did a good job with allowing her guests to speak for themselves, rather than assuming that she knew how they should feel.\u00a0 I\u2019m also really glad that she acknowledged the problems with all the \u201csurvivor stories\u201d out there, and that she included on the show women who have had their struggles with Muslim communities and yet continue to see themselves as working from within a Muslim framework, rather than needing to escape from Islam.<\/p>\n *Full disclosure: Itrath is also a friend of mine, and someone I really admire, so I might be just a little biased.\u00a0 But that\u2019s only because she\u2019s so awesome.<\/em><\/p>\n *\u201cQueer\u201d is the term that Farzana used to describe herself, and thus we have used it here. The term is often used by LGBT communities in order to reclaim it. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rabble.ca, an alternative news source in Canada, recently posted a podcast that was originally broadcast on Co-Op Radio in Vancouver, on their show \u201cThe F Word,\u201d which looks at feminist issues.\u00a0 Entitled \u201cIslam, women and feminisms,\u201d this segment features interviews with two Canadian Muslim women, Itrath Syed and Farzana Doctor. The host of the show […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,12],"tags":[253,435,664,756,919,1097,1297],"class_list":["post-4205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-booksmagazines","category-culturesociety","category-musicradio","tag-canadian-muslims","tag-farzana-doctor","tag-itrath-syed","tag-lgbt","tag-muslim-feminisms","tag-queer-muslims","tag-stealing-nasreen"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Itrath](\"https:\/\/muslimahmediawatch.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/07\/sun1115-isl1.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Doctor's](\"https:\/\/muslimahmediawatch.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/07\/nasreen-cover-s.jpg\")
<\/a>