We're Gonna Have a Little Fun

However, there ARE millions of Muslim women who ARE oppressed. We need to develop a move complex, critical and sophisticated awareness of the ways in which women in the Middle East, Asia and Africa are oppressed. Over a 100 million women are forced into FGM each year, many, many of them being Muslim women, reproducing the culturally ill informed notion that women should not have sexual freedom, pleasure, rights etc (a view which is incidentally against Islam’s view of women’s right to sexual pleasure and rights). Millions more are forced into marriages, many as child or under-age brides. Many Muslim women wish to have a  greater level of control over what they wear, for instance, the hijab- in all its many varieties across the Muslim world- but in many instances cannot due to cultural, religious, political and legal reasons, and the literal threat of death. Not all Muslim women wish to wear the hijab. Many wish to make their own choices about their families, marriage, education, and that of their children but cannot! Many women in the Muslim world do not have access to health care, to birth and reproductive control, do not have the right to divorce or have child custody rights; many cannot get a job without the permission of the father, brother, husband, uncle, tribe, or the state. Many cannot speak about the high levels of domestic and sexual violence that they experience in their families, homes, community, place of work or in public. Killing women in the name of honor still remains a serious issue, that is not addressed by communities, the religious sphere or by the state. Muslim women who are members of the LGBTQAI+ communities cannot even speak of, be visible or express their true identity for fear of being raped and murdered, imprisoned, hanged or executed by their society and/or state. Many women in the Muslim women do not have their basic human rights protected legally, socially, culturally. Many are deeply exploited, live in degrading social and political environments. 

All of these forms of oppression, marginalization and silencing occur daily because conservative and often religious men are in positions of power and determine and produce policies every day that negatively impacts women’s rights, freedom, choices and bodily integrity. The degrading postion that MANY Muslim women are forced into is often directly as a result of the way in which religion is interpreted, selectively used and applied and used by Muslim men and conservative Muslim women at the top.

The discussion should be more that “not all Muslim women are oppressed, but man, MANY are deeply oppressed and silenced”. A basic account of an either/ or, as the above post, ignores the complexities of Muslim women’s lives and their daily lived experiences of oppression, violence, sexual abuse, harassment, rape, and murder.

1- It is optional in Islam. You may practice it, and may not, it is not a sin. But the fact that you may do it is already very bad.

Abu al- Malih ibn `Usama’s father relates that the Prophet said: “Circumcision is a law for men and a preservation of honour for women.” Source: Ahmad Ibn Hanbal 5:75; Abu Dawud, Adab 167

The other part is: tradition

2- To limit sexual desires, protecting the family’s honor

When I was 11 years old, my father noticed I was developing breasts. He told me: “If you are not going to wear hijab (head covering) and black body covering, you will never leave the house.” A naive child like me did not know any better, I wanted to go play outside with my friends. I noticed I couldn’t go to the beach anymore, couldn’t talk to my male cousins, couldn’t play like a normal preteen, I was pushed to think I was an adult woman. It was not a choice.

Clearly, it is foolish to say all muslim women choose to wear hijab. When I started wearing hijab, most girls I know were pressured by their parents to wear hijab. The mentality most parents share is that they have to make a girl get used to hijab before starting her first period, so she wouldn’t start rebelling and becoming a slut as she grows. “Better make them get used to it while they’re weak, before they learn to form their own opinions” As a result, my self-esteem hasn’t been doing well, and I still do suffer bad self-esteem as an adult. I was often envious of other children.

If I decide one day to leave the house without hijab on, it is considered normal if my father decides to lock me up. This is why many of my girl friends exhibit Stockholm syndrome. When they’re alone with me and speaking out their minds, they wish they could go out without hijab. When they’re faced with someone fighting for women rights and choices, they fight for hijab being a choice.

The concept of hijab. First women have the rights to wear it, I have nothing against the people who decide to wear out of their choice. The problem is the idea of hijab is clearly not empowering as some may claim it is. It is gender-segregating method. Curiosity peaks and builds up if you’ve been deprived of something thus making it difficult to eliminate sexualization. People tend sexualize things that are not normally exposed.

and sometimes i wanna be bottom