Fitna

Sita

New member
Cathy said:
Totally agree that marrying for love is a very modern, Western concept. Most of the Indians I know (in India) today had what we would call arranged marriages. Not exactly “you will marry this man we have chosen whom you have never met—the wedding is next month” but “now that you have reached the appropriate age, we will introduce you to a few carefully chosen appropriate men, expecting that you will hit it off with one of them in the next few months.” And I also point out that the majority of marriages in the West are still between people from similar religious, class, and social backgrounds (including my own!) Sending your children to the “right” colleges can be construed as just another strategy….
Yes, I know quite a few people who married in that way - one an Albanian Catholic family. Each situation is varied, so is the success: just like any other marriage.


Hhhmmm—Arab/Islamic feminism. I’ll have to look into this idea too.
One issue for example is that feminism does not take into account the issues of colonialism that these women have also had to struggle against. Western feminism traditionally focused on gender and class not race related issues. It has caused problems not just in the Islamic world but in the African world. These women tend to look into their own cultures to find and establish equality not the Western model. For example many would have issues with the idea that a women in the West is expected to get a job after motherhood. They would see the idea of not recognising the value and importance of motherhood, or as a socially important job - sexist or unequal. African women writers tend not to even like the label 'feminist' but prefer 'womanist'.


Yes, harem denotes womens’ private quarters and nothing wrong with having them. But as I alluded to earlier, I can’t imagine not wanting full access and equal rights to the public space as well. Very hard for me to imagine any kind of feminism that posits any kind of “separate but equal” or “women have different needs” kind of basis. To me, equal rights means equal rights and requires public power as in the power to vote, to travel alone, to drive, to go to school, and so on.
But when/where are they being denied access to these public areas? Islam provides for a women to have her own job/income if she desires and that money is hers alone - not her husbands. This is not the same in the traditions of the Christian West. I agree with you on these points of equality but they took ages to happen in the West for women and are still very recent, the same for the Middle East. They are also seen being practised in the Mashreq and Maghreb. Even a women in Iran can vote, find employment, drive, be educated etc. As far as Arab countries there is only one that legally enforces veiling: Saudi Arabia - it is the exception, not the rule. And from a human rights issue this law on veiling is the least of the issues.
I'm not saying that there are no issues of equality in the M.E etc but that there are also issues of it in the Western world. They are not that different but have a different way of seeing and expressing things.
Sita
 
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Sita

New member
Yes I have some idea of the public/private spaces concept and how traditionally, public = male and private = female or family only (or maybe that is what you were warning about with Mernissi gendering these concepts?), and how wearing higab and abaya allowed women to go from one place to another, say their own home to their mother’s, without violating anything. I get how it evades the male gaze too. But please comment further on “not be seen placing her in position of power.” I think this is what bothers me about the whole topic. Without equal access to the public space and rights, I can’t fathom how women can be equal. Power as in rights is a good, necessary thing. Power as in "the power to distract men from their prayers" is not what I am after. I don't want to feel guilty, dirty, immodest, or disrespectful for walking down the street. Or dancing in public.
Sorry my lack of grammar (I tend to just write online as quickly as I can and so: grammar. punctuation etc goes out the window) my actual comment:
Sita said:
Also it evades the male gaze for the veiled women can see, but not be seen placing her in position of power.
was misleading. I meant that it allows her to evade the male gaze, to be see but not be seen, thus placing her in the position of power. She can then become the spectator even a voyeur without exposing herself at all. Even when she speaks, she does not expose herself. Her emotions are her own. The man must seek out her gaze, come to her and in doing so expose himself: because without a visual meeting where both gazes are equal and meet each other, communication is limited. It creates a new power structure with the veiled women's gaze dominant over the man's. It works in the same way as silence, the veil can be used to show a refusal to participate in a dialogue - the other person is dismissed, made irrelevant by this.
Cathy
Sita
 
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