Monday, April 11, 2011

FEMINISM, WOOT!


Finally I've gotten around to updating my blog and ONCE MORE an unholy amount of time has elapsed since my last post. Hopefully this one and the ones that will follow soon will make it worth it. This is an introductory post; I'm tackling a meaty subject, after all, and not one I can give credit to in a single sitting, or attempt...

Feminism and Islam, and Saudi.

The very mention sends a shiver down your spine with the negative, uncomfortable vibes we're saturated with from all directions. We are told that women are oppressed in Islamic countries & especially Saudi Arabia by media of all kinds, whether through books or TV or Internet; by hearsay; and - most rarely - come to realize it through personal experience. The latter of which I have a lot of. Some of what you hear is true: I've told enough horror stories about my experience with Saudi misogyny in my time.

What enrages me, however, is not the attacks on the way my country of residence treats women. All too often, the criticism is justified - and needed. I take part in it myself readily. But when it begins to stretch to Islam's treatment of women, my claws are out. After all, as a Muslim woman, as a thinking and rational human being - how is it conceivable that I could possibly remain a follower of a religion that oppresses me? The suggestion that Islam oppresses women leads to that assumption and I refuse to be taken as such.

As always, the disrespectful treatment of women in Islamic countries stems from the everlasting problem of culture vs religion: how a religion's origin differs from its practice. It happened with Christianity and Judaism, with, I daresay every mode of thinking in the world; it's happened, sadly, to Islam as well. The Saudi version of Islam is certainly not *the* version of Islam, just like there is no one version of Islam itself.

I digress. Certain things have happened within the past few weeks that have pushed these issues to the front of my mind further, and I'll be talking about the experience in Saudi interposed with how it is SUPPOSED to be. In REAL Islam. Taken directly from its sources, the Qur'an and the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, not clouded by patriarchal systems or closed mindsets.

Keep a heads-up and please feel free to bug me on Twitter (@thelogicker) if I haven't updated soon!

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