Transcript Muslim American Feminism - Center for the Study of Religion and

Muslim American
Feminism
David Borrelli
2015 Muslim American Identities NEH Seminar
Problem with terminology
Leila Ahmed:
● “The racist gaze the white feminist movement turned on women of other cultures and races.”
(Curtis 185)
●
History of “Colonial feminism”
Juliane Hammer:
● Second wave feminism saw “religions as one of the main tools of patriarchal domination of
women.” (Hammer & Safi 340)
Lila Abu-Lughod
●
Skeptical of American feminism’s turn toward world issues in 1990’s; a “strategic diversion” (7)
Alternatives
“Womanism” → “Muslim Womanism”
● “‘Womanist’ encompasses ‘feminist’ [...] but also means instinctively pro-woman.” (Walker
100)
●
“Muslim womanism” is a term that “foregrounds the lived reality of African American Muslim
women” (Majeed 39)
●
Acknowledges “Islamic legitimacy and Qur’anic justice” (Ibid.)
Alternatives
“Islamic Feminism”
●
Broad; Multi-ethnic; centrality of Islam
●
Sa‘diyya Shaikh: “the value of retaining the term ‘feminism’ is that it enables Muslim women to
situate their praxis in a global political landscape.” (Hammer 58)
●
Many Muslim feminists do see feminism as organic extension of their faith
Alternatives
tl;dr
●
Problems with blending “Muslim” and “feminism”
●
“Feminists” should be self-identified anyway
●
Aysha Hidayatullah “[cautions] that an excessive focus on terminology can distract from the
important and substantive goals of the scholars and exegetes in question.” (Hammer 58)
Muslim American
Feminism
David Borrelli
2015 Muslim American Identities NEH Seminar
Muslim American
Feminism
David Borrelli
2015 Muslim American Identities NEH Seminar
Scholarship and Activism
by Muslim American
Women
David Borrelli
2015 Muslim American Identities NEH Seminar
Prominent Areas of Scholarship and
Activism
1. Tafsir & Fiqh
1. Challenging Imperialism and
Neocolonialism
Tafsir & Fiqh
Debra Majeed on patriarchy and fiqh
●
Classical jurists wrote in patriarchal context of
premodern Arabia
●
Evidence of patriarchy in Islam has evolved from this
●
“Most contemporary Muslim women and men have
personally encountered or accepted via tradition a
normative concept of gender in classical fiqh that
contains the ‘core of the patriarchal logic’ for the
subjugation of women in the private sphere.” (Majeed
313)
●
“Absence of egalitarian readings” - throws down
challenge
Tafsir & Fiqh
●
Increasing numbers of young women, after receiving
B.A. in America, choosing to study at traditional
Islamic universities (Damascus, Cairo)
●
New generation of scholars emerging
for whom “Islamic justice must, by
definition, include gender justice” (277)
-Leila Ahmed, A Quiet Revolution (2011)
Tafsir & Fiqh
“The study of Islamic textual and legal heritage as regards
women is livelier and more dynamic today than at any
other time in my own lifetime--and indeed livelier than at
any other moment in the history of feminism and Islam.”
-Leila Ahmed, A Quiet Revolution (2011),
pg.278
Tafsir & Fiqh: Example
Qur’an 4:34 (Surat An-Nisa’)
Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend
[for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the
husband's] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear
arrogance - [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them.
But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and
Grand.
http://quran.com/4/34
Tafsir & Fiqh: Example
1992 Amina Wadud publishes Qur’an and
Woman
Evaluates “the extent to which the position of
women in Muslim cultures accurately
portrays the intention of Islam for women in
society.” (ix)
Reads Surat An-Nisa’ as “prohibiting
unchecked violence against females.” (76)
2006 Wadud states “I have
finally come to say ‘no’ to the
literal implementation of
(Qur’an 4:34)” (Ahmed 272)
2007 Laleh Bakhtiar publishes
first English translation of
Qur’an by American woman
On translation of 4:34
Challenging “Feminist” Imperialism and
Neocolonialism
●
Leila Ahmed 1992 coins “colonial feminism” as feminism “used against other
cultures in the service of colonialism” (Women and Gender in Islam 151)
●
Gayatri Spivak: “white men saving brown women from brown men.” (Abu-Lughod
33)
●
Used throughout colonial history:
o Sati and child marriage in India under British colonial rule
o Lord Cromer in Egypt
o Fetishization of “unveiling” in Algeria
o 1991 Gulf War: mistreatment of women and their “exotic attire” evidence of
“deficiencies of the Islamic world” (Moghissi 37)
Challenging “Feminist” Imperialism and
Neocolonialism
“Liberation of women” trope in Afghanistan post-9/11
● Laura Bush radio address November 17, 2001
“The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women.”
“The brutal oppression of women is central goal of the terrorists.”
●
In 2002, “more books were published in the United States by Afghan
women than in the entire history of American letters.” (Milani 2)
Challenging “Feminist” Imperialism and
Neocolonialism
Time Magazine December 3, 2001
Challenging “Feminist” Imperialism and
Neocolonialism
●
●
Nevermind that…
o
Women often used burqa under Taliban rule to smuggle books/supplies to underground
schools and for other forms of resistance. (Ayotte & Hussain 117)
o
Suicides by Afghan women more frequent under U.S. occupation than under Taliban rule
(Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, 2004)
“Missionary feminism has long produced a cultural discourse of saving Muslim women in
different colonial encounters with terrorists or insurgents, ignoring the indigenous women’s
movements and the complexities of race, nationalism, and class at work.” (Maira 641)
Challenging “Feminist” Imperialism and
Neocolonialism
Time Magazine December 3, 2001
Time Magazine August 9, 2010
Challenging “Feminist” Imperialism and
Neocolonialism
Lila Abu-Lughod - Do Muslim Women Need Saving? (2013)
●
“Projects of saving other women depend on and
reinforce a sense of superiority, and are a form of
arrogance [and violence] that deserves to be
challenged.” (47)
●
“Can there be a liberation that is Islamic?” (45)
●
Has been criticized for “precluding the possibility of antiimperialist feminism” (Terman 4)
●
Begs the question: “how does one critique patriarchal
practices without bolstering imperialism?” (Terman 24)
Scholarship and Activism by Muslim
American Women
1. Defining a Muslism (American) Women’s Studies that
both participates in, and is distinct from, mainstream
feminism
1. Women scholars generating new Quar’anic
interpretations and Islamic legal scholarship
1. Calling out “colonial feminism”
Why might this be important for high
schoolers?
● “Women” not a monolithic group
● Dissolve the binary between “feminism” and faith/religion
● Develop “responsible critique” toward patriarchy in Muslim communities
● Cultivate future scholars, activists and responsible allies