From the Guardian (UK):
Marching under the banner of a new “gender jihad”, Islamic feminists from around the world this weekend launched what they hope will become a global movement to liberate Muslim women.
The meeting, which drew women from as far apart as Malaysia, Mali, Egypt and Iran, set itself the task of squaring Islam with feminism. That meant not just combating 14 centuries of sexism in the Muslim world, participants said, but also dealing with the animosity to Islam of many western or secular feminists. They insisted that many of the fundamental concepts of equality embraced by feminism could also be found in the Qur’an.
Muslim women launch international ‘gender jihad’
Marching under the banner of a new “gender jihad”, Islamic feminists from around the world this weekend launched what they hope will become a global movement to liberate Muslim women.
The meeting, which drew women from as far apart as Malaysia, Mali, Egypt and Iran, set itself the task of squaring Islam with feminism. That meant not just combating 14 centuries of sexism in the Muslim world, participants said, but also dealing with the animosity to Islam of many western or secular feminists. They insisted that many of the fundamental concepts of equality embraced by feminism could also be found in the Qur’an.
“Gender jihad is the struggle against male chauvinistic, homophobic or sexist readings of the Islamic sacred texts,” said Abdennur Prado, one of the meeting’s Spanish organisers.
Those readings had been provided by Muslim scholars who, over the centuries, have been almost exclusively male. “Male chauvinism is the destruction of Islam as a well-balanced way of life,” Mr Prado said.One of the leading voices was that of Amina Wadud, an African-American theology professor who provoked outrage in parts of the Muslim world when she led a mixed-sex congregation for Friday prayers in New York earlier this year. She said her commitment to change was born from her faith, two decades studying the Qur’an and the realisation that “horrific things were being done in the name of religion”.
Interesting.
On a totally unrelated note, here’s a bit about SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito, who joined the majority opinion in Fatin v. INS, 12 F.3d 1233 (3d Cir. 1993), which held
[…] that an Iranian woman seeking asylum could establish that she had a well founded fear of persecution in Iran if she could show that compliance with that country’s “gender specific laws and repressive social norms,” such as the requirement that women wear a veil in public, would be deeply abhorrent to her. Judge Alito also held that she could establish eligibility for asylum by showing that she would be persecuted because of gender, belief in feminism, or membership in a feminist group.
Just thought I’d mention it.
****
(h/t Allah)
Heh… speaking of “fearing the vagina”
But does gender jihad mean that there are about to be IEDs going off in bedrooms?
A lovely tie-in, JG. Although someone should let these women know that the veil is, in fact, a symbol of defiance—a way of serving notice to the west that not only does the wearer not mind being a second-class citizen, but that they’re positively proud of it.
BECAUSE OF THE JUDGMENTALISM!
And the rape advocacy, of course.
Well, see? There ya go with that radical right-wing extremism again.
tw: likely. He’s likely to be confirmed.
I can’t help noticing also that Prof. Wadud is an American Muslim. Per our friend Mandos at Feministe, maybe the professor should stick to criticizing her own culture, huh? Criticizing Middle Eastern countries might do “damage” there. Or, worse, might give Charles Johnson an excuse to bomb.
Allah,
I predict the Feministe folks, like all western feminists to date, will ignore the whole thing–or call it a conspiracy concocted by the CIA and/or Karl Rove.
Interesting, though. It seems reform of Islam will eventually come from the women.
Next we’ll find out that the radical nutcase, Alito, thinks the First Amendment guarantees freedom OF religion instead of Freedom FROM religion. If that gets out he’s toast!
KEEP YOUR DIRTY ETHNOCENTRIC HAND OFF OF THEIR CULTURE, ALLAH!!?!
BECAUSE OF THE COLONIALISM!!*!
Western patriarchy is the only bad form of patriarchy. Muslim patriarchy is to be expected, and opposing it would be culturally insensitive.
/channeling moonbat
TW: court. This thing is starting to scare me now.
Well… it’s a known fact that Rosa Parks never practiced Islam Mr. Goldstein. No come back for that is there tough guy?
Sincerely,
Chuck Schumer
Good one on Alito.
Okay, I must confess: All my fussing about implied rape jokes, I really have a problem with imagery of people just plain having sex. It irks me as I don’t get any.
Yeah, if they just acknowledge that being a Muslim is empowering, and their veils empower them multi-dimen… gah, I cannot do it.
BECAUSE OF THE [INSERT NOUN HERE]
Suffrajihadagettes?
So, will our feminists make womb for the Muslim feminists or what?
Oh, Please!
Alito wants women to seek asylum in the US? Where she might be forced to wear Jimmy Choos or suffer under the patriarchy of The Manolo?
Isn’t ‘stiletto’ an Italian word?
cool…all the way around
PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE TO MUSLIM MEN
Better get behind this, if you want to visit the Holy Land anytime soon.
MayBee: I couldn’t say it better myself. While I don’t advocate rape, or stoning rape victims, or stoning women accused of being raped, or stoning women who remind me in some way of any or all of the above or just because I feel like it, I can’t really say that embracing such customs would actually be “oppressive” in any way towards women–I’m just not sure. On the other hand, it’s plainly obvious that this bag of “Ho-Hos” I just ate is just another plot the RepuglipuKKKans have hatched to Demean and Enfatten Women helpless to resist the chocolaty goodness. HOW MANY 24-HOUR FITNESSES DO YOU AND HALLIBURTUN OWN, DICK CHENEY? HOW MANY PEOPLE NEED TO DIE IN ORDER TO FEED THE BAKERY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX?
If the somewhat androgynous, semi-retired glam pop star David Bowie were to release a single called Suffrajihadgette City, would that be seen, by a woman in a hijab, as being “empowering” or merely the product of Western ignorance and cultural bias?
Or would this entail a complex matrix of value judgments (empowering as a woman, disempowering as a Muslim, somewhat empowering as a David Bowie fan, somewhat disempowering because of the androgyny, with which a devout Muslim might feel uncomfortable, and so forth . . . ) that only a culturally nuanced and sensitive lefty could navigate?
Assuming, you know, it has a good beat and you can dance to it. Or is that another whole can of worms of which I should be sensitive?
TW: big. No rejoinder for this.