Muslim American FeminismDavid Borrelli2015 Muslim American Identities NEH Seminar

Problem with terminologyLeila 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

Alternativestl;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 FeminismDavid Borrelli2015 Muslim American Identities NEH Seminar

Muslim American FeminismDavid Borrelli2015 Muslim American Identities NEH Seminar

Scholarship and Activism by Muslim American WomenDavid Borrelli2015 Muslim American Identities NEH Seminar

Prominent Areas of Scholarship and Activism

1. Tafsir & Fiqh

2. 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: ExampleQur’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)

2007 Laleh Bakhtiar publishes first English translation of Qur’an by American woman

On translation of 4:34

2006 Wadud states “I have finally come to say ‘no’ to the literal implementation of (Qur’an 4:34)” (Ahmed 272)

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 ruleo Lord Cromer in Egypto Fetishization of “unveiling” in Algeriao 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 anti-imperialist 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

2. Women scholars generating new Quar’anic interpretations and Islamic legal scholarship

3. 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