Supna Zaida, Assistant Director of Islamist Watch and Editor-in-Chief of Muslim World Today, has a thoughtful oped in today’s Washington Examiner on feminist’s failure to defend Muslim women. She writes:
Remember Lubna Hussain, the Sudanese journalist found guilty of indecent dress for wearing trousers in Sudan, or the more recent news highlighting Egyptian clerical outrage against Chinese hymen reconstruction kits now available for $30? Such incidents move quickly through Western news media due to their un-believability. But, if one understood the danger behind such incidences, perhaps reaction in the West would be stronger, especially from feminists. What these stories have in common is the continued use of a woman’s body as the first battleground for political and cultural conflicts between reformers and authoritarian religious patriarchs that enjoy the status quo.
And regarding feminist Naomi Wolf’s troubling article last month in the Sydney Morning Herald (about which I posted my own thoughts here), Zaida says:
Feminist Naomi Wolf published a troubling article entitled, “Behind the veil lives a thriving Muslim sexuality,” where Wolf argued that veiling is a valid form of modesty when predicated upon choice. Her proof of free-will was based on visits to various homes in Jordan, Egypt and Morocco.
Wolf argues that, unlike Western society which ruins women’s lives with unattainable standards of beauty, the veil allows women to be taken seriously in the public sphere without objectification. Moreover, Muslim women are “thriving” in private where their sexuality is appropriately channeled towards marriage.
Is this what feminists argue these days? It is essential to recognize that, while some modern Muslims may choose to wear a headscarf, no choice exists where a girl is socialized to “channel” her sexuality “for her husband.”
Such social mores reinforce the belief that women are property, who must consider their sexuality and identity as mere extensions of family honor. It is no coincidence then that honor killings are prevalent in the countries Wolf visited.
Moreover, it is ironic that Wolf, ignoring such realities of the Middle East and North Africa, is able to marvel at the access Muslim women have to Victoria’s Secret catalogues, whose very images illustrate the feminine ideal Wolf ridicules in the West.
Read more here.