What do they think they're fighting for? "Egypt: Sisters want voice in Muslim Brotherhood," by Jeffrey Fleishman for the Los Angeles Times, November 4:
The sisters in the brotherhood demand change.
Women in Egypt’s largest Islamic political movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, want to reshape an organization that is heavily patriarchal.
The brotherhood often overlooks or does not reward the accomplishment of its "sisters."
The group's new political platform angered many members by opposing the idea of a woman being elected president of Egypt.
This rumble of discontent comes as bloggers and other reformers are pushing the brotherhood to loosen its religious rigidity and modernize.
Otherwise, they say, the organization will fail to speak to the needs and aspirations of today’s Egyptians.
Reality check: Maybe sharia isn't whatever you want it to be, or wish it were.
A report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace found that “women activists have been at the forefront of the Brotherhood’s political struggle and have become highly visible in key political events, but their role still goes unrecognized.”
Written by Omayma Abdel-Latif the report continues:
“There is, however, growing evidence to suggest that more and more Islamist women are becoming restless with their subordinate status and are seeking ways to assert their demands for more representation inside the movement and broader participation in politics. An important factor in this is the emergence of a young generation of Islamist women activists who are critical of their marginal status and believe that the Muslim Sisters’ role has outgrown their subordinate positions in the movement.”
"The sisters in the brotherhood demand change."
Well, you girls are in luck. Obama's da' man and he's all about change.
What about being beaten, ploughed as dirt and going to hell don't these women understand? Shut up and stir the falafel, Aisha.
Marwan's Daughter, just to add a little to what you've brilliantly said:
What part of being jihadist-breeders, sweeping and mopping floors, cooking for their "superior" bearded and louse-ridden owners/overlords and reading Mein Qurampf, as they're taught at sharia-approved Quranic schools, don't these women understand?
Sooo, now there are feminist jihadists! I am reminded of Dylan's "Every [woman] must get stooooooooned!"
Seriously, this is toooo much!
egyptian brotherhood:
"You are not subordinate. You can make jihad without your husband's approval!"
"Allah says you have one half voice, but there are other restrictions of how, where and in what you may voice your half voice."
Ladies!
What did you sign up for? Have any of you read the Qur'an? Looked at Memri lately?
You are already living in the "Islamic Paradise" that the Muslim Brotherhood hopes to establish world wide. What's the beef?
If you want to have a voice in an organization, any Muslim group you join will trot out the Qur'an to but you in your place.
You could become unbelievers, but that usually doesn't end well.
Odd as it seems, muslimahs may actually be the best hope for progressive change in islamic dogma. Got a few centuries?
It is really odd to me that many women from the Islamic world write with anger about how things "turn out" for women as their countries go further down the path of Islam.
I'm currently reading "My Sister Guard Your Veil, My Brother Guard Your Eyes", which is a small compendium of Iranin voices. The theme of "twisted outcomes" runs through it, with many a writer professing surprise and anger at the diminuition of women's rights & the eclipsing of their roles in society after the '79 revolution. None examine or question the tenets of Islam in this uncensored writing. Telling, and demoralizing.
Also, funny that the article posted above is illustrated with a photo of mannequins dressed Islamically-correctly (though is that color I detect on their lips?). The book I mentioned has an interesting essay entitled "Death of a Mannequin", by Mehrangiz Kar, which allegorically compares the incremental changes of the window mannequins to the eclipse of real women in Iran.
From her essay:
'After the hair was lost, only the roundness of women's faces, their daintily colored lips, their blushing cheeks, and their adorned eyelashes remained visible. But the authorities could no longer tolerate those attractive faces, so they continued the Islamization of women's looks, with a little help from the mannequins. ... Gradually, the color of the mannequin's faces faded away. The rouge of their lipstick and their blush evaporated. Their eyes started to appear dead and hollow. A sense of fright nested in their gaze that bore little resemblance to the air of modesty and chastity the Islamic Republic wished to summon. ... Ironically, as we morphed in the Islamic-looking women, we obeyed a bunch of lifeless dolls.'
I should have kept going. Ms. Kar continued,
'The owners of the clothes shops finally came to the conclusion that they might be better off detaching the heads of the mannequins from their bodies altogether. The authorities were claiming that the lips of women were aphrodisiac and their eyes stimulating. The shop owners were confused and did not know what to do to save their businesses from the attacks of the regime. So all of a sudden, they cut the heads off of their mannequins.'
And there we have it. The beheading of "woman".
How....Islamic.
While taking a look at Mehrangiz Kar's website, I noticed this post:
Shirin Ebadi is in Danger
Seems she's being accused of being Bah'ia.
'According to Article 226 of the Islamic Penal Code, "Murder of any person is subject to 'Ghesas' [retaliated punishment] only if the victim did not deserve death based on the Sharia, and if the victim deserved death the murderer must prove that in court, according to set criteria."
Who does not know that a Muslim's conversion to Bahaism is enough to make him or her deserve death (according to this standard) and who does not know that Iran's penal laws are so favorable to murderers that they essentially do not regard victims to be significant.'
"Mein Qurampf !"
Thanks Proud_Kafir7908, that's the only laugh I've had all this dark day.
Quite likely the Islamic overlords will eventually tell these muslimahs to back off or risk facing the stoning squad.. besides, didn't ol' Mo say that most women go to hell ?
Isn't Bahaism (if that's what it's called) just a less fundamentalist Islam? I mean, isn't it just rejecting much of Sharia and opening oneself up to the idea that maybe Mo isn't the last prophet, but still embracing the Koran, while rejecting Islam's perverted view of the Bible and embracing it as it is? That was my understanding of it based on the short section of my high school freshman course on world religions.
I love how the women on rawa.org all seem to believe that the problem is 'fundamentalism.' I cut them some slack because many of them are probably illiterate and have to rely on what people tell them about Islam, but politically active Egyptian women can read. That's something else. They know Islam, they understand how inherently findamentalist it is, they want Islamization, yet they don't want to be subject to it.
jdam, the Iranian women who write about this stuff also were highly educated, and were working and had active lives before the revolution in '79. I cut no slack for their inability to see that Islam is the problem.
Something which, by the way, Nonnie Darwish definitely does see.
It took Nonie a good 20-some-odd years before it hit her, and she went to British Catholic schools, grew up in Israel, and lived in America for decades first. She blamed it on "Arab culture" forever. I'm serious when I say that Muslims lack the logical faculties of brain-damaged five-year-olds. It's not an exaggeration. Brain-damaged five-year-olds can connect two and two without it constantly smackng them in the face all day, every day. Muslims cannot.
jdam, my memory of Darwish's book may be rusty, as I read it awhile ago, but I don't think she "grew up in Israel". She lived in Gaza as a child, where her military father was killed by the Israelis. I believe her first trip to Israel was well after she publicly stated her beliefs.
I think you've written about being physically ill due to intimidation by Muslims you've experienced at IU. Imagine what someone who actually apostasizes from Islam must go through. Imagine what it takes to get there.
What is the old saying? "You can't have your cake and eat it too"?
Many years ago, I worked with a black lady who was a sister in the Nation of Islam. From what I had gathered of her, she had grown up in a middleclass American family, had good schooling and loving parents and siblings; however, while she was in college, she was converted by her boyfriend, a brother in the nation of islam. After a discussion at lunch one day about how black women are slaves to their men and not respected in their relationships (and believe me, she went on and on), I asked her..."well, what did you get from being a muslim?". She smiled at me and only answered "peace". I pressed her more and she stated that she didn't feel she was in a submissive role and that women are revered, loved and respected in islam. I almost choked on my lunch. I have heard those words from muslim women that I worked with in NY city.
I guess not having any responsibility, opinion, free will, being wholly submissive....CAN be peaceful, especially if you have had a frontal lobotomy.