11/03/2017 NYU, Islamic Law and Human Rights Professor Ziba Mir-Hosseini What Does Islamic Feminism Teach to a Secular Feminist? or The Self-Critique of a Secular Feminist Duru Yavan To live a feminist life is to make everything into something that is questionable. Sara Ahmed 1 Feminism is not something which is static, unified or pre-determined that we get or accept; but a shelter, a struggle, a strategy and a future that we, women, build together. Sun Tzu says, in The Art of War 2 that a good strategy is based on three sources of knowledge: knowing yourself, knowing your opponent, and knowing the terrain. Therefore, I think as feminists, we should constantly ask ourselves these questions: Who are we fighting with?, Who are we fighting against?, Where do we fight? Meeting with Islamic feminism and listening genuinely the voices of Muslim women for equality, changed my answers to these questions dramatically; and forced me to review my feminist approach and my strategy. I believe that questioning my own truths, my prejudices and my assumptions about Islam made me a more genuine feminist. I have realized that I should act with a sense of collective responsibility towards each and every woman in the world, taking into regard each and every woman s unique experience and struggle; because this is the only way to disclose gender inequality, to resist hand to hand, and to build a more equal world together. 1. Who are we fighting with? or Listening the Voices of Muslim Women I grew up in Turkey, within a very secular family, with the idea that Islam is a threat against our lives, by listening stories about Muslim men who reject gender equality, Muslim men who force women to wear burqa, Muslim men who force little girls to get married with old men, Muslim men who forbid their daughters to go to the school. The subjects of these stories, as you can see, were always men, and women were just the objects of these stories. Since I was always very angry with these Muslim men who were trying to restrict our lives, I tried to keep Islam away from my life, as much as possible. Finally, I found my self as a very secular feminist in a Muslim-majority community that became more and more conservative everyday. 1 Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life, Duke University Press, 2017, p.2. 2 Sun-Tzu, and Samuel B. Griffith, The Art of War, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964.
My grandmother was the only person in our house, who defined herself as Muslim, performed salaat everyday and prayed before sleep. Once I asked her, since Qur an says according to my knowledge at that time Men are allowed to beat women ; how can a woman pursue such a book? She just said, This is not real Islam. I did not accept this answer at all, because at the end, some men, who define themselves as Muslim, were beating women and they were justifying all these acts by referencing Shari ah. What would have changed if the one they were referencing would not be real Islam? Almost 15 years later, I finally understand what she tried to tell me, that fiqh and Shari ah are different. While Shari ah refers to Allah s immutable divine law, fiqh, refers to its human scholarly interpretations. Therefore, the understanding of gender in traditional fiqh is also man-made, shaped by the patriarchy; and my grandmother was just a Muslim woman, who was trying to follow the ideals of the Shari ah in a patriarchal/male-dominated social system. A social system in which -contrary to my previous belief- men actually do not even need fiqh to justify their act of violence and of discrimination against women. A social system in which, my grandmother, as a Muslim woman is the other of the other. 3 Unfortunately, it took almost 15 years for me to hear her voice as a Muslim woman. I am still not sure, whether there is one and only correct interpretation of Shari ah, or even if there is, whether it is the one that my grandmother once believed. What I know though is that my grandmother s beliefs about Islam and her struggle as a Muslim woman disappeared since nobody ever listened to her. I missed the chance to be a part of her struggle, to listen to her understanding of Islam and her experiences as a Muslim woman. The first thing that I realized when I started to study on Islamic feminism was that since I was so much angry about those Muslim men, I was unable to listen to the voices of Muslim women; which were probably hidden in somewhere in their daily lives, in their anger, in their prayers, raising day by day behind the man-made walls. I found this very problematic, because feminism itself is grounded in the importance of participation, of listening to and accounting for the particular experiences of women, especially those on the margins of power 4 ; and that much feminist criticism on human rights movements has focused on the tendency of excluding women s experiences and women s voices. I had, in a sense, excluded Muslim women s voices and experiences from the women's rights debate, as well. I just considered them as victims who obey the patriarchal rules; as objects that I could fight for their freedom, but not as my companions in a common struggle. More sadly, since I just focused on the patriarchal faces of Islam, I have never seen the women s struggle hidden in it. In a way, I 3 Teresa Martinho Toldy, Secularist Dreams and Women s Rights : Notes on an Ambiguous Relationship, RCCS Annual Review, A Selection from the Portuguese journal Revista Critica de Ciencias Sociais, 3, 2011. 4 Tracy Higgins, Anti-Essentialism, Relativism, and Human Rights, 19 Harvard Women s Law Journal 89, 1996.
allowed those Muslim men and the oppressive religious governments to hide the Muslim women s struggle arisen against them. A women s struggle, which maybe uses different words, notions, methods and frameworks, but that has been triggered by the very same feeling, injustice; and has proceeded with the very same act, resistance. Even though Muslim women do not use the very same notions that secular feminists use, their struggle starts in the very first moment they recognize the asymmetric power relationship between women and men; the very first moment they feel injustice; the very first moment they resist in their own way, with their own words. As a feminist, I now understand that it is crucial for me to give an ear to these voices, in order to identify who I am fighting with. 2. Who are we fighting against? or The Patriarchy as the Real Enemy I grew up in Turkey, during a highly polarized period, when a strong conservative government challenged the strict secular institutions and policies of the modern Turkey. Each and everyday, I watched how my life as a secular woman, step by step restricted by the conservative government. The government started to encourage women to have minimum three children for example, and then condemned abortion as being a form of genocide by referencing Islam. On the other hand however, this was a period of liberation for Muslim women in Turkey, -at least at the beginning-. A large proportion of Muslim women started to go to university and to work in the public sector thanks to the abolition of prohibition of the headscarf by the government. I believe these asymmetric changes in the lives of Muslim and secular women created a huge tension between them. The secular narrative that exclusively blames Islam for the oppression of women, that considers religion as an obstacle to the enjoyment of women s rights, and that suggests women to leave the Muslim faith as the only way out of oppression became more common and even took radical form among secular women in Turkey. According to this secular narrative, in societies where Islam was strong, the status of women was lower, but in societies where secularism was strong, the status of women was higher. The misconception about the inverse relationship between women s rights and religion, typical of modernity, created the illusion of the impossibility of the copresence of these two notions together. Islamic feminism, however, shook the very foundations of this narrative and promoted gender equality within the Islamic framework, and claimed the possibility of the normative reconciliation between Islam and women s rights. I think this intervention of Islamic feminism into the gender equality debate, brought into question the sneaky and hidden discrimination against secular women in modern life; and in this way helped us to remind ourselves our real enemy: the patriarchy. Even though it is true that culture and religion are often cited as justifications for denying women a range of basic rights, including the right to travel, rights in marriage and divorce and the right to property, the women s oppression is not a special
phenomenon of a particular culture or religion. The oppression of women came from the underlying bias of a patriarchal society, and the patriarchy remains an existing force all around the world. The oppression of women persists despite the different forms, social contexts or religious expressions they take. 5 Islam may be one of the tools of the patriarchy, but not the very reason of women s oppression. However this secular narrative of blaming solely Islam for oppression of women, while indicating only Islamic forms of oppression, overlooks sexist but secular practices, as they are personal choices. 6 Therefore this approach creates an illusion about freedom of secular women and allows patriarchy to hide itself behind the glamour of modern and secular life styles. This approach prevents us to fight against the patriarchy, our real enemy. Secular women in Turkey thought for a long time that since they were not forced to put a headscarf, or since they were able to go to the university or to choose whom to marry, they were totally free. However this was not true. Because even though they did not have to put headscarf, they had to meet with socially accepted beauty norms that idealize thinness, youth, and whiteness. They were allowed to go to the university, but they were always one step behind than their male classmates. They were able to choose whom to marry, but they had to face that these modern, secular and even leftist men were also using violence against them. I think in modern life, the oppression of women is more sneaky, hidden and latent; and it is even more difficult to recognize, confront, articulate and fight against. I believe Islamic feminism, in a way, put a mirror to me as a secular woman; it helped me to confront with my illusion of freedom and to identify clearly the secular forms of oppression and of discrimination against women. 3. Where do we fight? or Balancing Personal Ideals with Real Life Conditions of Other Women Knowing the terrain means knowing the social, political, cultural relationships, institutions and structures in the battleground: What are the economic and social conditions of our allies? What are the different experiences and demands of women? Which institutions are the strongest castles of the patriarchy? What are the weaknesses of the male-dominated social system that we can attack first? I believe these are very important questions to build an inclusive strategy for gender equality. I have strictly rejected to use Islam as a framework and to work with a religious discourse in my struggle for gender equality for a long time. However Islamic feminism thought me that I am not the only child of the family ; and while 5 Tanya Monforte, Radicalizing Women s Rights Internationally, Critical Legal Thinking 19 October 2017, http://criticallegalthinking.com/2017/10/19/radicalizing-womens-rights-internationally/ 6 Ibid.
determining my strategy as a feminist, I should take into account each and every woman in the world, living in different conditions, fighting against different faces of patriarchy. A genuine feminist struggle requires being in solidarity both with Muslim women who are in very different social and economic situations, and with women in Muslimmajority societies who want to live secular lives. I have realized that my strict strategy, which represents a sharp break from the religious discourse, may worsen concrete situations for some women and damage this solidarity between us. I now believe that the sociopolitical context may require using the Islamic framework in different levels, and this may be the only way to be in solidarity with Muslim women. My struggle for women s rights should not be similar to colonial tactics or should not buttress Islamaphobia, 7 which will probably have negative consequences for Muslim women. I should learn to control my anger and to act more strategically, always with a sense of collective responsibility. 7 Ibid.