A MUSLIM WOMAN’S CALL TO ARMS

A MUSLIM WOMAN’S CALL TO ARMS
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In 2011 women were allowed to work in lingerie stores in Saudi Arabia. Previously, men were selling women bras and panties because the avoidance of "mingling" between the sexes at work meant that most shops had male assistants. So a man staring at your chest to guess your bra size was acceptable, but driving a car is not.

Every day it is a struggle to reconcile my deep conviction in, and devotion to, the Islamic faith with the sickening reports of abuses of many women in the name of Islam. Not for a moment do I think that the oppression and brutality directed against women stem from sincerely held religious beliefs. Whether it is targeting girls who seek an education in Afghanistan or treating women like second-class citizens in Saudi Arabia, the fact is that the oppression of women is essentially about coveting power and dominating women - a lust for control that is both illogical and pathetic, collapsing under the slightest interrogation.

As a devout Muslim woman, I find it abhorrent that Islam is used to justify the subjugation of women in many parts of the Muslim world. I refuse to be an apologist, to minimise this appalling state of affairs. But equally, I am no Ayaan Hirsi Ali or hysterical Femen-devotee who peddles a vulgar form of Islamophobia in the misguided belief that a liberated woman is a woman who has rejected Islam. While I'm sick to death, as a Muslim woman, of the hypocrisy and nonsensical fatwas, I confess that I'm also tired of white women who think the answer is flashing a bit of breast so that those "poor," "infantilised" Muslim women can be "rescued" by the "enlightened" West - as if freedom was the sole preserve of secular feminists.

Ultimately, I do not see Islam as the problem; I see it as the platform for change. I believe in gender equality - including the rights of Muslim women to dress as they please - because, as a Muslim feminist, I value agency, choice and autonomy. Moreover, I have deep conviction that these values are integral to the Islamic tradition, and are not simply ideals imported from the West.

But I also value integrity and truth, which is why I, along with many others, are not afraid to say that the Islamic justifications offered by those men who view women as inferior, or who construct their relationships with women in terms that define them as sexual temptresses, are based on corrupted interpretations of Islam which place religion at the service of men's cupidity.

What is needed is a kind of radical surgery in Muslim countries in order to remove the festering, diseased pustule of patriarchy that attempts to define one half of society as walking sex organs. We need to ask why, if the hijab is supposedly a shield against harassment or sexual objectification - a claim I find highly problematic - are so many covered women in the Middle East groped, harassed, fondled and ogled in public. Why do I feel safer walking the streets of Sydney than I do the streets of Amman or Cairo?

The temptation is to try and make sense of this sad state of affairs by means of explanations which either essentialise or dehumanize Muslim men, treating them as some homogenous block of women-haters - but this temptation must be resisted. This is far too complex for Femen's racist generalisations and puerile explanations, and demands a nuanced understanding of the deeper societal, legal and philosophical forces at play in the Muslim world.

Far more effective is a sort of call to arms to all Muslims, to wage an intellectual and theological jihad against sexist despots. This would entail promoting theologically grounded arguments that would empower women to make dignified choices based on their own religious tradition. To some extent, this is already happening, and while there is still a long way to go in places like Saudi Arabia, we should not underestimate the significance of the steps that are being taken, however impatient we might be to see equality achieved.

After spending a few days last week at a writer's conference in the United Arab Emirates, at which I met women from across the Middle East, I have come to realise just how distorted are our Western perceptions of Muslim women and men. I met fully-veiled women who delivered the most dynamic, insightful and funny presentations to packed audiences of women and men. Everywhere I turned, women were in control and leading the way. I met Saudi men who spoke of their loathing of the laws that repress women.

It is easy to think of Saudi women only in terms of victimhood. But to do so is to compound the injustice and deny agency to the many women who are actively resisting oppression and making a life for themselves despite the barriers. These objects of state-sponsored oppression do not need, nor do they seek, pity. They deserve to be heard and to be respected.

Consider Hissa Hilal who appeared on live television in 2010 and delivered a traditional Bedouin-inspired poem, The Chaos of Fatwas, which criticized extremist clerics for "terrorising people and preying on everyone seeking peace." Hilal has since gone on to international fame and continues to advocate for freedom and liberty.

Just last week, the King Khalid Foundation launched the first Saudi Arabian advertisement against domestic violence under the banner, "Some things can't be covered: fighting women's abuse together." It is easy to be cynical of such advertisements, given the enormity of the task ahead of those who wish to see substantive and formal equality in a society where all women must have a male guardian. The constant temptation is to see these agonisingly slow reforms as tantamount to the admission, "Yesterday, we didn't consider you human beings. Today, we're not so sure."

To be sure, we need to intensify our struggle to liberate women from puritanical religious interpretations. But no good can come from treating Muslim women as Disneyfied damsels in distress and Muslim men as villains. For pity's sake, it is time to inject some nuance, intelligence and decency into the struggle for justice and equality, and to leave the idiocy of an "Us" versus "Them" view of the world to the hard-liners.

by
Randa Abdel-Fattah

[Randa is an award-winning author of eight novels. She practiced as a lawyer for ten years, and is now completing a PhD in the Department of Sociology at Macquarie University.]