"The Light in Her Eyes"

I meant to post this, but Abu-Lughod's piece reminded me of a documentary I watched last fall regarding Syrian women within the Muslim community. The points that surround the hijab particularly reminded me of Abu-Lughod's article, so I recommend you watch it! It's available on Netflix, as I've learned 99% of you are about that Netflix life. Again it's called "The Light in Her Eyes." Here's a synopsis PBS provided: Houda al-Habash, a conservative Muslim preacher, founded a Qur’an school for girls in Damascus, Syria, 30 years ago. Every summer, her female students immerse themselves in a rigorous study of Islam. A surprising cultural shift is underway — women are claiming space within the mosque. Shot right before the uprising in Syria erupted, The Light in Her Eyes offers an extraordinary portrait of a leader who challenges the women of her community to live according to Islam, without giving up their dreams. An Official Selection of the 2011 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. Produced in association with American Documentary | POV.

Week 7 - Critiquinq Western Feminism II

    For week’s seven reading I found it personally challenging but nonetheless a good challenge to digest. In Saba Mahmood, Politics Of Piety is an analysis of Islamist cultural politics through her ethnographic study of the women’s piety movement in the mosques of Cairo, Egypt.  She carefully examines this non-liberal movement and is essentially arguing that their are alternatives ways through which we may understand the women’s movement in Egypt which challenges Western liberalism thinking. The author is speaking out against and critiquing normative liberal assumption about what constitutes human nature and agency and how liberalism thought on this subject has become the common shared belief.

     One of the ways through which she examines this movement is her emphasis on agency (the humanist desire for autonomy and self-expression). She looks at other forms of analysis of agency by looking at Janice Boddy’s study of agency of the women in northern Sudan on women’s zar cult. Janice argues that the zar possession (a widely practiced healing cult that uses Islamic Idioms and spirit mediums which is mostly practiced by female) serves as “a kind of counter-hegemonic process where the “officially ideology “ of Islam is dominated and controlled by men (pg.7). The relevance of this is Mahmood is pointing out that there are different ways of performing autonomy through resistance where women assert their presence in predominate patriarchal society that otherwise Western Liberalism thought would not take into consideration as forms of self-expression that are opposing the “official ideology” of Islam.  Similar to Mohanty’s claim in “Under Western Eyes”, that there are different meanings of what the veil means, that there isn’t just a universal oppression of women through sexual segregation, that you need to look at the local, cultural, and historical context to understand the significance of a cultural movement.

      She also examines freedom by critiquing liberal assumptions of freedom that have become universal. She is arguing that there are different forms of resistance and what it means to be “free” depends on where you stand in the world. The author gives an example of two different perspectives of feminist views on freedom depending on the individual. For Native- and African American feminist argued that freedom, for them, consisted in being able to form families due to the long history of slavery and racism and white middle-class feminist want to get rid of the nuclear family, which was predicated upon women’s oppression.  She really emphasis how feminist need to re-valuate their thinking about freedom and is dependent upon the individual’s autonomy and where they stand in the world-race,class, ethnicity  and historically. This is also Similar to “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?” and the authors claim when she asserts, “ Can we only free Afghan women to be like us or might we have to recognize that even after “liberation” from the Taliban, they might want different things than we would want fro them?”(pg.787, Abu-Lughod). Both authors are critiquing and questioning white centric liberalism assumptions of liberation and that it is assuming it knows a better way when you “save” someone from something or that agency and freedom are fixed meanings. 

  What is crucial in their standpoints is both authors have similar messages: To rethink our conventional understandings. To not just look at the veil as a sign of oppression or that Afghan women need saving, that the mosque movement is just a sign of resistance and that their is a fixed meaning of agency.  They are both proclaiming that we need to recognize and respect differences— that there are different ideas on what it means to be a human or what justice and freedom means to the individual as products of different histories, as expression of different circumstance’s and as manifestations of differently structured desires( Abu-Lughad,pg. 787 “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?”).

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/world/middleeast/syria-trials-of-spring.html

This kinda reminded me of weeks 7 readings..how these women perform their agency during the Arab Spring

Unholy Matrimony? Feminism, Orientalism, and the Possibility of Double Critique

          This week's reading with Juliet W. Williams was quite interesting. Williams discusses on the topic of sigheh, translating to temporary marriage where there is a contract between man and woman living together and having an exchange of currency and sexual favors. The relationships that fall under the sigheh can range from prostitution to later having a long lasting monogamous marriage. Williams isn’t too fond of the idea of temporary marriage, however, Ali’s (William’s significant other) mother deeply believes in this concept. This is only because Ali’s mother wants his son to learn and develop a lifestyle with Williams, so they can see their hardships before they became more committed. And it is also a way for them to not deprive themselves from sexual interactions. Otherwise, without sigheh, the relationship will be frowned upon if they were to casually move in together.

          What I found very interesting were Williams’ four commonalities between Shiite temporary marriages and U.S. practiced marriages. One comparison to temporary marriages would be how most marriages in the United States end in divorce 50% of the time. With both entering with a prenuptial ideal and having a postnuptial ideal if/when leaving. Another comparison would be that the U.S. has already developed a way of forming marriage as “socially sanctioned prostitution.” Temporary marriages are known for their financial exchanges with sexual favors, just as you would see in the finale of U.S. shows like Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire and The Bachelor. A third comparison would be the representation and formality of women and children dictated by men. The final comparison is how the U.S. and Iranian government promote a way one should live a life with their significant other. Even though marriage is seen as one’s choice, it is rather influenced by the government more than we can imagine. The line between public and private is crossed. Throughout this read, I found it very appealing and formed a new perspective about unmentioned commonalities of marriage in the United States and Iran, but especially in other countries with similar backgrounds. 

Afsaneh Najmabadi

PART TWO: MOTHERS, WIVES, AND CITIZENS:

CHAPTER 3: Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran (pp. 91-125)

Afsaneh Najmabadi

            Clearly, Chapter 3 entitled “Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran” by Najmabadi represents how changes in the modern times are associated with the changes of a woman’s role in the society. Some of these changes include empowerment of women, which can be demonstrated with positions at work, in education, marriage, and even child rearing. Primarily, the focus of Najmabadi’s chapter has been centered on women’s roles in the contemporary society, especially in the Middle East. For instance, the chapter looks into how the role of women is shaped by being a wife, which means that women are to stay at home taking of their child, serving the husbands and doing the rest of the household chores.

            But in a personal opinion, the roles of Muslim women have also changed because of education. With knowledge and awareness, women have become more awakened and empowered to say that her roles are not bounded by the four walls of their homes and tradition. Education as well served as the way for most women to express and voice out their concerns in any issues that matters in the public. This chapter as well opened how women act at work and manage themselves as leaders. Again, these approaches are found to be indebted with education. More so, education that is comprised of various fields and subjects has aided women to become more confident in facing the world, which might be against her.

 PART TWO: MOTHERS, WIVES, AND CITIZENS:

CHAPTER 3: Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran (pp. 91-125)

Afsaneh Najmabadi

            Clearly, Chapter 3 entitled “Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran” by Najmabadi represents how changes in the modern times are associated with the changes of a woman’s role in the society. Some of these changes include empowerment of women, which can be demonstrated with positions at work, in education, marriage, and even child rearing. Primarily, the focus of Najmabadi’s chapter has been centered on women’s roles in the contemporary society, especially in the Middle East. For instance, the chapter looks into how the role of women is shaped by being a wife, which means that women are to stay at home taking of their child, serving the husbands and doing the rest of the household chores.

            But in a personal opinion, the roles of Muslim women have also changed because of education. With knowledge and awareness, women have become more awakened and empowered to say that her roles are not bounded by the four walls of their homes and tradition. Education as well served as the way for most women to express and voice out their concerns in any issues that matters in the public. This chapter as well opened how women act at work and manage themselves as leaders. Again, these approaches are found to be indebted with education. More so, education that is comprised of various fields and subjects has aided women to become more confident in facing the world, which might be against her.

Reference

Najmabadi, Afsaneh, 1998, 'Part Two: Mothers, Wives, and Citizens - CHAPTER 3: Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran,’ In Remaking Women - Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, Lila Abu-Lughod (ed.), Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.

My reaction to week 5's reading

In "Feminism and Islam. Critiquing Western Feminisms I (cont.): Colonialism, Feminism, and Islam", the author discussed how Arab women in Egypt changed the way they dress to modern styles rather than “return to their cultural traditions” (263). The growing popularity in wearing traditional styles of hijab among Arab women doesn’t necessarily lead to more and more women returning home to their traditional roles. According to Abu-Lughod, “the Islamist call for women to return to their roles as wives and mothers does not represent anything resembling what could be considered traditional”(263). As the definition of traditional role in the Arab world has always been changing over decades and centuries. For example, people used to consider being a homemaker housewife is the traditional role of Arab women, but now it can be considered as a career. As Abu-Lughod said “Cultures cannot simply displace or undermine each other”(263). People cannot just borrow western feministic ideas and put it in Egypt and expect people in Egypt will understand and adapt to it automatically. Although this will seem work at first because it is widely acceptable by middle and lower middle class people, it is not smart because Egypt has a very long history, and they must study the history of feminism in Egypt and combine feminism in two cultures because feminism should not be used to achieve political purposes. 

Abu-Lughod’s interpretation of feminism focuses on the traditional culture of Islam. While importing new ideas from western feminism is a very common phenomenon in other countries, it is also important for them to keep their good old traditions and cultures. How do we expect people will fully understand and adopt to brand new ideas from a foreign world all of a sudden? Western feminism will only work in Egypt if it is fused with traditional Islamic feminism ideas and traditional cultures. The way of directly importing western feminism and try to implement it in Egypt done by the Egyptian media is very absurd and irresponsible. 

LILA ABU-LUGHOD AND JULIET A. WILLIAMS ARGUMENTS-

        Lila Abu-Lughod and Juliet A Williams are both making a claim of points of similarities between marriage practices in Iran and the Unites States in Julie Willaims article, Egypt in Lila Abu- Lughod and the United States—that cannot be rejected. Both authors critical analysis reveal how these cultures in the Middle East have intertwined with Western Ideology, but are either ignored or denied due to orientalism for the West and the East wanting it to be their own cultural authenticity. 

   

     Lila Abu-Lughod article looks at the historical roots in her argument to show the link how the vision of marriage In Egypt is and aspects of it is influenced from the West. For a critical examination of ideology Lughad looks at the Egyptian elite reformer Qasim Amin who many has consider him the father of Egyptian feminism under British occupation. One of the examples Lila states that Amin echoes the European Christian marriages vows—he quotes a prominent British thinker, John Stuart Mill, “What better situation is there for a man than living with a companion who accompanies him day and night, at home and aboard, in sickness and in health, through good and bad (pg.257).” Another link she makes is how he calls to end veiling and seclusion as well as to ban polygamy to nurture martial bond, which also can be linked to European Western influence.  

      In Juliet A Williams article she is arguing how temporary marriage in Iran should not be looked as inferior and in negative, immoral way that U.S. media frames it to be. U.S. media reinforces this unmoral- barbaric image of temporary marriage by omitting and manipulating information—although the United States, she claims bears a striking resemblance to Shiite temporary marriage. Lila asserts that a temporary marriage refers to the contract made between a man and unmarried woman specifying the duration of a union and an amount of money to be given by a man to his temporary wife (pg.612). One of her critical examples she points out about temporary marriage in Iran being not so ideologically different to the marriage institution in the United states is the growing reliance on prenuptial and postnuptial agreements, where thinking about marriage is not just about living together forever about also planning for strategies for a marriage that could ended up being impermanent—plans for separation.

    What I find significant in Lila Abu- Lughod’s argument is her emphasis on looking at the historical context of feminism in Egypt and to be have an open awareness of how certain elements of culture that have been burrowed, imported or heavily influenced by Western and European occupation of the East-to not be denied. To be able to stand outside of your inherent subjective assumptions about a culture and to be mindful of all the different historical stages it went through to how it become to be the way it is now.

    Similar, to Juliet A Williams argument of how temporary marriage in Iran being similar to the U.S—what I found significant about her argument is that their needs to be a double critique before there is a disregard or disdain for a certain a way a culture does something—“ In a double critique, the act of translation itself becomes the object of critical analysis, where translation is understood not as a means to the end of true understanding but rather as an occasion for the translator to, in the words of Talal Asad, “test the tolerance of her own language for assuming unaccustomed forms (pg.629). “  I found this statement valuable and valid that when we are trying to make sense of another culture and their unfamiliar and “exotic” ways and to translate it, we need to analyze or own translation of a culture and to challenge our own assumptions to why we disregard elements of culture that isn’t familiar to what we know.

Reading 5

            This weeks reading were about the struggle that Muslim women, specifically in Egypt, face. One thing that was interesting was that women did not start wearing the hijab up until the 1970’s. It was a political movement by women in college. It is interesting to think of this because most people presume that it is some form of oppression. Of course now there are many different meanings for the hijab. However most people that were in the work force in the 1970’s, loved there job and considered it a way to get closer to God.

            Abu-Lughod also wrote how arranged marriages were not always the best and that temporary marriages made her uncomfortable. She wrote about a popular liberal screenwriter who wrote an episode for a television show about how a western man fell in love with a conservative woman and he tried to change her but it would not work, she was dedicated to her ways. The man left her and went with a liberal woman and eventually it did not work out with liberal woman and went back to the conservative woman. However by the time the man went back to conservative woman, she was already changed to a liberal woman and the man left her as well. They were trying to show how men have no idea what they want. No television station ever picked this up because it was created in the 1970’s. It was a great example though, how women do change themselves for a man, and he will still not be satisfied.

Week 5 Readings

Lila Abu-Lughod talks about conjugal love and the nuclear family. She talks about the importance that television programs have on how we view women. Usama Anwar Ukasha uses his television show to get across a political message of romantic love and the need for careers. Islamists try to use stories of popular television stars giving up their lavish lifestyles for a more family oriented life to spread their message. Those who support veiling believe the woman’s role should be at home with her family. Women regardless of if they wear a hijab or not, believe in higher education and the importance of careers.

            Al-Assad believes that marriage needs to be a loving understanding between two people and any other form of marriage is a betrayal. Abu-Lughod uses many examples to get across the point that arranged marriages are not the best thing. The example of the cancelled television program show is centered on the idea that the son did not want to marry a person his mother had set him up with, but rather he wanted to marry the pious woman that he had fallen in love with.

            Williams talks about a temporary marriage contract between her and her future husband. How it made her feel uneasy being a temporary wife. She compared this to prostitution because it would allow them to lose their virginity without actually being married.  Her mother-in-law was the head of the household and insisted on this union.