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.