Week 7 - Saba Mahmood

            Saba Mahmood focuses on the Women’s mosque movement in Egypt. This was a time of women teaching other women about Islam. Mahmood talks about how people view Islamic cultures as male-dominated and always believe any strong female presence is trying to act in resistance. She references Lila Abu-Lughod and Janice Boddy and the ways they have talked about female agency signifying a resistance. Mahmood writes that we cannot identify universal acts that may be resisting or may be “socially, ethically, or politically indifferent to the goal of opposing hegemonic norms.” This piece shows that Muslim women may not need saving in the particular way that ‘westerners’ think that they do. When women choose to wear the veil for reasons of morality, divinity, and virtue we should not assume they are doing it for other reasons. People will commonly say the reasons for veiling could be anything from male oppression to social protest. People need to be able to step back and try not to always think they are helping people by trying to instill their values into them.

          

            Mahmood opens your eyes to the way we need to view actions and behaviors as social norms or other motivations. We cannot view every action of someone in a society doing something other than the majority as a resistance. We also cannot make assumptions that the people in those societies want to resist the norms.