Week 8 Politics of Piety by Saba Mahmood

This weeks reading politics of piety by Saba Mahmood the reading talked about how peoples traditions are different form one another depending on what they believe. The author also talked about agency. Mahmood also talked about how if women follow what society wanted them to that meant that they were giving manpower by following societies norms.

When I was reading the article I keep thinking about what we discussed in class about if we were free or not and how Mahmood in chapter one say that people that go again the norms in society those people are free.  One part of the article that I liked was the part and they are talking about the veil and how they people have different views about women wearing the veil. I like the example that the author gives about Nama and how she had to go through a all process before been able to be shy because it was how God wanted women to be. Which the author later explain that is the same thing with the veil is a command on God and at the beginning when women wear the veil they don’t feel comfortable and people look at the women weird but later on when they get used to it if they take the veil off they feel exposed.  Then later on in the article the author gives an example of how Ashmawis argues that women wear the veil because is a tradition but with time people have make a religion tradition.  One part on the article that caught my attention was the example that the author gives about Butler analyzes of reappropriation of the term queer how before it was very insulting and how now that term is positively and is used for self identification.  When I read the example I began to think about the word nigger in the past was offensive and I believe is still is from my perspective but people use it to refer one another which then I ask my self do you know what you are saying.  Later as I continue reading the article another point that caught my attention was when the author was talking with Nadia about marriage and how marriage in Egypt is a big issue for women because they need to get married as soon as possible they can not be single on the thirties because then women began to be rejected by others in society.  Then the authors says at the end that we can not put people in a perfect mold because not all of us fit in the perfect mold that society has deign for us.