Category Archives: Feminism

No sexy eyes please, we’re Saudi

By avicenna | Published: November 20, 2011

The Saudis are in the highest level of the Islamic religious foodchain and occupy the topmost spot in the hierarchy of Muslim piety. The reason they are held with such esteem by South Asian Muslims is because they’re rich, they’re Arabs and their country happens to be the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammed. Saudi men, however, don’t think much of South Asians and they don’t treat their women as equal citizens either because to do that would be blasphemous, unliteralist and opposed to everything the Prophet preached. Here are two stories concerning the rights of Saudi women which will warm the hearts of your average diaspora South Asian Muslim.

Saudi Women with sexy eyes may forced to cover even them up, if the Saudi government pass a new resolution.

Too sexy for my niqab

Spokesman of the Ha’eal district, Sheikh Motlab al-Nabet said the committee has the right to stop a women whose eyes seem “tempting” and order her to cover them immediately.

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Posted in Feminism | 1 Comment

Karima Bennoune: North African People Power

By Cross Post | Published: January 16, 2011

This is a cross-post by Karima Bennoune

After more than 23 years in office, Tunisia’s President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, “Zinochet” as he was dubbed, was forced from power yesterday by popular protests.

These protests began after Mohamed Bou’aziz, an unemployed university graduate in the town of Sidi Bouzid, attempted to burn himself to death on December 17 when the produce he sold on the street to earn a living was confiscated. (He later died of his injuries.)

How could Mr. Bou’aziz know what the implications of his desperate act would be in just one month’s time? His sacrifice inspired huge demonstrations that spread across the North African country, organized in part through resourceful use of Twitter and Facebook. These were met with brutality by the security forces, a grim reality that simply provoked more protest. Unarmed demonstrators were regularly teargassed. Many were arrested. As many as 70-80 people were shot or beaten to death. But the protesters marched on.

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Also posted in Human Rights, International Affairs | 2 Comments

The Burqa Ban

By Cross Post | Published: December 30, 2010

This is a cross-post by Ananya Jahanara Kabir

A Muslim woman living in Europe talks of her experiences with markers of Islam and her reasons for affiliating herself with Muslimness alongside equally powerful reasons for distancing herself from its overt expressions in the public sphere.

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Also posted in Civil Rights, Freedom of Religion, Identity Politics, Your View | Leave a comment

Veiled Values

By Guest | Published: August 9, 2010

This is a cross-post by Kenan Malik

In his bestselling book America Alone, the Canadian writer Mark Steyn fantasises about the state of Europe in 2020. The Islamists have stormed to power right across the continent. No English pub can sell alcohol. Holland’s gay clubs have been relocated to San Francisco. And every French woman is forced to be veiled.

The fashion police, at least, have already arrived, a decade early and without any help from Islamists. But rather than forcing women to wear the burqa or niqab, their job is to force them not to. Earlier this month Italian police in the northern city of Novara fined a Tunisian immigrant, Amel Marmouri, €500 for being veiled in a post office. Belgian police are likely to be doing the same after the Brussels parliament outlawed the burqa. France expects to pass a similar law by the autumn. Holland could follow suit. The Spanish city of Lleida has forbidden the burqa in public buildings; the Minister of Labour and Immigration Celestino Corbacho has hinted at a national ban. In Canada, the Quebec government has drafted an anti-burqa law. Australian politicians are demanding one too.

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Also posted in Anti Muslim bigotry, Fashion, Freedom of Religion, Human Rights, Identity Politics, Islamism, Moral relativism, Multiculturalism, Secularism | 15 Comments

G!D the “misogynist” and other cyclical lepidopterisms

By bananabrain | Published: May 6, 2010

thanks to the delightful sonia from pickled politics, i ended up in a jolly discussion over at butterflies and wheels on feminism and religion. they seem to have closed the comments for some reason, but i still thought it was an interesting subject and thought i’d continue it here if anyone (like ophelia benson or amy clare) was interested. there are some unresolved questions. amy asks:

“Do Anglicans, even moderates, really think of G!D as a sexless being? I was under the impression that most moderate religious people still think of G!D as male. People could use the singular ‘they’ and refer to a ‘parent’ if they were really that bothered.”

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Also posted in Blogosphere, Esoterica, Ethics, Exegesis, Hermeneutics, Human Rights, Interfaith, Jewish Extremism, Moral relativism, Obscurantism, Secularism | 8 Comments

Women’s Rights, Human Rights, and the Left

By Guest | Published: April 26, 2010

From Meredith Tax of Taxonomy Blog:

****

I’ve been thinking about feminism, human rights, and the left and want to explore some of the ideas I laid out in a blog in February called “Underlying Philosophical Differences,” which discussed Gita Sahgal’s struggle with Amnesty. I kept asking myself why I cared so much. I have never even been a member of Amnesty; why should Gita’s struggle resonate so deeply? I have come to realize that her struggle mirrors my own political journey.

I became a movement activist initially because of the war in Vietnam. I wanted to end US imperialism and racism, and bring about social justice for all. Though I had a sense of women’s oppression from childhood and became active in the women’s liberation movement as soon as I made contact with it, I continued to identify as a left wing person and to raise women’s issues within that context.

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Also posted in Human Rights | Leave a comment

Islam Needs a Sexual Revolution

By Guest | Published: October 14, 2009

This is an interview from Spiegel-Online, of the German-Turkish writer Seyran Ates. She discusses her new book, which describes the necessity of a sexual revolution in the Islamic world, the recent integration debate in Germany and the arrogance of German women’s rights activists.

Seyran Ates

Seyran Ates

SPIEGEL: Ms. Ates, in your controversial new book, you call for a sexual revolution in the Islamic world.

Ates: You don’t know how necessary that is.

SPIEGEL: But what exactly do you mean by a sexual revolution?

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Also posted in Media | 3 Comments

Little Lolitas?

By Guest | Published: October 8, 2009

This piece by Laurie Penny is cross-posted from Penny Red. It also comes with this warning from the author:

[This entry comes with a trigger warning for mention of rape and abuse involving young girls. It's also possibly the angriest post I've ever written.]

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Thanks to a new book, ‘The Lolita Effect’, and a kiddy-sized pole-dancing kit marketed to six year olds that got attention on both sides of the pond and, of course, Miley Cyrus, the ‘sexualisation of young girls’ is in the press again. Cue a great deal of handwringing and think-of-the-children-isms in the same international press that, this same week, gave a good deal of coverage to child-rape apologists.

All of these stories are just begging, just laying back like the wanton little semiotic nymphets they are and begging to be illustrated with faux-naive photos of young girls in suggestive states of undress – or, more frequently and legally, parts of young girls. Merely, of course, to demonstrate how awful it all is.

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Also posted in Your View | Tagged , | 3 Comments

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