I can relate Abu-Lughod's piece to different areas in my life now through the reading that we are doing in Anthropology. In this class, we read a book titled "Women and Islamic Revival In a West African Town." One concept I could connect between our reading in WMST and the book I read in Anthro was how dominant males are in Islamic society. For example, we read in "Women and Islamic Revival" that while men congregate in groups at specific times in mosques to pray, women only pray isolated in their own homes, whenever they have time off from doing their house chores. Although there is an apparent imbalance of power and freedom between men and women, we must ask ourselves if intervening is the right thing to do. Do we really know what's best for Muslim women?
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Follow-Up: Responding to Aridelle's Post 12/2/10
I found Lil Abu-Lughod's arguments in "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?" to be very a very interesting read, because her arguments related directly to my current life and my past experiences. She brings up a good point by questioning whether we really should become involved in Muslim women's lives. In a way, Muslim women are being silenced and oppressed in their culture by being forced to conform to social expectations enforced by a strict patriarchy. But if we look at the situation in a different light, our involvement and the concept of us pressuring Muslim women to act and live how we think is right is also a form of silencing them. Our involvement also may be unfair in the sense that our viewpoint on what constitutes as freedom and righteousness is strongly tainted by our own cultural ideals.
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I think in the issue of the veil we also need to consider the fact that some women do in fact, find the veil to be comforting and/or even be a manner of showing their respect for themselves. Although often times we in America think we are "doing good for others", we really do need to step back and think of the implications of our "good deeds". Sometimes when people aren't asking for help, its not because they are weak, but because they are happy with their situation. (Not that I can assert that this is definitely true but I think that we need a greater understanding of the veil as a whole to say that it is absolutely oppressive).
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