April 6, 2013
"Most instructive is the image scarved and bareheaded, religious and secular young women fighting hard for Enlightenment freedom and Enlightenment feminism in Muslim countries – without feeling that the headscarf or religious affiliation divides them. Indeed, feminists in India, Pakistan, Bosnia, Liberia and other developing or traditional societies are creating discourses about raising the status of women that are completely integrated with family and community life. Unlike us, they have not inherited the existentialist opposition between individual and community that we have."

— Naomi Wolf, How we can connect with feminism’s global future, March 14, 2012

2:04pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZK1xOyi1UdBB
(Notes: 15)
  
Filed under: Naomi Wolf Woman Women Feminist Feminism Quote 
April 5, 2013
"FEMEN needs to recognize that Muslim women do in fact have agency, and the idea that Muslim women are helpless, passively indoctrinated by the alleged evils of Islam, and desperately need of Western feminist help is oppressive and orientalist. Patriarchy is not specific to Islam — although there are inarguably extreme and truly saddening examples of misogyny in the Muslim community, patriarchy is a global issue. Furthermore, feminism is not only a Western institution — to assume that Muslim women need someone to “speak for” them is insulting to all the grassroots political organizing and activism that Muslim feminists have done. It’s disturbing how the rhetoric of “women’s liberation” has been co-opted to justify aggression, violence, and prejudice against Muslim communities. In what way is it appropriate to “rescue” women by indulging in and re-circulating essentializing, stereotyped, and offensive depictions of their culture?"

— Callie Beusman, Muslim Women Shockingly Not Grateful for Topless European Ladies Trying To ‘Save’ Them, April 5, 2013

9:51pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZK1xOyh_dHmx
(Notes: 82)
  
Filed under: Callie Beusman FEMEN Feminism Feminist Muslim Muslims Woman Women Islam 
April 5, 2013
An open letter to FEMEN | Voices Of Revolution

By April Reilly in Muslim Women Against FEMEN

April 5, 2013

Hey FEMEN,

We understand that it’s really hard for a lot of you white colonial “feminists” to believe, but- SHOCKER! – Muslim women and women of colour can come with their own autonomy, and fight back as well! And speak out for themselves! Who knew?

We are proud Muslimahs, and we’re sick of your colonial, racist rubbish disguised as “women’s liberation”!

BECAUSE we are fed-up and tired of hearing from women of privilege perpetuating the stereotype that Muslim women, women of colour and women from the Global South are submissive, helpless and in need of western “progress”.

BECAUSE it is these kinds of colonial attitudes that commit more harm than good, so stop trying to kid us.

BECAUSE we are sick of the appropriation of our terms and our customs, done without our permission for whatever reason people see fit.

BECAUSE we don’t have to conform to your customs of protest to emancipate ourselves. Our religion does that for us already, thank you very much.

BECAUSE rubbing shoulders with far-right, racist and Islamophobic groups is just ANTI-FEMINIST beyond bounds, not to mention EXTREMELY DANGEROUS.

BECAUSE you don’t really care about violence and harm being inflicted upon women, you only care about that when it is perpetrated by brown men with long beards who pray five times a day.

BECAUSE not all of us are white, skinny, physically non-disabled and willing to whip off our tops merely for press attention. Check yourselves before you go into the streets again.

BECAUSE we live in a messed up world, what with heteronormativity, white supremacy, empire, the class system and capitalism, but FEMEN are concerned most about contributing more to a climate of rampant Islamophobia instead. Take aim at male supremacy, not Islam. Your priorities are messed up.

So, next time you decide to take the crusade for global women’s liberation into your own hands, JUST REMEMBER that before FEMEN came along, there have been and will continue to be women all over the world dreaming and fighting for their own emancipation, and WE DON’T NEED YOU!

SMASH THE WHITE SUPREMACIST CAPITALIST PATRIARCHY! POWER TO THE MUSLIMAHS!

Signed,

Sofia Ahmed, Student
April Reilly, Student
Ayesha Latif, Student
Zarah Sultana, Student
Sabeeha Mahmood, Photojournalist
Malia Bouattia, Student
Rabi’a Khatoon, Student
Sajidah Ali, Student
Zaira Ejaz, Student
Sumreen Rashid, Student
Shakira Akther, Black Students Officer at the University of East London
Sumaya Abdullahi , member of the Muslim Student’s Association at the university of Alberta
Fatma Musilma, Fellow of the Institute of Swimming Teachers and Coaches

(http://www.facebook.com/MuslimWomenAgainstFemen)

6:20pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZK1xOyhzFspV
(Notes: 37)
  
Filed under: FEMEN Muslim Muslims Woman Women Feminism Feminist 
April 4, 2013

Muslim Women Against FEMEN

10:54pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZK1xOyhvJPva
(Notes: 34,795)
  
Filed under: MuslimahPride Muslimah Pride Feminist Feminism Islamic Feminism Muslim Feminism Muslim Feminist Women Woman FEMEN 
April 2, 2013
"What is problematic, then, about this kind of use of ‘women’ as a group, as a stable category of analysis, is that it assumes an ahistorical, universal unity between women based on a generalized notion of their subordination. Instead of analytically demonstrating the production of women as socio-economic political groups within particular local contexts, this move limits the definition of the female subject to gender identity, completely bypassing social class and ethnic identities."

— Chandra Talpade Mohanty
“Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses.” (via nosylla)

7:56pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZK1xOyhkGAub
(Notes: 192)
  
Filed under: Chandra Talpade Mohanty Feminism Feminist Postcolonial Feminism Transnational Feminism Quote 
March 17, 2013
"What woman here is so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her heelprint upon another woman’s face? What woman’s terms of oppression have become precious and necessary to her as a ticket into the fold of the righteous, away from the cold winds of self-scrutiny? We welcome all women who can meet us, face to face, beyond objectification and beyond guilt."

—

Audre Lorde.

Don’t you love it when a feminist of color speaks against the racism in white feminism? I sure as hell love it.

(via mehreenkasana)

7:43pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZK1xOygUE3_e
(Notes: 960)
  
Filed under: Audre Lorde Feminism Feminist WOC Oppression Racism Women Of Color Race Quote 
March 13, 2013
Protesters Using Pink Smoke To Protest Lack Of Women In Catholic Leadership Demonstrators use pink smoke outside [Chicago’s] Holy Name Cathedral on March 13, 2013, to protest the lack of female inclusion in Catholic Church leadership, as cardinals vote on a new pope. (© Mike Krauer/WBBM)

Protesters Using Pink Smoke To Protest Lack Of Women In Catholic Leadership

Demonstrators use pink smoke outside [Chicago’s] Holy Name Cathedral on March 13, 2013, to protest the lack of female inclusion in Catholic Church leadership, as cardinals vote on a new pope. (© Mike Krauer/WBBM)

7:49pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZK1xOygAyLk7
(Notes: 39)
  
Filed under: Demonstration Protest Religion Catholicism Christianity Women Woman Feminism Feminist Pope Vatican Chicago's Holy Name Cathedral Holy Name Cathedral Chicago Chicago United States News 
March 4, 2013
"

By persisting in advocating secular feminist arguments that are intolerant of important religious values, secular feminists run the risk of turning patriarchal. At its most abstract level, I define patriarchy as a hierarchical system in which control flows from the top. Thus, in a patriarchal system, men oppress other men and not only women. Furthermore, the top of the pyramid in a patriarchal system could be filled with either men or women (witness Margaret Thatcher) without its patriarchal nature being changed.

If a western feminists are now vying for control of the lives of immigrant women by justifying coercive state action, then these women have not learned the lesson of history, be it colonialism, imperialism or even fascism. After all, such feminists “think that the best community is one in which all but their preferred…[gender] practices are outlawed”

"

—

From “Is Western Patriarchal Feminism Good For Third World/Minority Women?” By Azizah Al-Hibri

Repeating for emphasis:

By persisting in advocating secular feminist arguments that are intolerant of important religious values, secular feminists run the risk of turning patriarchal.

(via kawrage)

7:37pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZK1xOyfVY9GQ
(Notes: 614)
  
Filed under: WOC POC White Feminism White Feminist Western Feminism Western Feminist Patriarchy Patriarchal Feminism Feminist Woman Women Azizah Al-Hibri Colonialism Imperialism Fascism 
March 2, 2013
feministphotoblogproject: Black Muslim Feminists

feministphotoblogproject:

Black Muslim Feminists

2:05am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZK1xOyfIP-ju
(Notes: 15)
  
Filed under: Black Muslim Feminist Feminism 
February 25, 2013

thepeoplesrecord:

Indian feminists/activists respond to Harvard kids attempting to help the less fortunate ‘third world’ feminists
February 25, 2013

Globally, from the U.S. to the developing world, rape and other forms of violence against women remain at shockingly high levels. Focusing on the horrifying case of a 23-year-old Indian student who was gang-raped and beaten to death in Delhi in December, the Harvard College Women’s Center announced it would create a Beyond Gender Equality task force, “convened to offer recommendations to India and other South Asian countries in the wake of the New Delhi gang rape and murder.”

The group ignored the long history of Indian activists themselves fighting to end rape and sexual violence—including recent mass protests of South Asian women and men calling for a systemic fight against rape. And the Harvardites had nothing to say about the ample evidence of the problem of rape in the U.S.—from the sickening gang rape and subsequent cover-up at Steubenville High School in Ohio, to the systematic downplaying of rape and sexual assault at Amherst College and other universities.

In response to this “white (wo)man’s burden” take on the issue of sexual violence in South Asia, a group Indian feminists wrote the following response, first published at Kafila.org, detailing their own years of work fighting to end rape and gain justice sexual assault victims.

— — — — — — —

Dear sisters (and brothers?) at Harvard,
WE’RE A group of Indian feminists and we are delighted to learn that the Harvard community—without doubt one of the most learned in the world—has seen fit to set up a policy task force entitled “Beyond Gender Equality” and that you are preparing to offer recommendations to India (and other South Asian countries) in the wake of the New Delhi gang rape and murder.

Not since the days of Katherine Mayo have American women—and American feminists—felt such a concern for their less privileged Third World sisters. Mayo’s concern, at that time, was to ensure that the Indian state (then the colonial state) did not leave Indian women in the lurch, at the mercy of their men, and that it retained power and the rule of the just.

Yours, we see, is to work towards ensuring that steps are put in place that can help the Indian state in its implementation of the recommendations of the Justice Verma Committee, a responsibility the Indian state must take up.

This is clearly something that we, Indian feminists and activists who have been involved in the women’s movement here for several decades, are incapable of doing, and it was with a sense of overwhelming relief that we read of your intention to step into this breach.

You might be pleased to know that one of us, a lawyer who led the initiative to put pressure on the Justice Verma Committee to have a public hearing with women’s groups, even said in relief, when she heard of your plans, that she would now go on holiday and take a plane ride to see the Everest.

Indeed, we are all relieved, for now we know that our efforts will not have been in vain: the oral evidence provided by 82 activists and organizations to the Justice Verma Committee—and which we believe substantially contributed to the framing of their report—will now be in safe American hands!

Perhaps you are aware that the Indian state has put in place an “Ordinance on Sexual Assault” that ignores many recommendations of the Justice Verma Committee? If not, we would be pleased to furnish you a copy of the Ordinance, as well as a chart prepared by us, which details which recommendations have been accepted and which not.

This may be useful in your efforts to advise our government. One of the greatest things about sisterhood is that it is so global—feminism has built such strong international connections, such that whenever our First World sisters see that we are incapable of dealing with problems in our countries, they immediately step in to help us out and provide us with much needed guidance and support. We are truly grateful for this.

Perhaps you will allow us to repay the favor, and next time President Obama wants to put in place legislation to do with abortion or the Equal Rights Amendment, we can step in and help, and, from our small bit of experience in these fields, recommend what the United States can do.

Source (with signatures)

10:45pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZK1xOye-56D2
(Notes: 5,722)
  
Filed under: Harvard College Women’s Center Woman Women Feminism Feminist Activist Activism India South Asia Rape