In Women’s history month, we are called upon to challenge the status quo. This means questioning and reassessing the current realities of women in various fields, highlighting the contributions of women throughout history, suggesting possible ways to grow and move forward and taking action to create a better world for women. As we choose to challenge the norm of sexism and injustice, the words of Arzoo Ahmed, founder of Muslim Women Histories, comes to mind “We know that the past can inspire the present, but what if the past is not known, or is distorted, and known differently to what it was? History is mostly written and overshadowed by men, with women recorded as their intellectually inferior counterparts, having played little role in producing knowledge and ideas. Women’s histories are difficult to locate not just in religion, but in science, philosophy, politics, and beyond; not because women were absent, but because their contributions were not recorded, or even, as some may argue, excluded”
Recognising the need to document women of the past and present, TMWT is taking it one step further by hosting real-time conversations centred around women’s histories and struggles. We created a membership club on the Clubhouse mobile app to host and entertain conversations around social issues affecting Muslim women around the world. This is an avenue to meet key influencers, activists and policy shapers and have salient dialogues on diverse issues in real-time. If you haven’t downloaded the Clubhouse app, this may be a good time to do so. Search for TMWT – The Conversation and click on the follow button. If you have any topic ideas or would love to co-host a conversation on this beautiful platform, please get in touch with the team at hello@themuslimwomentimes.com
This week, Thursday, 18th March 2021, we are having our second real-time conversation around the topic “Modern Muslim Women in Academia and Literature”. Conversations will be shaped by Wardah Abbas, founding editor of The Muslim Women Times, Salimat Bakare, Assistant Architect at Crystal White Architects and Maryyum Mehmood, an academic, analyst, Producer of The Shift with Maryyum, Co-host of Diasporastan Podcast and Centre facilitator at The Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion, University of Birmingham.
