At the very root of this vague and incorrect notion that either Respect or Love should be served based on gender is sexism. Men are conditioned to suppress their human emotions, the need to be cared for, listened to -but to aspire to Hardness, violence, and toxicity.
This is what they told mothers who were abandoned to the street with vulnerable children, literally having to beg for help from local communities. Many mothers simultaneously put up with the shame of being poor and asking for aid. Did these mothers see value in their motherhood at this point? Did they feel the sweetness of giving as freely as sunshine and rain?
You cannot receive healing from the very person who has oppressed you. You cannot sit there and pray without “tying your camel”. You know you’ve waited long enough, you know he’s never going to change. You know if you keep staying, you will lose every single bit of yourself.
In retaliation, the patriarchy did what the patriarchy does best. It fought and rallied for the disappearance of women. Many fans of female reciters and other female Sheikhas protested against the fatwa but to no avail. Radio stations soon stopped playing Sheikha Munira and other Shiekhas’ recitations. The Sheikhs refused to rescind their fatwa even though some scholars saw it as a form of intellectual regression.
In a particular tradition, the Prophet (PBUH) stressed that a man should make sure his partner achieves orgasm before himself. He also gave glad tidings of reward for partners who had sex and satisfied each other, stating that pleasurable sex was an act of Sadaqah. According to him, sex is an integral part of spirituality.
In the age of unparalleled freedoms to live our lives as we wish, it’s unfortunate that women still allow beauty and the illusion of its inevitable fading to lurk around and threaten the fringes of women’s progress.
Is this the truth of Islam? That a man can only leave behind a legacy when he has sons? That a woman, in herself, wholly and independently, is nothing but a trophy?
At the heart of rape-apologism is the narrative that hijab protects women from predatory men. I wish it were that simple. I wish that the countless reports about rape victims in full hijab and niqab weren’t true. I wish there were no reports of sexual abuse against old women who have lost their youth; that the narrative about infants and school-age children being raped simply didn’t exist. I wish covering up was the magic wand to stopping men from these crimes.
Wasn’t it both amusing and ridiculous that something as simple as a bicycle could hold that much significance when it came to the virtue of women. I finally said to myself, I’m going to buy a good bicycle someday and I’m going to start cycling.
Each time a non-Muslim says Islam is oppressive to women, I choose to channel my energy inwards, to observe the referenced situation, to see the unbiased truth/untruth of the matter. I refuse to counter with the clichés that are usually employed to patronize Muslim women. I choose to call for the much-needed change within the community.
