Jackson Katz: Violence against women�it's a men's issue

Mona Eltahawy: �All religions are obsessed with my vagina�

All religions are obsessed with my vagina | www.WorldMuslimCongress.com

Link: http://worldmuslimcongress.blogspot.com/2015/05/mona-eltahawy-all-religions-are.html

Mona had to use the language she has used to get a sense of freedom, it is a shame men are still misogynistic, get this straight, it is all men and not necessarily Arab or Muslim men.  Men still feel insecure to act and feel equal with women. We need to grow up.

 I feel, believe and act equal with whole humanity and that is the essence of Islam, to be humble.

Mike Ghouse

# # #
Mona Eltahawy: �All religions are obsessed with my vagina�

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/10/mona-eltahawy-interview-religions-obsessed-vagina-headscarves-and-hymens?CMP=share_btn_fb

Mona Eltahawy is an award-winning journalist and commentator on Arab and Muslim issues and global feminism. Born in Port Said, Egypt, in 1967, she moved to the UK with her parents (both doctors) when she was seven and then to Saudi Arabia when she was 15. In November 2011, while covering the protests in Egypt, she was physically and sexually assaulted by riot police, and detained for 12 hours by the Interior Ministry and Military Intelligence. The following year, her examination of misogyny in the Muslim world entitled �Why Do They Hate Us?� became a viral sensation. She has now expanded the original article into a book, Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution. Eltahawy lives in Cairo and New York.

Your book is part-manifesto, part-memoir and includes testimony from Muslim women who have experienced abuse throughout their lives. You mention cases of female genital mutilation and rape. Was it difficult to write?

Incredibly difficult. Many times, I literally had to walk away from my laptop. It was triggering for me, especially when writing about sexual assault because of my own experience, not just of the assault but of misogyny. It was not an easy book to write.

You write that you were �traumatised into feminism� as a teenager. What do you mean by that?

My family moved to Saudi Arabia from Glasgow when I was 15. Being a 15-year-old girl anywhere is difficult � all those hormones and everything � but being a 15-year-old girl in Saudi Arabia�it was like someone had turned the light off in my head. I could not get a grasp on why women were treated like this. In the UK, my mother had been the breadwinner. I�d seen my parents side by side. In Saudi Arabia, my mother was basically rendered disabled. She was unable to drive, dependent on my dad for everything. The religious zealotry was so suffocating. And I had been raised a Muslim, I came from a Muslim family, but this was ultra-zealous. As a woman in Saudi Arabia, you have one of two options. You either lose your mind � which at first happened to me because I fell into a deep depression � or you become a feminist.

Were you anxious about the outrage you might provoke in some quarters by speaking openly about misogyny within your own community?

I�ve got a lot of hate� But it�s hate from people I�m glad I�m pissing off. As a woman with an opinion, you get a lot of shit.

Are all religions misogynistic?

Absolutely, to some degree. All religions, if you shrink them down, are all about controlling women�s sexuality� They�re obsessed with my vagina. I tell them: stay outside my vagina unless I want you in there.

You call for a �double revolution�. What do you mean by that?

What happened in Tunisia in 2010 was a political revolution driven by recognition that the state was oppressing everybody. But I think when women looked around afterwards, they recognised that the state, the street and the home still oppressed women specifically and that trifecta of oppression means that political revolution, unless accompanied by a social and sexual revolution, will fail.

 Mona Eltahawy explains why Egyptian women are sexually harassed at every level of society.

You decided to wear the hijab at 15. Why?

I wanted to wear it at 15 but my parents said I was too young, so I wore it at 16 and very quickly realised it wasn�t for me. I missed feeling the wind in my hair. When I was eating, it would constrict the way I felt I could swallow.

Advertisement

So you stopped wearing it at 19�

I became a feminist while wearing the hijab and to people who challenged that I would say: �This is my way of choosing which parts of my body I show you, so that you don�t objectify me.� But I realised it was very hard to hold on to because if a man cannot do that, the problem is with him and not with me. I was changing my physical presence in order for a man not to objectify me, rather than the man working on himself not to do it.

You write about your brutal assault by Egyptian riot police in 2011. Were you scared when it was happening?

Was I scared? [Pause] At first, I didn�t think they would do anything to me. I was just one woman, what would four riot police want with me? [Laughs] For much of it, it was more of an adrenaline overdrive where you do anything you have to just to survive, but there was one point when they took me to this no-man�s land where they sexually assaulted me and I fell to the ground and this [internal] voice said to me: �If you don�t get up now, you will die.� I managed to get up with two broken arms and fight them off. I was literally taking hands out of my trousers.

And you dyed your hair red and got tattoos after that?

Yes. Both my arms were in casts for three months. As a writer, that�s incredibly frustrating. Before, words were my medium, my weapons, and now the only thing I was able to use was one finger on a touchpad, so I was basically on Twitter all day. I was high on Vicodin, which is an amazing, amazing drug, [and] I would tell people on Twitter: �When my bones heal, I want to mark what happened to me.�

I realised I could use my body to send messages, not just words. When I started to read about tattoos, I found that a lot of victims of sexual abuse have them as a way of reclaiming their body, to take it back from what they [the abusers] did. So on my right arm, I have a tattoo of Sekhmet, the Ancient Egyptian goddess of retribution and sex. The way I put it, she�ll kick your ass and then fuck your brains out. She has the head of a lioness and the body of a woman. On my left arm, I have Arabic calligraphy and I have the name of the street where I was assaulted, because it became an icon of the revolution: Mohamed Mamoud street. Underneath, I have the Arabic word for �freedom�.

And the red hair?

I just think it was [saying]: �I�m here.�

You were named by Newsweek as one of the 150 �Most Fearless Women of 2012�. Do you consider yourself fearless?

You know, I never ever think about that fearless, courage, brave stuff. It�s just what I do. I�m often asked, �Do you feel safe in Egypt?� and I answer: no one feels safe in Egypt. For anyone who continues to exist as a dissident just to survive is a form of resistance.

I read somewhere you�re a lifelong Manchester United fan�

Huge! Since I was nine. To my distress, my father, brother and my brother�s four kids are all Liverpool fans.

No discrimination between man and woman?

"Islam is the religion which gives woman highest level of priority in her life which she actually deserves. There is no discrimination of man and woman in Islam.

And their Lord responded to them, "Never will I allow to be lost the work of [any] worker among you, whether male or female; you are of one another. [3:195]

This verse clearly shows no discrimination between man and woman. But regretfully the leader of Islamic society who are known as scholars are contributing in such concepts which only oppress a woman from her real rights which is given by Allah and never be un-declared by Prophet Muhammad. 

Some Hadith source might show you women were oppressed like woman beating or slave sex concept where 1st wife would have to see her husband�s romance with slave without marriage or the polygamy concept where no special condition is necessary or the concept of wife can�t refuse her man�s call for intercourse in anyway (even she is sick too or passing in bad mode too) or women are source of fitna etc. Can you believe these are authentic hadith proclaimed by Prophet Muhammad? No other words beside Quran could be authentic in 100 %. These are all fabricated hadith where really a woman is oppressed!! After Prophet�s death People who were in support of woman oppression (as it is a law of society) mixed their own words with his noble words and made this hadith where a man is shown as superior to woman.

But if you really look in Quran word�s (direct translation of the verses) nowhere you will find such conditions. Allah says in verse 2:228 that man and woman have similar rights over them. 
What is less from man a woman is only the physical structure, woman are weaker than man. This weakness is only for the pleasure of carnal relationship between man and woman. For the strength of man which more than woman, Allah also gives the man more trials than us in the same verse �But the men have a degree over them, women� which means man are responsible for financial activity and also for giving their wives pleasure in every possible way and also they will be protector of their women in verse 4;34.

Now some Islamic website and scholars held their opinion basing on some fabricated hadith and by some wrong interpretation of quranic words in chance of woman persecution, that Polygamy can be practiced for lust only by offering it to a younger woman. Which is the wrong concept of islam they are delivering to people. Allah in Quran 4:3 told �With respect to marrying widows, if you are afraid of not being able to maintain justice with her children, marry another woman of your choice or two or three or four (who have no children). If you cannot maintain equality with more than one wife, marry only one or your slave-girl. This keeps you from acting against justice�. Where it is clear plural marriage can be practiced only then when a man will be able to sacrifice his boundless love for his 1st wife because of humanity to give protection another woman who is widow and has orphan child. If he can�t take care of her orphan child then he should marry that woman who has no child. Now, the possibility of childless woman only goes to a woman who is widow or divorced not a younger wife. Or he can marry his slaves (for giving her freedom). So, all of the points for polygamy are only for humanity, not for lust. And also about permission of 1st wife Allah clearly denotes in 4:19 not to make any difficulty in his wife�s life to those services which he can deliver her. The service is not only confined in mahr but also in love/sex/passion. Now if a man gets married 2nd time without 1st wife�s permission will not it create difficulty in her life? 

And also For loving 1st wife more than other wives whom they marry for humanity, they will not be accused in Allah�s eye as per the verse 4:129, only they need to serve them equally in other services except love which will only be for the 1st wife whom he married for love or sexual desire.

And also on slave sex which is proclaimed by Islamic mollahs are also a wrongful or lustful thought by contributing themselves in a belief man need more than 4 women in their life, so they are permitted to take infinite number of women in bed as concubines from slaves. This is the most hateful speech of them which conflict with quran. But in Quran verse 23:5-6 Allah told by noble word �right hand possess� to those female slaves who are attached to you wedlock or who are legally your wives from your slaves.
According to their thought Allah prepared beautiful hoor only for them, men in jannah as their lust is infinite or they are not satisfied with the number of women whom they get in duniya (including 4 wives and many concubines), But women will not get any hoor in jannah. Do u really think allah can discriminate in giving gifts to the believers (men and women) who will get jannah?? Or Allah can grow the attitude in man�s mind not to be chaste-full but to be lustful?
What actually quran says hoor is both for man and woman. Al-Ahzab verse 35,

�Surely the men who submit and the women who submit, and the believing men and the believing women, and the obeying men and the obeying women, and the truthful men and the truthful women, and the patient men and the patient women, and the humble men and he humble women, and the charitable men and the charitable women, and the fasting men and the fasting women, and the men who guard their chastity and women who guard their chastity, and the men who remember Allah much and the women who remember � Allah has prepared for them forgiveness and a mighty reward.�
And also in quran 2:282 Allah told for adding 1 man with two women in case of financial witness. Here Allah doesn�t show woman are less intelligent/less dutiful. But here Allah told to guard those women from any danger by adding a man with them, from which they will not be able to protect as they are physically weaker than men. 
And also about the inheritance woman also have the right to get equal property as man in some circumstances too. 

(http://www.quran-islam.org/articles/part_3/writing_a_will_(P1413).html)
And also about beating wife: Quran never uses word for beating wife. 
(http://quransmessage.com/articles/a%20deeper%20look%20at%20the%20word%20dharaba%20FM3.htm)

- Farhana Hossain (Bangladesh)"

Taken from Muslim Feminists page on Facebook  

For  full comment pls see http://muslimfeminist587.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/islam-feminist.html
 

The best to women....

"The most perfect of men in belief are they who are best in character. The best in character are they who are best to women."

The Prophet Muhammed, upon him be peace. (Al-Tirmidhi)

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf talks about Lust & Desire

Alhamulilah I love and respect this shaykh more and more each time I listen to him:)

Honour killings: India's crying shame

Some gruesome cases that have been reported in the media in recent times from different regions in the country include that of 23 year old Dharmender Barak and 18 year old Nidhi Barak, who paid a heavy price for defying their families and falling in love.

The couple, from a village in Rohtak district in Harayana, were tortured, mutilated and killed by the girl�s father and their relatives when they tried to run away and marry. A friend whom the couple had confided in, leaked their plans to the girl�s parents, who lured them back with assurances, only to allegedly kill them in the most cruel manner. The police is treating the �double murder� as a �honour crime�.

In September 2013, the Haryana police arrested a police sub-inspector in connection with the killing of a 19 year old girl from Panipat. Meenakshi had eloped with her lover and the cop had tracked her down and handed her over to her family, who then allegedly murdered her.

On October 24, 2013, in another case from Haryana, a 15 year old Muslim girl from Muzzafarnagar was banished to her uncle�s house to prevent her from seeing the boy she was in love with. Her uncle allegedly murdered her and buried her in Panchkula District in Haryana.

While the cases of �honour killings� continue to pile up, convictions are few and far between.

Full article.