Encounter With American Feminism =Leila

8/8/2019 Encounter With American Feminism =Leila

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Encounter with American Feminism: A Muslim Woman's View of Two ConferencesAuthor(s): Leila AhmedSource: Women's Studies Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 1/2, Looking Back, Moving Forward: 25 Yearsof Women's Studies History (Spring - Summer, 1997), pp. 268-270Published by: The Feminist Press at the City University of New YorkStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40005439Accessed: 29/05/2010 08:00

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Encounter with AmericanFeminism:A Muslim Woman'sView of Two ConferencesLeila Ahmed Summer1980

April1980. TheBarnardConference. TheScholarand theFeminist" myfirst direct as opposed to page-mediatedencounter withAmericanfeminism.And then it came home to me:howsimplethe one-dimen-sional experience of reading:how easy,ordered, and amenable toorder it makesthingsseem coherent and amenable to coherence.Sitting n thathall, listeningto papersthat often clearlydrewon therhetoricalstrategiesof an oraltradition,quitedifferent rom those inscholarlywriting,even in that feministscholarshipself-consciouslydismantlinghe rigiditiesof tradition; eingawareof the responsesofa highly anddiversely responsive udience; trainingo catchverbalshortcuts;ometimesclearlymissingnuances hat relied on a depthofAmericanexperience:all this makes t impossibleto respondto theconference as a coherent event not because zYwasncoherent,obvi-ously,butpreciselybecausetherewassuch a sense of vitality,erment,such a richnessandgeneralmanifoldness o it and a sensetoo of themanifoldnessof feministstances n America.Myown interestbeing ThirdWorldwomen,I attended the work-shop on "Class nd RaceIssues n Women'sStudies."AngelaJorge,treatingthe topicexperientially,describedexperiencesof the BlackHispaniccommunityand related them to Puerto Ricanculture,andFlorenceHowethen outlinedrelevantdevelopmentsnwomen's tud-ies. Offeredconcurrentlywas"Perspectivesn the BlackandHispanicFamily,"nd,anotherIwassorry o miss,"Defininghe Erotic" rom alesbianperspective.Of course it is onlyin the academy, ormally,hat the discussionofsuchtopics,relationsbetweenwomen,the erotic betweenwomen,is

new.Womenhavebeendiscussinguchtopicsamongthemselves ownthroughthe ages, discussingthem at least in that vastarrayof non-verbalwaysthatwe have of "discussing" hings (gesturallanguagebeing onlythe mostobvious) I have a particularlyividsense of thisbecause n thesociety nwhichI grewup in Cairo elaborateunder-268


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WomensStudiesQuarterly 997: 1 & 2 269

standings,"statements" bout howwomen related to women, werenevermadeverballybutweresignaled n an infinite number of ways:bysilence sometimes,or bythe kind of languagewith which we sur-round a subject.Mysense too is thatmuch of whatwasthusconveyedwas oblivious o, disregarding f, even runningcounter to the domi-nant culture.Thus, t remained narticulate, hidden," ot dangerous.Then theNWSASecondNational Convention t Bloomington.Here tooI headedfor sessionson ThirdWorldwomen."TeachingboutAfricanWomen": rendaBerrian Universityf Pittsburgh)howed hat com-parisonscould be madebetween womenin Africaand ThirdWorldwomen nAmericaby lookingat women n parallel ituations movingfrom rural o urbansettings.SusanRogers(University f Minnesota)sharedoutlinesof hercourses,notably"Comparativetudyof Women:Women n LiberationStruggles,China, Cuba,Mozambique,GuineaBissau."nanothersession,"Women ndDevelopment:ThirdWorld,"SureshtR. Bald (University f California/SantaCruz),not focusingon particular ocieties butaimingat a theoreticaloverview, nalyzedconsequences of political change for women in terms of a grid ofvariables(typesof revolution,natureof struggle,ensuingeconomies,culturalmatrices). reneThompson (University f Florida)spokeonwomen in China.American nterest n ThirdWorldwomen.Well, one thing had becomeclearto me, reading hroughwomen's tudiesmaterials ndattendingthe conferences: wasn'ta ThirdWorldwoman,or didn't count wasinvisible. ThirdWorldwomen" now cametounderstand,ould meanone of threethings: irst, t could meanminoritywomenin theUnitedStates; econd, t could mean PuertoRicanorAfricanwomen(butwithanexcludingnotionofAfrica, funny-shapedhrunken ontinent noEgypt,Morocco,Sudan); hird, t could meana ThirdWorld hat hadachievedvisibilityhroughrevolution, sin Chinaor Cuba.The women whoseem to be excludedbythese definitionsare theMuslimwomen of the ThirdWorld these aremostparticularlyheinvisible nes. Whenweareseen,it isalways sOther,althoughno cul-ture is more directlycontinuouswith theJudeo-Christian han theIslamic,no partof the worldcloser to the (older)Westernworld.WeallknowthatJerusalems sacred o Christian,ew,Muslim.But do weallowourselves o become awareof the cultural mplicationsof this?That f one couldlaytheblueprints f culturaldeologiesone overtheother Christianity,udaism,slam the lineswouldmostoftenmerge?Is it this submergedresemblance,I wonder,this mirroringbackindifferent cultural diom of all the inbuiltinjustices o women institu-tionalized n theirownsocieties,nternalizedn themselves,hatmakesit so necessaryfor us to be Other makesdifficult,such an uneasy


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270 Women'studiesQuarterly 997: 1 & 2

thing,thislookingatIslam?One sessionat the NWSAConventiondid focus on Islam; he roomwaspacked.The session tself foundbizarre. Islamnd Feminism":odearthof topics o whichasessionwithsucha titlemightaddresstselffrom thelaw-reformselating omarital ife that "conservative" uslimfeministsarefighting or,piecemeal,againstentrenchedresistance,othe stanceof radical eministswho see Islamic deologyasfundamen-tally nimical owomen,believethat no mere reformcan be adequate,and see resolution nly n radical ocialchangeand therejection f thatideology.Expecting hepanelto address opicswithin hatspectrum,waswhollynonplussed o find that the generalthrustof the presenta-tion wasthemind-bogglingssertionhatIslamwasa feministreligion.The panelistswere three Muslimwomen.The firstbegan by point-ing out that Muslimwomen had had rights (to ownproperty) onlyrecentlygained byWesternwomen thusattempting o establish hatthe Muslimworldhasn'talways een backwardompared o theWest.Butfrom then on the claimsmade for Islamand whata generallynice"feminist"religion twasseemed tome togrowmore and moreabsurd.Divorce,theysaid,had had to be bitterlyfought for in the West; nIslam t hasalways een available.Availableormen,theyshould havesaid,since it depriveswomen of their children and can deprivethemof shelter.Divorce s stillbitterly oughtfor, or women in those coun-trieswhere Islam s not too implacableeven to permita fight.)Panelists also said that in Islamwomen and men are equal. Butwomen nherithalfwhatmendo;twowomenmusttestifyoreveryoneman;men can have four wives the list of inequities s interminable.TheysaidIslamwasa feminist eligionbecause t bannedthe murderofgirl-infantsnd, n permittingourwives,t wasactually eingrestrictive,previous ustomallowingmore.Allthis s standardMuslimapologeticsthat we Muslimsgrew up with. What'salwayseft out when we hear"how t improvedthe condition of women" s that it improvedit inArabia.HowcanI,how cananyEgyptianwithanynotion ofEgypt's re-Islamichistory, egardasanythingbut,forwomen,constrictive nddis-astrousn termsof lostrightsandfreedoms,hecomingofmonotheisms,the conquestof EgyptbytheArabs,and its Islamicization? ndyetallthis is not to denyIslam's isionof dignity,ustice,andequality orall,though thisvision has not been realizedin the letter of its laws. . .

Leila Ahmed studiedEnglishat CambridgeUniversity nd is a teacher ndwriter.

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Encounter With American Feminism =Leila