wonderful discussion about feminism and intersectionality at St. John Fisher College this morning. such a pleasure to talk about the work of lila abu lughod, saba mahmoud, houria boutelja, audre lorde, nadine naber and anu ramdas.
excellent questions from students – one about the contradiction between the west’s concern for women’s rights in muslim-majority countries and their sabotage/disruption of political movements for democracy and self-determination.
nadine naber has written extensively about the egyptian revolution – how women were “active participants in a grassroots people-based struggle against poverty and state corruption, rigged elections, repression, torture, and police brutality,” yet much of US public discourse framed the revolution through “islamophobia logics” and was driven by the question: what if islamic fundamentalists take over egypt? she locates this discourse “in the historical trajectory of the post-cold war era in which particular strands of US liberal feminism and US imperialism have worked in tandem. both rely upon a humanitarian logic that justifies military intervention, occupation, and bloodshed as strategies for promoting democracy and women’s rights. this humanitarian logic disavows US-state violence against people of the arab and muslim regions rendering it acceptable and even, liberatory, particularly for women.”
another question was about the need for muslims to condemn every act of terrorism when no such demand is made of the white christian majority. of course, we talked about mahmood mamdani’s “good muslim, bad muslim: america, the cold war and the roots of terror.”
we explored postcolonial feminism and muslim feminism and discussed saba mahmood’s work on the piety/mosque movement in many muslim-majority countries of the world.
finally, we examined the politics of “non mixite.” houria boutelja explains how colonialism and racism have already divided muslim men and women and therefore the idea of building feminine power by excluding muslim men might not be effective in this context. audre lorde too talks about racist oppression being shared by black women and men, because of which they develop joint defences and joint vulnerabilities. similarly, anu ramdas has written about how “the reformative agenda of taming dalit masculinity ignores the reality of inter-operating oppressive cultures in a caste society.”
so satisfying for me to mention these incredible women and analyze their incredible work, on this cold snowy morning, all thx to Roja Singh, who organized this event and drove me back and forth in this bad weather. a true sister in the stuggle for justice and equality. what feminism should be all about!