So I want to start this post with a warning…. These are my current ideas/feelings on religion. They tend to be on the slightly atheist side. I acknowledge and respect any and all opinions and beliefs on the subject.
That said, I am currently taking a class on the literature of West Africa in order to more effectively study this literature we are beginning by studying the culture which is dominantly Muslim. We are reading Fatima Mernissi’s “The Vail and the Male Elite” so in this way I am learning Islam through a feminist lens. I too consider myself a feminist as defined that I believe men and women should be viewed as equals and nothing but. In this class we are not strictly looking at Islam, we are also looking at passages taken from the Bible and Torah. Mainly we focus on certain passages that involve the treatment of women. It is ridiculous how people can follow the ideas and practices from a book (any book) written 2000 years ago. (when i say this i mainly mean in respects to how women are treated). My criticism of these books stems from two ideas: the first being people are nothing if not creatures of habit, they like what is familiar and established. And second the books were written by men, and men are human, which means they are fallible. During the time in history when these books were written the cultural norms and practices involved the submission of women therefore in order to preserve the “familiar” wouldn’t it seem obvious in include a passage or two about how men should be the “dominate” and women the “submissive”? It just seems to me that some of the passages taken directly from each of these texts have the ultimate goal of keeping certain traditions alive. Change is difficult and scary for anyone, especially when a person’s power is threatened. The reasons for including the submission of women is clear, maintaining the status quo. But I question what kind of God would explicitly say that woman’s sole purpose was to fulfill the every demand of men? And yes this is taken a little out of context….maybe. If there is a higher power why would it create one being as superior to the other? Religion is so powerful people go to war and die in name of their cause, it is documented time and time again that women helped fight these causes they stood with men to fight in the name of their God. Yet when these women are talked about in history they are viewed as some anomaly. Well women its time to get the story straight, we have been here just as long as men and our part in history and the accomplishments of women everywhere needs to be recognized and not recognized in a different light from the accomplishments of men, (I don’t want to look at the glories of women from the past and say “oh that was good for a girl”)I in no way want to diminish the achievements of man, I want to stand on equal ground with them.
I do believe in a higher power or presence. I do believe we are all small creatures on this Earth and are here for only a short time. I do believe that death is not final, and that our spirits continue elsewhere. But it is time to radically question the views and ideas represented in each of these holy texts. From a rhetorical stand-point no text is exempt from rhetorical criticism and it is in this spirit that I look at these books. I am sure I will have more to say on this subject in the future, my ideas on religion change and grow as I do, this is NOT finished…
