“Let’s talk about women's rights in Iran”

Let’s talk about Muslim women… but like properly

Equipping young people with the tools to have curious and empathy-led conversations

Reading time: 10 minutes

 

Just over a month ago, the devastating death of 22 year old Jina (Mahsa) Amini, who died, after experiencing morality police brutality in Tehran, ignited a wave of national protest about the rights of women in Iran to make choices over their own bodies. The impact of Mahsa Amini’s death has transcended Iran's borders and remobilised a global conversation about the unique and intersecting forms of marginalisation and violence that Muslim women face across the world. A conversation that, on the surface, can appear to come from empathy, often ends up further alienating, dismissing and silencing the voices of the same people it is trying to make visible; Muslim women. 

At Bold Voices we encourage young people to be curious about issues of gender inequality. In particular,  about the lived experiences of people with identities that they do not share, in an effort to give them the tools and courage to navigate empathy-led conversations without further othering individuals and reinforcing the same stereotypes and ideas that oppress people. The conversation around the lived experiences of Muslim women, particularly those who wear a hijab, is one that we find young people struggle to navigate without highlighting Islam or majority-muslim countries as being exceptionally, or even inherently, violent and misogynistic (I will explore where this comes from a little more later on). In reaction to this, this piece will outline three steps that we can take in order to engage in empathy-led conversations about the gendered issues that Muslim women face in a way that avoids othering and perpetuating harmful attitudes and creates space for allyship and challenge that centres the voices of visibly Muslim women. 

Before I begin exploring these steps, I want to make my positionality transparent in writing this piece. I write this as an Egyptian Muslim Woman and whilst many people I meet do read those identities from the way I look (slightly signposted by a beloved necklace of my home continent engraved with Arabic that I always wear), I am aware that my lived experiences of gender inequality as a non-hijabi Muslim woman are not the same as those I am attempting to bring light to through this piece. I would also like to reiterate the importance of not homogenising the experiences of all hijabi and niqabi* Muslim women. Owing to this, I have chosen to embed the voices of some incredible hijabi Muslim sisters throughout this piece; it is their words and and work which I want to amplify and center in guiding how to navigate this topic. 

*Hijabs and niqabs are different items of clothing worn by some Muslim women. A hijab in this context is an item which covers the hair and a niqab is a veil which also covers the woman’s face.

 
 

Step 1: Reflect on your intention

“I sometimes think of the hijab as a mirror. What is projected onto it is often a reflection of a person’s own character, politics and baggage. It is seldom about the women underneath.” 

Sabeena Akhtar

The first step of knowing how to have this conversation is considering why you want to have it in the first place by reflecting on the intention behind your curiosity. What stereotypes, attitudes and biases might you be carrying into this conversation that are shaping this intention? Living in the UK we are surrounded by lots of harmful messages and ideas about Muslim people and Islam. Muslim men are often stereotyped as radicalised, morally regressive and violently misogynistic, whilst Muslim women are often presented as either completely oppressed with no agency, or unnerving extremists who sympathise with, or even act, as agents of terrorism. 

It is vital that young people are able to recognise and vocalise these ideas and stereotypes and to understand their own intention in talking about the treatment of Muslim women. Now you could be reading this thinking, but why is this important? Well, so often we find that questions around Muslim women and Islam are asked with an agenda to reaffirm these harmful ideas and to confirm that the marginalisation and oppression of Muslim women is a ‘them’ (Muslim communities) problem and one that non-muslims in the UK are too ‘progressive’ to perpetuate. There tends to be a lack of genuine care and empathy for visibly Muslim women in these conversations, evident in how little the words and voices of visibly Muslim women are used to try to understand their experiences. There is a risk that we set young people up to feed stereotypes and harmful ideas about Muslim women when we don’t encourage them to centre the needs and voices of visibly Muslim women in their intentions behind having this conversation. 

 
 

Step 2 - Do your learning and unlearning 

“The coloniser widely used the story of the muslim woman’s veil to serve its purpose.”

Asma Lamrabet 

History can help us give context to the fact that it is harmful to sustain the idea that Muslim women are ‘oppressed’ and ‘in need of saving’ from Muslim-majority countries and Muslim men. ‘Liberating’ Muslim women from their oppressors and ‘guiding’ them to western enlightenment and civilisation has been used repeatedly over the course of history to justify violent colonial projects. To quote Attyia Latif, this idea was used to give a “good enough reason for European countries to occupy land that they had no business in whatsoever.”

A specific example of this is demonstrated in the French colonisation of Algeria from 1830-1903 in which French invaders violently forced Muslim women to remove their veils as a tactic to reduce their resistane against their occupation. ‘Unveiling ceremonies’ were routinely held to publicly demonstrate this act of violent domination, masquerading as the idea that this is what was ‘best’ for Muslim women and would enable them to become more ‘modern’, ‘civilised’ and ‘free’. This was a similar story to the one that Egyptain Muslim women experienced during the British colonial occupation of Egypt where British coloniser, Lord Cromer, famously said that it was Egyptian women’s veils that were standing in the way between them and modern civilisation. We can look even closer in history and continue to find evidence of controlling Muslim women’s bodies under the guise of ‘saving them’. During the US ‘War on Terrorism’ in Afghanistan, the Western effort to violently ‘reconstruct’ Afghanistan included widespread sexual assault of Afghan women and girls at the hands of US soliders. Acts that were concealed by the ‘feminist’ intention of liberating and saving Afghan women. 

We must equip young people with an understanding of the historical significance of this conversation and how gaining access to Muslim women’s bodies was, and in so many ways still is, a marker of western power and symbol of both physical and ideological occupation.

“The relentless association of modesty with oppression and sexuality with strength by Western feminists has created a social condition that does not allow for the growth and empowerment of Muslim women.” 

Maheen Haq 

It is crucial for young people to learn new perspectives and build knowledge in order to be able to navigate speaking about the oppression of visibly Muslim women. However, it is also just as important that we make young people aware of what they might need to unlearn in order to truly practice developing empathy. In particular, ‘unlearning’ the restricted and westernised definition of women’s liberation and equality that we are presented with from a young age in the UK. This could be as simple as making sure young people are aware and informed that their ideas of what freedom and empowerment for women look like are not universally attainable or even desirable. Young people must unlearn that the closer a Muslim woman looks to a non-muslim woman the freer she is and a small step we can take to help them with this is to reframe the harmful and homogenous presentation of Muslim women in media and pop culture. 

 
 

Step 3 - Bring it closer 

“Next time you see a headline about muslim women, ask yourself this: am I really being asked to care about muslim women or am I being distracted from something bigger? Don’t just feel sorry for the women you read about - consider, are there not parallels in this story to my own life, my own household and my own neighbourhood - because there are. And those connections are the way we begin to dismantle oppressive structures in society, look closer, listen harder and ask more questions.”

Suhaiymah Manzoor Khan 

When young people hear about Morality police such as those involved in the brutal murder of Jina (Mahsa) Amini, it can feel far too easy to locate this form of enforced policing of women’s dress and behaviour as something that happens ‘over there’. There is an assumption that visibly Muslim women in the UK are exempt from the same form of control. As the final step in guiding this conversation, we can support young people to recognise that the idea of policing the morality of visibly Muslim women exists within UK borders. We can take, for example, the UK’s ‘Prevent’ counter terrorism programme which frames the stereotyping and criminalising of visibly Muslim women as a precautionary measure for ‘everyone’s safety’. The rising figures of islamophobic hate crimes experienced by visibly Muslim women are not the only cause for concern in the UK right now. Young Hijabi girls in UK primary schools are being asked by Ofsted officers why they are wearing their headscarf to “make sure they are not being forced or sexualised”. Visibly Muslim women in higher education institutions are reporting disproportionate feelings of alienation and even feeling forced to wear their hijab in a way that looks less islamic and more like a fashion accesssory in order to feel safer (Jan Trust). Nine European countries have laws banning niqabs and hijabs. 

Morality police enforcing the wearing of the hijab in Muslim majority countries leaves all women feeling excluded, overly-surveilled and demonised, but can we really say to our young people that this is not also how visibly Muslim women and girls are so often made to feel here in the UK? We owe it to our young people to explain that the violent over-policing and criminalisation of muslim women’s bodies is not an inherently islamic practice - its an inherently misogynistic one. 

So, in summary, are visibly Muslim women subjugated to a unique form of marginalisation and oppression? Yes. Is this experience localised to a particular part of the world or perpetrated by followers of a particular religion? No. Can we begin to guide young people to develop informed curiosity and centre empathy in their conversations about these complicated and nuanced experiences - absolutely! We need to start talking. That’s people who aren’t Muslim, people who don’t know any Muslims, people who might fear Muslims, Muslim brothers and the Muslim sisters who wear their Islam differently - it is the responsibility of all of us to actively centre the voices and needs of visibly Muslim women in the conversations that we are having and the questions we are asking. 

“I love the questions, they make me feel that they can see me, they can see I am different and that it is okay. I don’t mind feeling different, I just hate feeling ignored.”

Nahla Emam (My mum)

Peace be upon you, 

Yosra Soliman (Yosh) 

 
 
 
Tash Eeles