kristin's comments
i haven’t yet finished the readings but some general questions are again bugging me, questions that i’ve had after reading previous assignments also.
why is law necessarily patriarchal (mojab 138-139)? what would be an egalitarian alternative?
why is gender equality necessarily western (mojab 126-127)? would it really be an act of imperialism to help muslim women fight for equality—the right to live the way each of them wants, according to her own religious and cultural values?
maybe i’m just too stuck in western thought to be able to understand, but, thinking about stories in the news of women being stoned to death for talking to a man or gang raped because her brother was seen with a woman above his social class, thinking about the movie _osama_, about a little girl who passed as a boy until she started menstruating, when she was then auctioned off and became the newest wife of a creepy old man—i just can’t believe that women in any culture, of any religious beliefs, would want to continue to live this way.
i don’t want to fall into the trap of judging other cultures as backwards or whatever, believing that we westerners need to civilize the rest of the world (when will our own civilization be complete?). but i also don’t want to do what arat-koc warns against, accepting uncritically the living conditions of others out of respect for cultural diversity.