Very interestingly in a movement that I call now the hijab lobby, sadly promulgated by women that some of us refer to as Muslim mean girls and their friends, are trying to put out this meme that we are denying women their choice.
We heard from a professor at an evangelical college who wore a hijab in solidarity with Muslim women. Now we have a different perspective. Asra Nomani co-wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post titled in part "As Muslim Women, We Actually Ask You Not To Wear The Hijab."
There is a misconception that young Muslim women are oppressed. That simply isn't the case. I choose to dress modestly and choose to cover my hair with a hijab; not all Muslim women make that choice, and that's okay. We are all different!
There's only a very small representation of girls among you. Too little. Women have much to tell us in today’s society. Sometimes we are too machistas and we don't allow enough space to women. But women can see things from a different angle to us, with a different eye. Women are able to pose questions we men are unable to understand. Look out for this fact: she is the only one who has put a question for which there is no answer. She couldn't put it into words but expressed it with tears.
The media and even, to some degree, leaders of women's organizations don't understand that the women's movement is an absolute part of society now. It is in the consciousness, it is taken for granted. It is part of the way women look at themselves, and women are looked at.
The feminist movement is not about success for women. It is about treating women as victims and about telling women that you can't succeed because society is unfair to you, and I think that's a very unfortunate idea to put in the minds of young women because I believe women can do whatever they want.
Investing in women, helping women to achieve their dreams, sending young girls to college. Trying to train young girls to be leaders. Sponsoring the Minerva Awards. All of these programs didn't exist before that help women day in and day out.
The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces; what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities.
Muslim girls, we love fashion! Whether we wear the hijab or not - it's our choice - and it's time the industry took note. Finally, fashion stores are open to that idea.
What's surprising to me now is that now that I'm talking to a lot of women about this, so many women are doing this. Straight women, lesbian women, bisexual women, poor women, White women, immigrant women. This does not affect one group.
I'd spent my twenties trying to be everything to everybody. I had my family, my straight friends, and I was starting to develop a gay circle of friends. I was seeing some men, seeing some women, and trying to sort it all out.
They sign a bunch of women, and they call it a movement. I don't like the way women in music have been identified as women first and musicians second.
CoverGirl's Girls CAN movement is perfectly aligned with my passion for helping young women overcome life's challenges, and my commitment to highlighting girls' successes. I am thrilled to partner with CoverGirl to embark on this exciting journey to improve the lives of girls and women in the world.
It's true that in a lot of western feminist movements, you see women working singularly from men. Suffragettes and the women's rights movement in the 60s here, but when I think of the Islamic feminist movement, I think of a lot of men who are very much standing with the women. It really feels like in equal numbers. Women are catching up in the field because we were not given access to knowledge and encouraged into these studies and so these men are helping us and empowering us. They are men of conscience who are fed up with this assumption that they're entitled.
To understand the fanatic rejection of women's liberation in the Muslim world, one has to take into account the time factor. Most of us educated women have illiterate mothers. The conservative wave against women in the Muslim world is a defense mechanism against profound changes in both sex roles and the touchy subject of sexual identity.
I'm hearing here that this Muslim movement, well, for women, is what we have to focus on. And women have been doing, I think, the right thing. Having the conversations, talking to people about that.
Because the traditional mode of dress for Muslim women is so distinct - the headcovering, which is not there for guys - women carry a greater burden of representation than Muslim men do in non-Muslim societies.