Making visible gender inequities in the accessibility, acquisition, and transmission of knowledge is essential to breaking ceilings and barriers that prevent women from full participation. This is especially critical in religion, an area in which Patriarchy has bashed women in a systematic, deliberate and cumulative way throughout history.
The current dominant discourses about Muslim women: idealization (sustained by religious patriarchy) and demonization (which corresponds to a Western vision) universalize their own particular way of seeing reality through privilege and representation of female otherness and don´t give women a voice or the chance to declare an epistemic space, meaning a symbolic place of discussion where our experiences with knowledge are relevant.
This is why initiatives like “Not More All Male Panels” and other similar are important. Who dominates knowledge, manages explanations and represents reality is important. If women are excluded, then it is as if women do not exist. The inclusion of women in knowledge serves two purposes: one is simply our presence in instances where knowledge is produced; the other, which my reflection is about, concerns appropriation of knowledge and spaces via movement building.
Panels, Ceilings and Walls
A few weeks ago I participated in a panel to discuss women and feminism in religion. One of my peers spoke to me about the perception of Islamic Feminism. To paraphrase my fellow panelist:
In Islamic Feminism, your voice is ignored and disposable, because you lack all of what gives one authority in that field– You are a Latina, living in the South, with no formal education in Islam. You have no Arab/Asian name and you speaks Spanish. In a Feminist world that should be Intersectional and Decolonial by definition, you’re a woman racialized in contrast with you peers. If not, tell me in how many lists of Muslims Feminist your name is written.
That was hard to hear, but led me to think that the struggle against our lack of presence in matters of knowledge has not only to do with visibility, but also with access and representation. In this sense, I wonder: who is in charge of knowledge in Islamic Feminism? What are the possibilities for any Muslim woman to become a scholar? This is still something only privileged women seem to be able to do.
There are mechanisms of exclusion that operate against us like a crystal ceiling. Most Mosques or Islamic Centers don’t teach women “complicated stuff” like Islamic Theology or Science of Hadith. If they have any programs for women, they are focused on helping us to be good wives and mothers. Nothing like leadership skills or critical thought is offered. Even the way these programs are organized are not friendly to us, with schedules and methodologies that do not facilitate our presence. If you want Gender Studies in Religion, this is only available at Universities at a high cost of time and money. If you want Islamic studies too, obstacles like language or distance also present themselves.
But there are other obstacles coming from the greater Feminist world itself. To the crystal ceiling we have to add the crystal wall; the competition that exists among women including feminists due to negative socialization. Elitism, racism, classism and assumed representations about what a Muslim woman/feminist looks and speaks like become obstacles for some women in our field, creating alienation and make network building very difficult.
Movement Building and Democratizing Knowledge
We have to be radical in our efforts to create conditions that will materialize the Islamic principle of “Iqraa”- pursuit of knowledge- for all the sisters who want to claim their authority in religious matters. Many Muslim communities are not only misogynistic, but anti-intellectual. There’s internal work to do that runs parallel to filling all those panels. Islamic feminism cannot afford to be an activity solely for an elite. We have to find a way to democratize knowledge and opportunities.
In my case, I would have never made any progress without the support of people like Natalia Andujar, who gave me my first chance to talk about Islamic Feminism in a public forum. I am also grateful to Ani Zonneveld, Adis Duderija, Shaista Gohir, Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed, Amina Wadud, Muhsin Hendricks, this Feminism and Religion blog community. They shared with me resources and experience that gave me access to the opportunities and the knowledge I needed to develop my skills.
My way of giving back started three years ago with IMAAN, an educational project whose main objective is to facilitate knowledge and debate on gender, religion and sexuality, grounded in networking with people of different background, from PhD academics to grassroots female leaders. Above all, my goal is to provide easy access to training in these matters. The next step will be an online platform where Muslim women and women interested in the field can acquire an education in Islam, Sexuality and Gender Issues that they can’t pay for at universities.
Feminism is not merely a theory or a diploma. It is an ethic of life and everyday practice that engages epistemic justice and equal access to representation. Broad access to the appropriation of knowledge is as important as the opportunity to articulate this knowledge. Campaigns as Iman For She or No More All Male Panels and others in our future will need women to cover, get involved and maintain the results of our advocacy.
We must break the crystal ceiling to move up towards areas of power and decision–like knowledge. At the same time, breaking the crystal wall is also essential. Struggling for a place in knowledge must not be reduced to merely getting a panel, but expanded into an expression of movement building. This will be the eventual result of the systematic work of identifying, training and promoting women activists and scholars, with a sense of diversity and a policy of sisterhood based on potential, not sympathy. The new generation of Muslim Feminist change-makers can’t depend on money, status or social class and must be expected to take more than a chair in a panel, but a wide place in the world.
Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente is a Writer, Mentor and Community Educator in Capacity Building for Grass Roots Female Leaders and Advocates. A Muslim Feminist who is an Independent Researcher of Gender and Islam in Latin America on Feminist Hermeneutics, Muslim Women Representations, Queer Identities and Movement Building. She blogs in Spanish at Mezquita de Mujeres, a site dedicated to explore the links between Gender, Religion and Feminism as well to Women from the Global South as Change Makers in their communities.
feminismandreligion.com 
Interesting article, Vanessa. A good read, which deals with the very same subjects you mention in the article, is also: Muslim women scholars of Islam, the question of qualifications, and romanticized images of the “Islamic tradition”.
https://orbala.wordpress.com/2015/11/01/muslim-women-scholars-of-islam-the-question-of-qualifications-and-romanticized-images-of-the-islamic-tradition/
And about privilege: Well, yes. If one is a black woman from a non-Muslim background (and Afro-Caribbean and from South-American descent, like you are) it can be even harder, because of the racism, shadeism and colorism so many non-black Muslims of color are invested in.
But things will get better for sure. To paraphrase Aisha al Adaweya, an African-American activist: “If you ground yourself in your spirituality and stand up for what’s right, there’s nothing you can’t do.”
Greetings of love, blessings and peace, hermana!
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Salam. Thanks for your comment. I am glad you find the text useful. The topic of privileges is one very sensitive to me since I have experienced situations in feminisms where privilege of race or authority of knowledge or a position of power influence the way some women see others. For me, being a south american is a plus but in this field of Islam is not.
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Great post. Getting women’s voices heard is not just about making it through the gate, it is about transforming the system where the gatekeepers are all men, and also perhaps as you suggest about opening the floodgates!!!
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Thank you very much for your comment Carol.
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Thanks so much Vanessa. A very powerfully written confluence here of streams, energies, and networking of the Muslim feminist liberation movement. I love your connection of these terms — “Panels, Ceilings and Walls” —
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Thanks to you for reading Sarah
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I love the “raw energy” you bring to your writing, Vanessa. I agree with you when you state: “Elitism, racism, classism and assumed representations about what a Muslim woman/feminist looks and speaks like become obstacles for some women in our field, creating alienation and make network building very difficult.” We all live in a “patriarchal soup” where hierarchies have become entrenched. Thanks for your post.
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Thank you Ester for reading. You are right, we are all in the struggle and I just can become rawer :)
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I find this article patronizing and rather biased as again women of the west pretend to be concerned about Muslim women while ignoring a multi billion dollar porn industry, and the constant barrage of elected legislators that find every “hook in the book” to deny women of equal pay. Men receive Viagra while women are denied essential healthcare. This old tired routine of blaming Muslim women while the country decides that bombing them and their families is a solution to these “poor” Muslim women’ problems. Perhaps if their were more feminists paying attention to whats going on in their own backyard they may really spare Muslim women the deaths of their love one. In addition, perhaps the Western feminists can relieve the suffering of the women who are being trafficked, abused in the porn industries, strive for equal pay and medical rights as oppose to providing a justification for bombing Muslim countries under the guise of aiding the ‘poor’ Muslim women, we would see some real progress and equality. “Do Muslim Women Need Saving” Abu Lughud’s informative book, check it out!
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Dear TA, While I find the things you are writing about critically important, I think you picked the wrong person to take to task for them. I and other writers on FAR have been critical of US wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan. I do not see anything in Vanessa Rivera de la Fuente’s corpus to suggest that she agrees with let us say George W. Bush about saving Afghani women through a US war.
For the life of me, I don’t see that Vanessa is speaking about saving “poor Muslim women” with bombs. She speaks of education in the interpretation of Muslim texts and traditions, including education from a woman-centered perspective, so that Muslim women of all colors and class backgrounds can “join the panels” and come to their own conclusions about so-called “Muslim truths” that harm (or may harm) women. Is there anything wrong with that?
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Yes please, TA Bashir, point me where, in any part of my article I mention something that has to do, at least in a minimal part, with anything you are saying.
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Dear Vanessa,
I understand why you took these comments from your fellow panelist to heart, but please understand that they only represent a particular perspective. I’d like to offer you some different perspectives.
In Islam in the USA, Malcolm X – a self-educated, black man with a criminal record, had far more influence and followers than well-educated, white Victorian gentleman Alexander Russell Webb. Malcolm X’s ideas are still alive and thriving many years after his death. As for Webb, well, you’re probably asking “Who’s that?”
We may not have the time, money or energy to pursue a formal degree, but we can all pick up a book and read. Iqra! Educate yourself!
While authority in a field might be important to others in that field, in the end, it is a pretty small field. Sure, they write up their lists and publish their articles in their exclusive journals, but that is just catering to the field adherents. They often become extremely isolated in their fields and white towers, unable to see or bear the reality of those outside their field. But those who speak to the woods and the hills, the streams and the mountains, the deserts, jungles and islands, their ideas are bigger and carry further and than the field dwellers.
Your ideas are bigger and stronger and have the capacity to transform lives. You must not be discouraged by the list makers. You have a different path.
Steal from the best (LGBT, environmentalists, poets, artists, German philosophers), keep speaking out and keep writing so those of us who aren’t able to hear you can at least read you, and most important, keep on keeping on.
“Dry land,
quiet land
of night’s
immensity.
(Wind in the olive groves.
wind in the Sierra.)””
-a small piece of ‘Poem of the Soléa for Jorge Zalamea’, by Federico Garcia Lorca
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My dear: Your messages are always so empowering. Is true we have the capacity to transform our lives and if we are aware of that, our awareness then must be enough to share some of that enlightment to serve the transformation of other women.
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