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"Given my
privilege as a woman, I only degrade myself by trying to
be something I’m not--and in all honesty--don’t want to
be: a man. As women, we will never reach true liberation
until we stop trying to mimic men, and value the beauty
in our own God-given distinctiveness."
On
March 18, 2005 Amina
Wadud led the first
female-led Jumuah (Friday)
prayer. On that day women took a huge step towards being
more like men. But, did we come closer to actualizing
our God-given liberation?
I don’t think
so.
What we so often
forget is that God has honored the woman by giving her
value in relation to God—not in relation to men. But as
western feminism erases God from the scene, there is no
standard left—but men. As a result the western feminist
is forced to find her value in relation to a man. And in
so doing she has accepted a faulty assumption. She has
accepted that man is the standard, and thus a woman can
never be a full human being until she becomes just like
a man—the standard.
When a man cut
his hair short, she wanted to cut her hair short. When a
man joined the army, she wanted to join the army. She
wanted these things for no other reason than because the
“standard” had it.
What she didn’t
recognize was that God dignifies both men and women in
their distinctiveness--not their sameness. And on March
18, Muslim women made the very same mistake.
For 1400 years
there has been a consensus of the scholars that men are
to lead prayer. As a Muslim woman, why does this matter?
The one who leads prayer is not spiritually superior in
any way. Something is not better just because a man does
it. And leading prayer is not better, just because it’s
leading. Had it been the role of women or had it been
more divine, why wouldn’t the Prophet have asked
Ayesha or
Khadija, or Fatima—the
greatest women of all time—to lead? These women were
promised heaven—and yet they never lead prayer.
But now for the
first time in 1400 years, we look at a man leading
prayer and we think, “That’s not fair.” We think so
although God has given no special privilege to the one
who leads. The imam is no higher in the eyes of God than
the one who prays behind.
On the other
hand, only a woman can be a mother. And God has given
special privilege to a mother. The Prophet taught us
that heaven lies at the feet of mothers. But no matter
what a man does he can never be a mother. So why is that
not unfair?
When asked who
is most deserving of our kind treatment? The Prophet
replied ‘your mother’ three times before saying ‘your
father’ only once. Isn’t that sexist? No matter what a
man does he will never be able to have the status of a
mother.
And yet even
when God honors us with something uniquely feminine, we
are too busy trying to find our worth in reference to
men, to value it—or even notice. We too have accepted
men as the standard; so anything uniquely feminine is,
by definition, inferior. Being sensitive is an insult,
becoming a mother—a degradation. In the battle between
stoic rationality (considered masculine) and self-less
compassion (considered feminine), rationality reigns
supreme.
As soon as we
accept that everything a man has and does is better, all
that follows is just a knee jerk reaction: if men have
it—we want it too. If men pray in the front rows, we
assume this is better, so we want to pray in the front
rows too. If men lead prayer, we assume the imam is
closer to God, so we want to lead prayer too. Somewhere
along the line we’ve accepted the notion that having a
position of worldly leadership is some indication of
one’s position with God.
A Muslim woman
does not need to degrade herself in this way. She has
God as a standard. She has God to give her value; she
doesn’t need a man.
In fact, in our
crusade to follow men, we, as women, never even stopped
to examine the possibility that what we have is better
for us. In some cases we even gave up what was higher
only to be like men.
Fifty years ago,
society told us that men were superior because they left
the home to work in factories. We were mothers. And yet,
we were told that it was women’s liberation to abandon
the raising of another human being in order to work on a
machine. We accepted that working in a factory was
superior to raising the foundation of society—just
because a man did it.
Then after
working, we were expected to be superhuman—the perfect
mother, the perfect wife, the perfect homemaker—and have
the perfect career. And while there is nothing wrong, by
definition, with a woman having a career, we soon came
to realize what we had sacrificed by blindly mimicking
men. We watched as our children became strangers and
soon recognized the privilege we’d given up.
And so only
now—given the choice—women in the West are choosing to
stay home to raise their children. According to the
United States Department of Agriculture, only 31 percent
of mothers with babies, and 18 percent of mothers with
two or more children, are working full-time. And of
those working mothers, a survey conducted by Parenting
Magazine in 2000, found that 93% of them say they would
rather be home with their kids, but are compelled to
work due to 'financial obligations'. These ‘obligations’
are imposed on women by the gender sameness of the
modern West, and removed from women by the gender
distinctiveness of Islam.
It took women in
the West almost a century of experimentation to realize
a privilege given to Muslim women 1400 years ago.
Given my
privilege as a woman, I only degrade myself by trying to
be something I’m not--and in all honesty--don’t want to
be: a man. As women, we will never reach true liberation
until we stop trying to mimic men, and value the beauty
in our own God-given distinctiveness.
If given a
choice between stoic justice and compassion, I choose
compassion. And if given a choice between worldly
leadership and heaven at my feet—I choose heaven.
Source:
by
courtesy & © 2005
Yasmin
Mogahed |
