Cynthia Stone

March 24, 2008

           Women in Postcolonial Turmoil

          Women’s issues have always interested me and that interest has increased since my twin sister has found the Muslim faith. My interest is not because of the faith itself but the cultural restrictions that have developed and occur for her because of the religion. This is relevant because I am curious to the struggle that women in Muslim counties over seas are going through with the high level of American influences that are invading their culture at this time. If the Muslim faith requires a woman to cover her hair, refrain from talking to strange men, and that considers women dirty when they menstruate; what kind of trouble is being caused as America goes to Afghanistan and other Muslim nations and introduces the freedoms that American women are allowed?

          There have been rumors that women in countries in which America is at war, or have conflicts with, are being exposed to military women who do not bend to Muslim rule. Reports of Muslim women not wearing their head covering, wearing American styled clothes, and looking for jobs and independence. When Muslim women come to America to join their families and become exposed to the American culture some of them switch from orthodox Muslim to American Muslim. When I first heard this I was confused, but my sister explained that American Muslim women do not have nearly as many restrictions as the orthodox do. Voice of America.com has an article: On The Line: Muslim Women in America where several women who were born in Pakistan, etc., and moved to America, were interviewed to see how Americans accept them and how their countries accepted them when they went and visited. It is amazing how the women have to face criticism from their home countries because ‘they made it out and left the rest of the country to rot’ or because they were more relaxed under the American influences. These women are the lucky ones, those who are left behind are not so fortunate.         

          The National Review online, published an article: America, Saving Muslim Women’s Lives  where some of the horrors of being a Muslim woman are exposed and informs readers how things are improving in Afghanistan because America is doing a little democratic colonization. Where women in Muslim countries are going through such confusing and troubling time to access freedoms that American women take for granted there are American women who are doing the opposite. Like my sister, there are American women who enjoy the restrictions that are placed on women in the Muslim faith because of the safety that they say comes with the strict cultural rules. Other women change their way of living for love and will deal with the restrictions in order to be with the Muslim partner that they have fallen in love with. I am not sure I understand giving up freedoms for the sake of love when their partners are not willing to give up their Muslim religion for them. It does not seem fair, besides the point that you have women in Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc., that would rejoice at gaining a fraction of the freedoms that those select American women are so willingly giving up, without having their men and society attack them verbally and physically.

          When I first started this, I thought America was completely in the right to interfere in Muslim countries and liberate their women. I still feel that it is a good thing; however, it should only be done where the women will have American protection or that the society will have leniency, not where America will create pandemonium for an already traumatized female population. I also thought that women like my sister where crazy to allow themselves to be subjected to Muslim restrictions. However, I spent a whole week with my sister talking to her and her Muslin fiancée and learned that he does respect her [to a degree]. And though there are cultural clashes (some of them are whoppers) they love each other and my sister has found a home in the Muslim religion – plus she is not orthodox, but practices the Americanized Muslim Faith.