living islam _ Islamic tradition

02-05-19, 18.33.26

I was a self identified feminist. Among the women I worked and lived with, feminism was always the central concern. This was the not the feminism of the media or American politics. We were not man-haters, but mostly mothers or mothers-to-be genuinely concerned about the obvious and pervasive unfairness in virtually every aspect of American women's lives:

valued primarily as sexual objects, sought after and used when young and thrown away when old; manipulated through our best instincts into making very rich the purveyors of every kind of over-packaged, over-advertised, over-priced product to "improve" or take the place of our housekeeping and mothering skills; systematically kept ignorant of the very processes of our own bodies so that in order to bear, feed and care for our children the "modern" "over-educated" American woman must totally depend upon paternalistic, male, "experts" who by the by also happened to become very rich by our dependency most chilling to us in both personal and general ways was the "open season" on women in this nation extolled as a pinnacle of "you've come a long way baby" women's rights and freedom: rampant and only tokenly punished molestation of girl children, rape, wife battering ­ even murder, by men of women in endemic proportion.

Prostitution and pornography considered to be "victimless" and construed as having the weight of constitutional rights. Glamorized in films and common enough to be part of the scenery of American life: in any cop movie or television show, when the scene takes place in the police station, watch the background: there will always be prostitutes being hauled in.

Many times I sat with friends seriously plotting how we might execute a known rapist and torturer of women who was openly walking, stalking the streets after serving a nine month or even probationary sentence. We were never willing to risk jail ourselves for such scum, being mothers we had to be self-protective, so all we ever did was try to console each other. But we had no respect for the "law and order" of a system that condoned and even encouraged such brutality against women. We were only too aware that our daughters and ourselves were at high risk in such a state. We literally felt under siege.