When your interests and education background are what mine are, things like this come across your radar, often because people want to prove you wrong. They want to take two of your beliefs and smash them against one another to see if they give sparks. In this case, my feminism and my respect for Islam were put to a test by the article about the 12-year old Yemeni girl who died in childbirth. It popped up several places today where I saw it, but it was also sent to me be a friend who disagrees with my assessment of Islam as a peaceful religion.
Let me be clear. This is not Islam. This is patriarchy dressed up with religion, which happens everywhere that men have decided they are the sole voice of God. In this case, the flavor is Islamic, but everything that happened to this girl would be contrary to the teachings of Muhammad and Qur'an.
Stories like this tear the heart out of me. They leave me wondering if there's any hope that the world can be made better for women and girls. When stories like that of Fawziya Ammodi, who labored for three days to have her baby before she died, threaten to overwhelm me, there are two places I go. One, is the Shakesville blog, where I remember I have a teaspoon, and that I have promised to be all-in. (That's one of my favorite blog posts of all time, right there...) The other is the Girl Effect website. And so a healthy dose of the informational video of one of my favorite charities:
"There is no neutral in this. You're in or you're fucking out." --Melissa McEwan.
I'm in, too. Still. For good.
1 comment:
[...] crisis on women and girls. I have previously linked one of my most favorite charities–The Girl Effect–who deal with economic aid and development issues as they impact women and [...]
Post a Comment