First and foremost, the most prevalent point emphasized throughout this reading was the author’s attention to why passivity is not inherently anti-feminist. Or in other words, why Islamic women can still interact with feminism.
The westernized views of feminism (and it’s colonialist roots,) continue to complicate feminism for women throughout the world. The conversation we had in class on the broad meanings of feminism and how we interact with the ideology despite it’s controversy are particularly relevant in this reading.
One thing that stuck out to me was about the quote on page 221. “Self esteem makes you independent of what other people think of you…Instead of helping to improve your situation, it leads you to accept it as fate…passively.” I found this quote very captivating as it made me think about the complexities of human nature. In psychology there’s the concept of fight or flight.
How someone reacts to pressure in society, in this instance the pressure is marriage, can be dependent on a multitude of factors. Here it seems to be religion and values that stem from that. Where one person may feel the need to dispute things they disagree with, there may be another person that know’s that the circumstances they are facing don’t define them. The differences in culture and circumstance and experience all lead up to a reaction, and the authors attention to the mysterious “why” makes this reading all the more fascinating for that reason.
