Muslim women vs Western women

I’m both, and apparently I’m invisible. It always frustrates me when people make this comparison, as if these two things are mutually exclusive.

5 thoughts on “Muslim women vs Western women

  1. Yeah, I can see how you might find the comparison offensive because basically you are both. It's really a problem with terminology though.Perhaps you can think off better terms because indeed there are comparisons to be made. For the most part in this sense they mean Muslim woman in the sense of culture.I would say many you are a "Western" woman, because culturally you don't wear the Hijab and you aren't afraid to stand up against a man and stuff like that. But of course the ways you do follow your religion does put you in the "Muslim" camp a bit.Again terrible terminology. We understand the types of contrasts they want to make but the way the terms are uses it does make it sound like if you are Western then you are not Muslim.So perhaps you can find a better use of terms because the point of the terminology isn't to say Westerners can't be Muslims but that seems to be the consequence of the poor use of the term.Western Grown Muslim vs Islamic Grown Muslim. No those terms don't really seem to work well eitherBy the way, have you been watching Outsourced? Kind of the closest thing we in America have to LMOTP but there's not as much religious tension. And it is much funnier than LMOTP which of course isn't too hard to do.

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  2. Wearing the hi'jab doesn't make you any less Western. And Muslim women who aren't Western can be quite bossy.It's only a Western stereotype that they don't stand up for anything.

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  3. @KelsShells, I heard that too when I traveled to the Middle East. Bossy mothers, bossy sisters, bossy aunts. Muslim women are bossy. And I've found it to be true of the Muslim women I've met here, including Nahida.The terminology is another example of the importance of language, how it can reveal mentality, and of microaggressions.

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  4. almostclever

    I had someone ask me today if Western, Muslim and Feminist was a contradiction. Somehow, it seems, we cannot be all those at one time.

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  5. I've had that same sentiment expressed towards me. The fact that we are whole, complete, dimensional people and not cookie-cutter stereotypes seems to be a difficult concept to grasp.

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