Agreeing to Differ: Final Meeting with Payame Zan

Reading Ziba Mir-Hosseini's article about gender and Islam, left me reflecting on how I view feminism and thinking of the article, "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses." I connected these two articles because they maintained through out the session that feqh does not promote and endorse these beliefs, that it's not within the basic principle to view women as inferior or defective. Yet if this is not true why is it interpreted this way on such a large scale? At one point through out the conversation, he says marriage and submission of women is due to the roles in the marriage, not the notion that men's lives are valued more than women's. I connected this to the other article because I thought about how we view oppression of women through Western eyes but secular personalities in Islamic countries also view this as oppression. So that left me thinking that it wasn't necessarily that we declare them oppressed and we put them into that realm but it must be something within the religion that makes people interpret it these ways? One of them mentioned that women place men into the role of the provider and they come to expect this and in return they are submissive. This comes from how feqh portrays the gender dynamics within marriage. These are the limits they are given and expected to uphold. I respect her for staying so composed through out such a provoking conversation. I have extremely strong feelings about gender equality and this provoked a lot of feelings for me but I was conscious about that and kept "putting myself in check." Trying to be objective and understanding is important to me because being open minded of where people are coming from and what intersecting identities have created these beliefs is imperative for change. If we can be understanding of where people are coming from it makes coming to a compromise on both sides more feasible. To me it is impossible to accept such notions and justifications due to my beliefs but my beliefs are not the consensus.