Week 7: Agency, Gender, and Embodiment

In Saba Mahmood’s chapter, “Agency, Gender, and Embodiment” from her book, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and The Feminist Subject, she invites us to think about the notions of agency within liberal frameworks. She starts the chapter by explaining the meaning of veiling and its relationship with an individual’s behavior, particularly al-haya, which is the virtue of modesty and shyness. She explores performative behavior and internal disposition in regards to choosing to veil or not to veil. It is interesting that they almost force these practices on themselves in order to avoid internal struggles. They create these feelings to avoid internal hypocrisy and it in turn, becomes inherent to their bodies and mindset so much so that they feel naked when they don’t veil. It leaves me to wonder if they are choosing to veil out of personal choice or external pressure from trying to live piously. This correlation between clothing and behavior is fascinating to me. Agency is complicated with the intersectionality of religious and societal norms and expectations as well as one’s interiority. In liberal frameworks, agency is placed into a binary relationship between oppressive systems power domination and the resistance that follows. Individual agency seems oppressed by loyalty to live piously or obey your husbands wishes, perpetuating an internal hypocrisy that many Muslim women struggle with. This piece has helped me understand the perspective of Muslim women living with dichotomous identities and trying to navigate through these struggles. On the surface whatever decision Muslim women make may seem submissive when thinking of agency in these binaries but reading this has opened my eyes to WHY they make these choices. Agency is individual and putting it into binaries robs us the opportunity to analyze the complex intersections of identities and those effect on Muslim women’s lives.

I saw this in the news recently and though this was very interesting because of how significant this is, but also left me thinking about how Muslim women view this and if they think this is degrading the Hijab A reporter becomes the first woman to wear a Hijab inside the playboy magazine.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-28/muslim-reporter-becomes-first-hijab-wearing-model-in-playboy/7884660