picture in my mind

Been watching vids again. Although I should be studying or working. -.- Here's one where Ustaz Khalid Yasin speaks about women in Islam. =) Part of the reason my faith in Islam is so strong is because I can find no other institution or system that protects women as much as Islam does.



Here's another one. He speaks for all the irritation I feel when people think that, you know, poor Muslim girls are being oppressed and are likely daft or stg and have to be made to suffer. No, my dad did not force me to wear the tudung, I assure you, although even my Muslim friends would think so. I chose to do it myself when I was 11 and even my relatives were shocked, and said that it was okay if I didn't wear it. It really is irritating. There's this stupid assumption that modernity comes with the way we dress, instead of what's in our brains.



When I was in human relations class and we'd have all those heated discussions about controversial issues, I think everyone could tell I'm a conservative. I mean, even for our project presentation, I played the role of the conservative Singaporean heartlander. I'm fine with it. I try to be a good Muslim and if that labels me as a conservative (although I don't like these labels), so be it. But what I get irritated with is this idea that if I'm conservative, then surely, my ideas about women are backward. Like, I can't be conservative and feminist at the same time, although 'feminist' may not be the label I like to use here. Like it's a given - if people are not what is termed 'liberal', then they're not pro-woman or stg. It's really stupid. Which woman does not want respect and equality for women??? I just feel that feminists, the really extreme feminist types, have a misplaced idea about equality for women. We don't want to be like men, do we? We just want to be respected as much as men. Equal but not the same, you know? We want to be respected as women. Sigh. I think the world is largely confused about everything.

Here's a little from my Human Relations exam paper: we were supposed to comment on the articles. They're quite interesting.

So while “pro-choice” feminists hail abortion as the symbol of women’s sexual freedom and equality, the ordinary young woman may find no such liberation when she has sex with her date, thinking, as women are prone to do, that sex will bind the two emotionally. Instead, when he doesn’t share the depth of her feelings and then hands her $400 for the abortion when she becomes pregnant, it’s not only her heart that’s broken. She alone has to live with the possible short-term and long-term medical consequences of the abortion for the rest of her life. For many women, “reproductive freedom” has meant that women continue to negotiate all that comes with reproduction while men enjoy the freedom of sex without consequences.

The victimization felt by such a large majority of women who undergo abortions, though not appreciated or even recognized by today’s “pro-choice” feminist, was acutely foreseen by an earlier generation of feminists. America’s pioneering feminists, who fought for the right to vote and fair treatment in the workplace, were uniformly against abortion because they recognized it as an attack on women as women—those uniquely endowed with the ability to bear children. While these pioneering feminists endured the painstaking fight to change male-dominated political and economic institutions, the “pro-choice” feminists of the 1970s and today instead sought to change the very nature of women, convincing many of them that, if they’re to be equal to men, they must simply become like men.

~ How Abortion Hurts Women: The Hard Truth, by Erika Bachiochi