An Islamic Feminist Wave?

As a Latina feminist scholar, I would be ignorant to ignore the struggles and successes of my other ethnic sisters. In celebrating other women rhetors, I celebrate the mestizajezation of rhetoric!

Listening to NPR this morning (as I always do) I heard the story of Seyran Ates, a German-Turkish Muslim women´s rights lawyer in Berlin who has been extremely vocal on the issues of Muslim women in Germany and beyond. In the past she has fought for Muslim women´s rights to be divorced from their husbands, all at the risk of her own life having suffered beatings and threats in the past. I wondered about the issue of women in Islam and how the world is beginning to deal with the brutal treatment of Islamic women that are no longer under the protection of an Islamic rule in an Islamic nation? I found several surprising internet sites that show Islamic women stepping out of their traditional roles, and asserting a new Islamic women's identity. At the same time, I found Islamic women reasserting their traditional roles, such as wearing the hijab in place such as England that has seen a surge in Islamic population. There are various websites and books out on Islamic Feminism. Shaheen Sardar Ali Human Rights and International Law: Equal Before Allah, Unequal Before Man? (2000); Nayereh Tohidi Women in Muslim Societies: Diversity Within Unity (1998). Is this a Feminist Wave that we are not noticing? Should we take note of these women and further their cause. Certainly, there will never be a true democracy in the Middle East nations if the government, local and global, doesn't take note of the suffering women are subjected to there.

The United States government seems to ignore the issue of human rights regarding women in the Middle East, where they merely see profits and oil. I hear very little from the main stream media about the women's suffering in the Middle East. It seems to me that the topic of women's suffering for many media outlets is a topic best left untouched because of the already tumultuous political situations.