February 1, 2017 • 40 mins
Cristen interviews skeptic blogger and Muslim-turned-atheist Heina Dadabhoy about women and Islam. Is Islam inherently patriarchal? What is Islamic feminism? Listen in to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And Caroline. I'm very excited because
in this podcast episode we are talking about religion. That
(00:24):
is something that we normally don't address very often because
it is it's pretty controversial. Yeah, I think what is
a gun's politics? Religion? The three things that you're not
supposed to bring up on a date, write a date
or a family dinner. Yeah, but in this podcast, we
we can we can tackle the touchy subjects, right. And
(00:44):
the reason that I'm excited about this episode on women
and Islam in particular, is because we have an expert,
even though she doesn't like to call herself an expert.
Heina Dotta Boy, who for any skep Chick readers out there,
her name might ring a bell because she writes over there,
and she initially got in touch with us Caroline in
(01:08):
response to our episode on crazy Cat Ladies because she
had some clarifications about the that that t Gandhi right,
the bacteria, and so she wrote us in and she
was like, yeah, I write for Skeptic And I was like, WHOA,
that's so cool. And then I was like, wait, you're
writing this book, The Skeptics Guide to Islam. Can we
(01:29):
talk to you please? Yeah? And he said yes. Yeah.
Like like Kristen said, she does hesitate to call herself
an expert, but she has a really excellent point of
view because she grew up a practicing Muslim and then
ended up growing up, in her words, to become an atheist, feminist,
secular humanist, or she says, in other words, a skeptic writer, yeah,
(01:50):
and spending time specifically in the skeptic community. And she'll
talk about this more in the interview. She realized that
there are a lot of misconceptions out there about Islam,
and I felt like it would be so informative for
us to have a chat with her about specifically women
(02:10):
in Islam, because I feel like there are so many
stereotypes out there in terms of Islam being just inherently
repressive for women, the whole thing about whether or not
women should cover their faces in public, their places like
France that have actually banned that out right, And I
(02:31):
just wanted to get more of an expert perspective on
what that is because one thing, Caroline, I didn't even
know about until I've started researching for my chat with
Tina was that Islam also has a strand of feminism
within it. There Islamic feminism exists, right and this is
(02:54):
uh Islamic feminism in particular is sort of fighting from within.
You could say it's women who are still Muslims, not
necessarily atheists like Kina, but they are using interpretations of
the Kuran to educate other women but men also about
women's rights, uh, you know, religion in general, to sort
(03:16):
of expand women's roles in their culture. Yes, because these
female scholars would point out that in some ways the
Koran is more gender progressive than the Bible was at
the times when they were written. And speaking more about
what Muslim feminism is. Um Um Yasim, who is at
(03:36):
the Center for Muslim Minorities and Islam Policy Studies at
Australia's men Nash University, defines a Muslim feminist as a
person who quote adopts a worldview in which Islam can
be contextualized and reinterpreted in order to promote concepts of
equality and equality between men and women, and for whom
freedom of choice plays an important part in the expression
(03:57):
of faith and to me, that is certainly not an
aspect of Islam and women within Islam that we really
ever hear about in media coverage. About that, I mean
because I mean, from our perspective sitting here, you and
I neither of us are um Islamic. We don't have
an inside view in the Muslim community, and so we
(04:20):
wanted to talk to Hina. She'll talk about um Islamic
feminism later in the podcast, but we want to pick
a brain about the Skeptics Guide to Islam, her background
with it, and really just doing a lot of myth
busting because I think there are a lot of misconceptions
that need to be cleared up about not only the
(04:40):
Islamic faith, but women's role specifically in that. So, yeah,
should we get to it. Let's get to it. So
this is my interview with Hina data Boy. You can
also find her writings on skep Chick, and be sure
to check out her Kickstarter page for The Skeptics Guide
to Islam. It has been full funded and she's working
(05:01):
on it. It's going to come out later this year,
but with no further ado. Here is my chat with Kina.
Talk to us about your your personal experience with Islam
how it. I don't know his influence your outlook, not
only just on your daily life, but also on religion
in general, especially now since you identify as an atheist.
(05:25):
All right, Well, I was born into a Muslim family, um,
which like most religions, generally means you're going to be
a part of that religion unless your parents take some
special steps to ensure that you, you know, are some
sort of independent. Um. My family can trace its roots
back to India, but we came to the US by
way of a lot of different countries. And my parents,
(05:46):
they they always self identified as Muslims, but they got
really religious when I was about five years old. And
before that, I grew up in kind of the nineties
everything you can do, I can do better, girl power mentality.
But then it kind of got limited because my parents
got more religious. It kind of went into everything you
can do that I'm allowed to do, I can do better.
(06:09):
So I got a little different. And Um, as a Muslim,
you know, even if you're a man, there's a lot
of rules and a lot of listen, don't follow all
the rules, just like a lot of people and a
lot of religion, sort of choose what they fall and
what they kind of say, Oh that's the past. Um.
But I had a lot of trouble with the rules
for women because this whole being loud and fighting for
(06:32):
feminism thing, it's not a new thing. I was always
kind of that way. I never used that word when
I was a kid. Obviously I hadn't know to use
the word feminism. But I struggled a lot with it. Um.
One example would the I kind of have a loud
voice and I have to moderate it conscientiously. And I
used to cry about it all the time to one
of my cousins, saying, you know, I'm not a good
(06:52):
Muslim woman because my voice isn't low enough. UM. So
I had a lot of trouble. But I did try
really really hard. Um. In fact, I realized later that
I tried harder than a lot of the people I
knew in my family, people who to this day still
consider themselves Muslims, but they don't necessarily try to follow
every single word of every single rule. UM. I tried
(07:17):
to find a wiggle room that I could find. I
did find ways to be different, um, and things that
were more cultural and religious. UM. One example I can
think of, just off the top of my head is uh.
The Islamic practice of slaughter Um. It's similar to the
slaughtering process in Judaism for kosher, and my dad is
(07:39):
really big on it. And I used to do it
when I was a kid too, Like I think the
first time I did, I was like fourteen or fifteen,
and guys would say, oh, or women even allowed to
do that? And I'd say, yeah, the Koran doesn't say
anything against that. What's your problem. I'm so cool, I
can do this thing. Um. And then there were all
girls parties that sometimes women would throw, because you know,
(08:02):
in Islamic culture there's modesty, especially in front of men,
but women would throw all girls parties so that girls
could show their hair and do their makeup and show
off their earrings and cute dresses and all that. And
but even if those I would dress more conservatively than
the other girls. So even in my practice, I was
always a little bit different. Um. And eventually I did
(08:23):
leave Islam. Um. It was really more for philosophical reasons.
It wasn't because I was mad that I was a
girl or something. Um. But after I left, I completely
unraveled all those kind of notions of gender that I
was taught. I sort of consciously picked it all apart um.
But my gender work did not end. Now I do
gender work within the secular and skeptical community, so that's
(08:46):
kind of my background. Well, talk to us about the
skeptics guide to Islama. You you just mentioned being active
in the skeptic community, So give me the give me
the background of why you wanted to do it, progress,
what what your goal with with writing it is all
that stuff. When I first became an atheist, I really
(09:09):
needed just support. I needed to feel like I wasn't
the only person in the world who had these thoughts um.
And so I thought out my local atheists and skeptical
groups and I did find a lot of acceptance, a
lot of sympathy, but a lot of ignorance. And that
didn't surprise me necessarily. But I thought that as skeptics
(09:29):
they would question a little bit more. But you know,
you don't always question everything. And I don't think a
lot of those people in that community realized just how
how many misconceptions that they had. Um. Also, I think
a lot of them didn't realize and this is again
going back to the lack of information thing um that
that they just had one side of the story or
(09:51):
one element of the story, or that they were unfairly
taking a single story and projecting it onto the entire
global Muslim community, which is huge. It's the huge community
with multiple cultures, multiple sects of the religion, all of that.
So I found myself constantly correcting and demystifying the same
(10:12):
things over and over. I kept getting the same questions,
and after six years I realized, wait a second, there's
totally room for me to go in and write something.
And so it started with me um posting a few
blogs about Islam on sket Chick and seeing what the
response would be. Um. It might seem obvious now, but
(10:33):
back then there, I mean, I knew there were a
lot of X Muslim writers as it was, including a
lot of X Muslim women who have written There's Aan
Heirsey Elite the Slim and Miss Reene Mariam Namazi. So
I thought that writing about Islam was sort of played out.
As it turns out, it isn't, especially not from my perspective,
which I'm Western born and raised, but I come from
(10:54):
a non Western background. So I decided, hey, why not
see if there's any interest in this book? So I
started my Kickstarter back in the fall or late summer,
I'd say, I should say, and the response kind of
afford me. Um, I got almost double what I asked
for on Kickstarter. I have a publishing company, and I
(11:15):
realized that there really is a lot of room for this.
So after my Kickstarter ended, I was working on my manuscript,
but then I got invited to speak at all these
conferences because it was conference season. So my manuscript progress
was a little bit slowed, but it should be done
by the end of the year, which means that the
actual publication will be sometime in spring, just because publishing
(11:37):
companies take a little bit of time. Uh. Well, you're
talking about the these common misconceptions that you would encounter,
questions that you would get over and over again. Um,
were any of them kind of directly related to aspects
of like gender and women, especially saying you know your
experience as you know, finding out that you were a
(11:59):
woman in uh, you know, an Islamic community, Then would
would that lead to a lot of questions? Because I
feel like they're there's so like I said when we
first started talking, that there's a lot of stereotype and
tied to specifically the role of gender. Absolutely. Oh yeah,
(12:20):
you know there's a lot of patronizing hand padding and
head padding, like so good of you to escape, as
if you know, I've been in some kind of death
calls and have gotten away, and you know, I sort
of look. I understood that people meant well, but I
sort of look up them and go, well, what do
you mean. It's not like my parents never let me
out of the house or anything. I mean, I started
college and I was still a Muslim. Um they let
(12:42):
me out of the house for that at least. UM.
But the main thing is that there's this sort of
I call it the myth of the monolith, the idea
that Islam is one thing. Muslims have, one single set
of beliefs. That's what they all believe. That's what they
always will believe. It will never change. And part of
it is that Muslims sometimes inadvertently perpetuated because they like
(13:04):
to talk about how Islam is more united than Christianity
or that there's fewer interpretations, but the reality doesn't quite
match that. UM. If the Muslim community worldwide spans so
many countries, cultures, languages, interpretations, UM, different families have different
rules I mean, my family was particularly strict in some ways,
(13:28):
but there were families that were stricter and families that
were a little bit looser UM. And so it's not
as clear cut and not as easy to define as
as people like to think it is UM. And if
you turn it around in a lot of ways, I
would say that UM western to Muslimize Western women have
(13:49):
just as many repressions to them. I don't necessarily agree
with it under percent, but this is something that a
lot of muslimomen will bring up. The idea of the
beauty myths. How much of a choice is it to
shave your legs in your armpits? As a Western woman,
it's kind of a loaded question, but we get a
lot of societal pressure to force us to do a
lot of things that sort of playing into the whole
(14:11):
beauty miss um. You know you're not. There's no Holy
book telling you that must shave your arms and legs
unless you count Cosmo or something. But you know, if
you don't shave your arms and legs, you get some
level of social shaming and pressure to do it. And
so it's similar and with an Islam yeah, there are rules,
but how much you follow them really depends on how
(14:32):
much social pressure you get, And there are a lot
more Muslim women that don't cover their heads than there
are women in general who don't change their arms and
legs in American society. I would say, yeah, I mean
that that what you're saying totally reminds me of the
question that I wanted to ask you about, um, the
whole commentary around head coverings and burkas and uh, specifically
(14:55):
like when when France was passing that law, I just
remember reading so so many articles actually on on both
sides of women saying like, yes, absolutely, this is you know,
it's completely repressive. And obviously these were like white women
saying that, and then on the other side hearing like
from women who wore head coverings or face coverings and
(15:17):
actually felt a form of liberation from that. So I
was wondering what your what your thoughts are on on
kind of those those issues. Generally, banning something doesn't necessarily
make change sort of the culture around it. So even
if we are assuming that Muslim women are forced to cover,
(15:38):
which is not necessarily the best assumption, banning them from
entering the public square doesn't help matters because it sort
of forces them to be home. It forces them to
be away from public discourse. So even if our goal
were to be let's have fewer women covering, forcing them
away from public interaction isn't necessarily the best way to
(15:58):
go about it. And then to look at it a
little more deeply, when I was a mustli woman, I
considered myself liberated through covering because I didn't have to
submit to beauty norms. I didn't have to wake up
at the crack of dawn and curl my hair and
put makeup on and what I assumed Western women did,
which may or may not be true, but you know,
in essence, I could get up and put my head
(16:19):
scarf on, and I thought I was being judged for
my intellect rather than my body, and so I found
liberation through it. So I don't think it's fair to
sort of tell people, well, you must feel this way
about this thing, um, and that you know, the more
the more we engage and interact with each other really
just overall, the better. As as platitudinous as that might sound,
(16:41):
well in your experience, Um, when you know you moved
away from the religion, I'm assuming there was time when
you you probably decided to stop wearing a head covering.
Did you feel I mean, do you feel now kind
of outside of Islam more of the measure of these
(17:02):
the beauty myth, the beauty ideals and and all of that. Oh. Absolutely,
because I don't live in them withlim country, live in
the United States, and I have my whole life. I
didn't feel much pressure from people to cover my head. Um.
I felt pressure from within my religion. But you know,
it wasn't like outsiders would goak at me if I
didn't wear a headscarf and not I don't wear a headscarf.
(17:23):
I do feel a lot of pressure. I mean, I
have naturally curly hair, I don't straighten it, and I
live in southern California. This does make me an object
of of sort of oddity. You know. I get people
touching my hair without my permission and saying things like, oh,
I know a great product to fix that problem, and
I'll look at them sort of thing, what problem exactly? Um,
(17:44):
I don't My body isn't necessarily the ideal. I'm sure
all women think that way, but I definitely fall outside
the norm in a lot of ways. And yeah, I
I have to think about it more. I have to
sort of realize that now every piece of who thing
I wear, every choice I make in terms of my hair,
my makeup, my nails, even it's making a statement in
(18:07):
a way that I kind of didn't expect. So I
have to think about these things a lot more, and
it can feel a little bit overwhelming sometimes, especially at
first it was really overwhelming. What are some I mean,
we've kind of talked about some of the common misconceptions
just in terms of people assuming that, like you said,
the myths of the monoliths, saying hey, well, you know,
(18:29):
all Muslims everywhere must believe and act the exact same way,
which obviously is is wrong. And we've touched the on
um on the head coverings and stuff. But what are
um I guess some other misconceptions about um maybe gender
in or at least from your experience of gender in
(18:50):
uh Muslim communities, just and also the idea that that
it's inherently repressive for women, because I feel like that
that is something that does that's all. There's always the
undercurrent of that and almost like every every media coverage
that I will will read about it. Well, I mean,
I mean, I do a lot of work with feminism
(19:13):
in secularism, and it's it's Bear's repeating. Patriarchy is pretty
much everywhere, and you can find it in everything. I
thought that by entering the secular community, I'd be stepping
away from patriarchy. I believe this too, you know. I thought, oh, well,
religion must be the root of all this sexism and
double standard and all that. And then I get in
the secular community and well it was still there. Um.
(19:37):
So no matter where you go, there's some element of
sexism in the world, and it's worth sort of fighting
against and it's worth bucking, of course, um, And brave
women all over the world buck the trend no matter
what tradition they come from. But it's it's there, and
it's everywhere. Um. In terms of Islam itself, um, the
monolithic thing, it comes up a lot, especial when you
(20:01):
talk about Muslim practices and the actual Arabic terms. I
find that a lot of outsiders will use the word
borka to mean any kind of head covering, which is
really inaccurate. If you don't know the terms. I just
would advise saying headcovering or face covering. Um, Borka is
actually particular garment. That would be like me calling your
T shirt a button down. It just doesn't make any sense. Um.
(20:24):
Another one is a big one actually in terms of misconceptions,
is that Muslim women cannot inherit. A Muslim women actually
can inherit. They just inherit less than men do. And
that is tied into the Islamic notion that men are
providers and whatever money that they have goes towards their family,
whereas if a woman has money, it's hers. She doesn't
(20:45):
have to give it to her children or husband or
share with them at all. So um, Muslim woman can inherit,
just less. Um. There's another, I guess kind of related
miss that Muslim women are not allowed to work. That's
actually not true, and especially because in the Islamic marriage,
a Musli woman actually is not required to do childcare
or housework. She is permitted to put into her marriage
(21:10):
contract with her husband. I don't want to do any
housework and I don't want to do any childcare, and
you have to hire a maid for that. So if
she chooses to do that, that frees up a lot
of times, so she could definitely work if she wanted
to do that. Um. Another big myth is that multiple
wives are commonplace. It's not commonplace at all from Muslim
women to be one of many wives. UM. Just financial reasons,
(21:33):
because according to Islamic law, a man can have up
to four wives, but he has to treat each with
exact equality. So if you buy a giant house, a
diamond ring, and a Mercedes bends for one wife, if
you take another wife, well that's what you also have
to do. So most Muslim when men just can't afford
to have more than one wife, UM, another one. And
(21:56):
this is one that people will sometimes even sort of
oddly directly asked me. They'll say things like do you
have a forced marriage or an arrange marriage? Um. While
it is pretty common for Muslim women to have some
sort of arrangement going on with their marriage, at least
in the sense that their parents will introduce them to
someone or engage in some sort of matchmaking, UM, forcing
(22:18):
to a girl to marry is explicitly prohibited in Islam.
You're supposed to ask her permission and get her consent
at least in some way, so that's definitely out. UM.
Another one is that all women who are covered would
force themselves or have been forced to cover. Um, that's
that could be true. I mean, I know there are
(22:38):
girls out there who have been forced to cover, and
I'm not trying to say that it never happens. But
that's not always true, and it's not fair to assume
that that's the case. Um. And again we get back
to the armpit and leg shaving. Are we forced to
do that on some level we are? On some level
we aren't. So it just it depends on the situation.
(23:00):
Another one, this is getting into I guess a little
bit more of the icky nous factor um or I
see ickyness because people have sometimes directly asked me questions
about it about me personally, and I find it kind
of weird, but it's worth addressing. And that's about the
hyman um. People sometimes will say things like, oh, well,
if a girl doesn't bleed on her wedding night and
(23:21):
she's Muslim, she gets killed. Right. That's actually more the
Old Testament than the Koran. The Kuran actually says that
if you marry. If a man marries a woman and
she does not bleed on her wedding night unless he
can he has any kind of credible evidence to prove
that she isn't she has had sex before marriage. He
has to believe her because she is a Muslim woman
(23:43):
and she should not lie. And so you know that
the whole idea of muslim ending obsessed with hyman. It
might be true in certain Muslim cultures, but in the
Koran itself, unless he has evidence against her, he cannot
assume his new bride is not a virgin if she
as she is um And this last one I kind
of want to go over a little bit. I was
(24:05):
surprised to hear because I had always heard this about
Jews and Catholics, but I've had non Muslims asked me, Hey,
you know, so Muslims have sex through a sheet, right?
And I the first time someone asked me that, I laughed.
I'm like, where are you getting this information from. I've
never even heard of this, but I've had more than
(24:25):
one person asked me. So I thought it bared mentioning
Muslims don't have sex through a hole in the sheet.
That's something I've heard about Jews and Catholics, and I've
heard that it's not true about them either, So that's
definitely not true. It's kind of funny in a way
because I feel like any outside group to mainstream Christianity
somehow gets demonized with the same myth about the sex sheet. Well,
(24:49):
your kicks are a page also mentioned on there. When
you're you're talking about what you're going to address in
the Skeptics Guide Islam, you mentioned the seventy two visions
and pubic care maintenance. So I wanted to know why
why you put those out there. I assume that's another
Those are two things you know that might come up
a lot or um Why why I mentioned this talking
(25:12):
about the seventy two versions and pubic hare maintens and
what and what specifically do you want to um clear
up at the Skeptics Guide about those two points. Well,
one of the very first things I wrote about Islam
on the blog was about the seventy two virsions. I
was just tired of of this question because people people
(25:32):
won't even present it as a question. They'll sort of
make a crack about it or joke about it. They'll
be like, oh, ha ha, you know, if you had
been stayed Muslim and you you're you and your husband
had died, you would have seventy two versions of Heaven.
How can you compete with that? Ha ha? Or what
if those seventy two versions turned out to be angry
nuns or World of Warcraft players. Um. You know, people
(25:54):
make a lot of jokes about it, but that's because
all they've heard is the term seventy two versions. Um.
Just the term itself is a little bit deceptive in translations,
because in classical Arabic, seventy two is meant to be
a number. It would be similar to me saying to you,
(26:14):
if I told you once, I told you a thousand times. Um,
I don't literally mean I've said it to you a
thousand times. I mean I've said it to you a
lot of times. And so seventy two is intended to
mean many or a lot or more than you could
ever imagine. And virgins um is another thing where people
go wrong. They think it means, you know, some sort
(26:35):
of shy, shrinking woman or an inexperienced woman or something
along those lines. Um. The concept of virgins is the
ultimate in sort of sexual pleasure. Is not one that's
limited to Muslim culture or Arabic culture. Um. It's something
that until very recently was very common in Western culture.
You know, you can read historical books and documents and
(26:59):
stuff that talk about you know, the pleasures of betting
a virgin and all that. So it goes back to
that sort of I mean, pretty patriarchal, misogynistic notion granted,
but this idea that a virgin, untouched woman is the
best that a man could ever have. Um. So seventy
two virgins is essentially a way of saying as much
sexual pleasures you could ever want. Um. And another big
(27:23):
misconception associated with that is that the versions are going
to be people, whereas in Islam the virgins or who
are ring which are called don't even try to pronounce
that it's okay, Um, the virgins are created by a
lot of specifically for heaven, so there as I jokingly
(27:43):
kind of called them heavenly sexpots. So that's what they're
supposed to be. Um. And in terms of pupid hair maintenance,
this is sort of a specific instance. But um, not
the first time it happened, or not the last time
it happened, but the first time it happened. Um. It
was this guy new and he was kind of crass,
I guess, as far as people go. And he had
(28:05):
a sing for Middle Eastern women and he was telling
me about how he was telling one of his jim
buddies that he wasn't really into white women, he was
really into Middle Eastern women. Um, and his Jim buddy
laughed and said, oh, ha ha, you need a machete
to get through that pubic hair. And I kind of
looked at him, and he said, what's what's wrong with that?
(28:25):
You know? Yeah, Middle Eastern women tend to have more hair.
I said, yeah, but in Islam actually, and this is
not always practiced by every group I've been finding, But
the way I was always taught, and the interpretation that
I always got, is that Muslim men and women are
required to keep their pubic hair and armpit hair maintained. Um,
it's not supposed to exceed the grain of the length
(28:48):
of a grain of rice. So um. When I hit puberty,
my mom handed me a razor and told me to shave.
Really yeah, And I had never even shaved my arms
or legs. I was like, and when I got my period,
so I was very confused, and I said, what do
you mean shave? What what are you talking about? And
my mom, you know, she was raised in kind of
a more shy culture where they don't really talk about
(29:10):
the body, and so she managed to communicate to me
that I was supposed to shave my mom's and it
was it was very weird um for me. But you know,
that's actually one of the it's part of the body
purity laws in Islam that men and women are supposed
to keep their pupid hare trimmed or shaved. I did
not know that most people don't. Well, what what are
(29:34):
your thoughts on Islamic feminism, because from stuff that I
had been reading in preparation for our interview, it seems
like they're um Like, one of the prevailing ideas behind
Islamic feminism is that um actually, like the Koran and
(29:55):
the guidelines that are outlined were gender revolutionary in a
way here to what other things that were going on
um at at the time in terms of gender relations. So, um,
if you could, let's know a little bit like what
what it is and kind of what what you think
about it As an atheistic, secularist feminist. Well, when I
(30:21):
was kind of transitioning out of Islam, I did read
up a lot about Islamic feminism, and I was always
kind of a fan of it in the sense that
I sort of saw it as unraveling what we're kind
of the patriarchal structures within Islamic cultures versus Islam itself,
and so I always liked that idea of going back
to basics, going back to the Quran and Mohammed's example
(30:43):
as opposed to what culture had to say about it UM.
Now that I'm away from it UM, I really just
admire people who do work in Islamic feminism. They seem
really brave to me because they often make a lot
more enemies because they're doing things that go against what
people think is Islam but really isn't. UM. And in
(31:05):
the work of insiders within any religion is always more
credible and helpful than outsiders. So I'm doing what I
can to increase secular people's understanding of Islam and UM.
Muslim feminists and progressives do their part to reform from inside,
and they often can have way more of an effect
than someone like me can to the actual Islamic community. UM.
(31:28):
One example I can give just off the top of
my head is Irshad Manji. She is a Muslim progressive
out of Canada. She's a out lesbian as a matter
of fact, and she came up when UM when I
first left Islam because my parents took me to see
this mom up in northern California and he and I
were talking and he said something about her, and I said, oh, well,
(31:52):
she's a progressive and a feminist and a lesbian. How
can you even bring her up? And he said, well,
she's at least inside the house, and by that he
meant that she's at least within the framework of Islam.
She calls herself a Muslim, so she can do a
lot more work in terms of someone like her in
any case, not necessarily just her, but she can do
a lot of works for reform and bring some changes
(32:15):
about in the Muslim community than someone like me can.
So I definitely give them a lot of props. What about, um,
what are you talking about reform from the inside? What
about men in the community. I mean, I'm going to
assume that they're uh, there have to be men who are,
you know, wanting to do similar things in terms of
(32:36):
gender equity. There definitely are. I mean, it's just, um,
a lot of them are Western educated in some way,
so that kind of taints them a little bit sometimes
in the eyes of certain Muslim groups. But there are
there are definitely Muslim men who are working to make
things better for women in the Muslim community. So yeah,
they they they definitely exist. It's just it's tough going
(32:59):
for them. I have a lot easier, so I, you know,
I just pass off to them. Really, now, this this
might sound like a really basic question as well, but UM,
just for uh to help enlightened listeners and myself as well, like,
what are some when you will be talking about reforming
from the inside inside, what are some of the major
(33:22):
kinds of reform that um uh, you know, Azamic feminists
and people more in your position would be advocating for U.
We'll definitely uh. There's there's a lot of work against
any sort of forcing because when you have a societies
where men have all the power and women don't necessarily
(33:44):
have as much of a say in terms of the
legal side of things, you get a lot of situations
where you know, things are are not necessarily allowed legally,
but that's kind of how the practice goes. So it
depends on what country you're talking about. UM. One problem
within my own community, which is the Indian in Pakistani
(34:06):
Muslim community, is a forced marriage. It's not huge, it's
not like everybody's getting a forced marriage, but it happens. Especially,
you'll hear about immigrant families sending their kid to their
home or origin country for a vacation and then they'll
end up getting married and they'll take away their passport
and things like that. So there actually is a bureau
(34:28):
in England against forced marriage because the Indian Muslim community
is so big there. So that's one particular concern, um,
but in general, just working against the idea that you
can force women to do anything, and also the idea
that um, like you were talking about Islamic feminism, this
notion that Islam was revolutionary in terms of gender roles
(34:50):
and just sort of bringing it back to that because
you'll go to Muslim countries and they won't actually actually
allow women to inherit or their force women to get
married and things like that, and that's not supposed to
be allowed in Islam. So a lot of Islamic feminists
and Muslim progressives will say things like, well, we need
to go back to the values of the Quran. Um.
(35:11):
I mean, it just depends on the country. I guess
there is a major takeaway or anything that we that
I didn't ask you specifically about in terms of women gender, um,
anything like that. Um, that you would like listeners to
to take away from this conversation, what what might it be? Well, um, well,
(35:32):
I guess mainly it's two things, and it bears repeating
about the monolith. Just really people need to realize that
they have a texture to nuanced understanding about their own
cultures and their own religions. They need to understand that
other cultures and other religions have that exact same thing
going on, where different people have different ideas and it's
not necessarily safe to walk in with all these loaded assumptions.
(35:55):
And the second thing would be to listen to more
voices than just my I speak from my particular perspective
as someone who is born, raised and educated in the
West but comes from a Muslim background and I no
longer believe in Islam. But there are lots of Muslim
voices out there. There an infinite number of blogs written
by Muslim women. Um, there are other x Muslims who
(36:18):
speak as well. There are Westerners who live in in
non Western countries and deal with muslimomen all the time.
There are so many voices out there, and people just
need to sort of texture their own understanding by getting
out there and actually exposing themselves to those voices. Well.
Especial thanks to Hina for talking with us about this
(36:40):
very interesting topic. I think she really enlightened us in particular.
I hope she also enlightened you guys out there listening.
And if you listeners have anything to comment on, any
perspectives you'd like to share, questions you'd like to ask,
please hit us up. Our email address is mom stuff
at Discovery dot com. Yeah, and if you'd like to
(37:00):
do any further reading about this UM, I recommend checking
out the Muslim Women's League website as well. It's m
w L USA dot org and they have UM all
sorts of topics that they talk about UM, especially from
different gendered perspectives. But yes, big thanks to Hina for
talking about us, because uh, he was really cool to
get the perspective of someone who has been inside that
(37:23):
community now is sort of outside the community, but still
you know, it gives you a unique perspective on things,
and any Muslim listeners especially shoot us an email moms
at Discovery dot com or find us on Facebook. And
now back to our letters. We've got a couple here
on our episode about Guidacologists Office one oh one and
(37:46):
I have one here from David and here rights. First,
let me say that I am a gay forty year
old man. I have never been nor have I needed
a guy. No. However, I was really appreciative of the
information about goes on and here's why I work as
a certified community based sign language interpreter. While getting my
(38:07):
bea and interpreting, I was being asked to interpret for
a gynecological visit. Since this was an assessment on my skills,
it was taped with permission. During the visit, I realized
that I had no clue what anything in that office was.
This includes the woman in her parts too, uterus, cervix, vagina,
and moore were thrown out. Mentally, I was overwhelmed when
(38:30):
my esteemed instructor, an older woman with many years of
experience in the field, provided feedback. The one line that
stood out for me was this, David, it is very
clear you have no idea how the female body works.
You may want to take some time to study that
in depth. Thanks again for the show, and thank you
David for that delightful email. I I really like knowing
(38:51):
when we can educate people for whatever purpose. Yes, we
sign language or resign language. Okay, Well, this one is
from Melissa. She said, you want to add a couple
of things to our topic. She says, I happen to
have a male gynecologist and I wouldn't trade him in
a heartbeat. He and his staff are friendly, insightful, and informative.
When I am getting examined by him, there's always a
(39:13):
nurse present in the room. The reason for this is
both a legal one and a time one. Legal in
the sense that if for any reason the patient tried
to bring a lawsuit for inappropriateness by the doctor towards
the patient, there is always a third party and it
is not a he said she said issue. Also, as
a timesaver, the nurse is there to assist the doctor
with any implements or tools and general procedures. I'd like
(39:33):
to add in two more tips as well to help
the ladies while they are being examined. For me, it
has always helped to make small talk with the doctor
and nurse to help ease any nervousness, and it provides
a good distraction throughout the examination. It is also very
important that your female listeners not feel embarrassed or ashamed
about their lady bits because the gynecologist has seen all
shapes and sizes and it is no different than them
(39:56):
looking through their own anatomy books. Good point. We lista
thank you Yes excellent things to keep in mind and
thanks to everyone who has written to moms Stuff at
Discovery dot com. You can also message us on Facebook,
Like us there. While you're at it, you can follow
us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. You can find
us on Tumbler as well. It's stuff I've Never Told
(40:16):
You dot tumbler dot com. And if you would like
to get smarter this week, you should head over to
our website It's how Stuff Works dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how
stuff works dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And Caroline. I'm very excited because
in this podcast episode we are talking about religion. That
(00:24):
is something that we normally don't address very often because
it is it's pretty controversial. Yeah, I think what is
a gun's politics? Religion? The three things that you're not
supposed to bring up on a date, write a date
or a family dinner. Yeah, but in this podcast, we
we can we can tackle the touchy subjects, right. And
(00:44):
the reason that I'm excited about this episode on women
and Islam in particular, is because we have an expert,
even though she doesn't like to call herself an expert.
Heina Dotta Boy, who for any skep Chick readers out there,
her name might ring a bell because she writes over there,
and she initially got in touch with us Caroline in
(01:08):
response to our episode on crazy Cat Ladies because she
had some clarifications about the that that t Gandhi right,
the bacteria, and so she wrote us in and she
was like, yeah, I write for Skeptic And I was like, WHOA,
that's so cool. And then I was like, wait, you're
writing this book, The Skeptics Guide to Islam. Can we
(01:29):
talk to you please? Yeah? And he said yes. Yeah.
Like like Kristen said, she does hesitate to call herself
an expert, but she has a really excellent point of
view because she grew up a practicing Muslim and then
ended up growing up, in her words, to become an atheist, feminist,
secular humanist, or she says, in other words, a skeptic writer, yeah,
(01:50):
and spending time specifically in the skeptic community. And she'll
talk about this more in the interview. She realized that
there are a lot of misconceptions out there about Islam,
and I felt like it would be so informative for
us to have a chat with her about specifically women
(02:10):
in Islam, because I feel like there are so many
stereotypes out there in terms of Islam being just inherently
repressive for women, the whole thing about whether or not
women should cover their faces in public, their places like
France that have actually banned that out right, And I
(02:31):
just wanted to get more of an expert perspective on
what that is because one thing, Caroline, I didn't even
know about until I've started researching for my chat with
Tina was that Islam also has a strand of feminism
within it. There Islamic feminism exists, right and this is
(02:54):
uh Islamic feminism in particular is sort of fighting from within.
You could say it's women who are still Muslims, not
necessarily atheists like Kina, but they are using interpretations of
the Kuran to educate other women but men also about
women's rights, uh, you know, religion in general, to sort
(03:16):
of expand women's roles in their culture. Yes, because these
female scholars would point out that in some ways the
Koran is more gender progressive than the Bible was at
the times when they were written. And speaking more about
what Muslim feminism is. Um Um Yasim, who is at
(03:36):
the Center for Muslim Minorities and Islam Policy Studies at
Australia's men Nash University, defines a Muslim feminist as a
person who quote adopts a worldview in which Islam can
be contextualized and reinterpreted in order to promote concepts of
equality and equality between men and women, and for whom
freedom of choice plays an important part in the expression
(03:57):
of faith and to me, that is certainly not an
aspect of Islam and women within Islam that we really
ever hear about in media coverage. About that, I mean
because I mean, from our perspective sitting here, you and
I neither of us are um Islamic. We don't have
an inside view in the Muslim community, and so we
(04:20):
wanted to talk to Hina. She'll talk about um Islamic
feminism later in the podcast, but we want to pick
a brain about the Skeptics Guide to Islam, her background
with it, and really just doing a lot of myth
busting because I think there are a lot of misconceptions
that need to be cleared up about not only the
(04:40):
Islamic faith, but women's role specifically in that. So, yeah,
should we get to it. Let's get to it. So
this is my interview with Hina data Boy. You can
also find her writings on skep Chick, and be sure
to check out her Kickstarter page for The Skeptics Guide
to Islam. It has been full funded and she's working
(05:01):
on it. It's going to come out later this year,
but with no further ado. Here is my chat with Kina.
Talk to us about your your personal experience with Islam
how it. I don't know his influence your outlook, not
only just on your daily life, but also on religion
in general, especially now since you identify as an atheist.
(05:25):
All right, Well, I was born into a Muslim family, um,
which like most religions, generally means you're going to be
a part of that religion unless your parents take some
special steps to ensure that you, you know, are some
sort of independent. Um. My family can trace its roots
back to India, but we came to the US by
way of a lot of different countries. And my parents,
(05:46):
they they always self identified as Muslims, but they got
really religious when I was about five years old. And
before that, I grew up in kind of the nineties
everything you can do, I can do better, girl power mentality.
But then it kind of got limited because my parents
got more religious. It kind of went into everything you
can do that I'm allowed to do, I can do better.
(06:09):
So I got a little different. And Um, as a Muslim,
you know, even if you're a man, there's a lot
of rules and a lot of listen, don't follow all
the rules, just like a lot of people and a
lot of religion, sort of choose what they fall and
what they kind of say, Oh that's the past. Um.
But I had a lot of trouble with the rules
for women because this whole being loud and fighting for
(06:32):
feminism thing, it's not a new thing. I was always
kind of that way. I never used that word when
I was a kid. Obviously I hadn't know to use
the word feminism. But I struggled a lot with it. Um.
One example would the I kind of have a loud
voice and I have to moderate it conscientiously. And I
used to cry about it all the time to one
of my cousins, saying, you know, I'm not a good
(06:52):
Muslim woman because my voice isn't low enough. UM. So
I had a lot of trouble. But I did try
really really hard. Um. In fact, I realized later that
I tried harder than a lot of the people I
knew in my family, people who to this day still
consider themselves Muslims, but they don't necessarily try to follow
every single word of every single rule. UM. I tried
(07:17):
to find a wiggle room that I could find. I
did find ways to be different, um, and things that
were more cultural and religious. UM. One example I can
think of, just off the top of my head is uh.
The Islamic practice of slaughter Um. It's similar to the
slaughtering process in Judaism for kosher, and my dad is
(07:39):
really big on it. And I used to do it
when I was a kid too, Like I think the
first time I did, I was like fourteen or fifteen,
and guys would say, oh, or women even allowed to
do that? And I'd say, yeah, the Koran doesn't say
anything against that. What's your problem. I'm so cool, I
can do this thing. Um. And then there were all
girls parties that sometimes women would throw, because you know,
(08:02):
in Islamic culture there's modesty, especially in front of men,
but women would throw all girls parties so that girls
could show their hair and do their makeup and show
off their earrings and cute dresses and all that. And
but even if those I would dress more conservatively than
the other girls. So even in my practice, I was
always a little bit different. Um. And eventually I did
(08:23):
leave Islam. Um. It was really more for philosophical reasons.
It wasn't because I was mad that I was a
girl or something. Um. But after I left, I completely
unraveled all those kind of notions of gender that I
was taught. I sort of consciously picked it all apart um.
But my gender work did not end. Now I do
gender work within the secular and skeptical community, so that's
(08:46):
kind of my background. Well, talk to us about the
skeptics guide to Islama. You you just mentioned being active
in the skeptic community, So give me the give me
the background of why you wanted to do it, progress,
what what your goal with with writing it is all
that stuff. When I first became an atheist, I really
(09:09):
needed just support. I needed to feel like I wasn't
the only person in the world who had these thoughts um.
And so I thought out my local atheists and skeptical
groups and I did find a lot of acceptance, a
lot of sympathy, but a lot of ignorance. And that
didn't surprise me necessarily. But I thought that as skeptics
(09:29):
they would question a little bit more. But you know,
you don't always question everything. And I don't think a
lot of those people in that community realized just how
how many misconceptions that they had. Um. Also, I think
a lot of them didn't realize and this is again
going back to the lack of information thing um that
that they just had one side of the story or
(09:51):
one element of the story, or that they were unfairly
taking a single story and projecting it onto the entire
global Muslim community, which is huge. It's the huge community
with multiple cultures, multiple sects of the religion, all of that.
So I found myself constantly correcting and demystifying the same
(10:12):
things over and over. I kept getting the same questions,
and after six years I realized, wait a second, there's
totally room for me to go in and write something.
And so it started with me um posting a few
blogs about Islam on sket Chick and seeing what the
response would be. Um. It might seem obvious now, but
(10:33):
back then there, I mean, I knew there were a
lot of X Muslim writers as it was, including a
lot of X Muslim women who have written There's Aan
Heirsey Elite the Slim and Miss Reene Mariam Namazi. So
I thought that writing about Islam was sort of played out.
As it turns out, it isn't, especially not from my perspective,
which I'm Western born and raised, but I come from
(10:54):
a non Western background. So I decided, hey, why not
see if there's any interest in this book? So I
started my Kickstarter back in the fall or late summer,
I'd say, I should say, and the response kind of
afford me. Um, I got almost double what I asked
for on Kickstarter. I have a publishing company, and I
(11:15):
realized that there really is a lot of room for this.
So after my Kickstarter ended, I was working on my manuscript,
but then I got invited to speak at all these
conferences because it was conference season. So my manuscript progress
was a little bit slowed, but it should be done
by the end of the year, which means that the
actual publication will be sometime in spring, just because publishing
(11:37):
companies take a little bit of time. Uh. Well, you're
talking about the these common misconceptions that you would encounter,
questions that you would get over and over again. Um,
were any of them kind of directly related to aspects
of like gender and women, especially saying you know your
experience as you know, finding out that you were a
(11:59):
woman in uh, you know, an Islamic community, Then would
would that lead to a lot of questions? Because I
feel like they're there's so like I said when we
first started talking, that there's a lot of stereotype and
tied to specifically the role of gender. Absolutely. Oh yeah,
(12:20):
you know there's a lot of patronizing hand padding and
head padding, like so good of you to escape, as
if you know, I've been in some kind of death
calls and have gotten away, and you know, I sort
of look. I understood that people meant well, but I
sort of look up them and go, well, what do
you mean. It's not like my parents never let me
out of the house or anything. I mean, I started
college and I was still a Muslim. Um they let
(12:42):
me out of the house for that at least. UM.
But the main thing is that there's this sort of
I call it the myth of the monolith, the idea
that Islam is one thing. Muslims have, one single set
of beliefs. That's what they all believe. That's what they
always will believe. It will never change. And part of
it is that Muslims sometimes inadvertently perpetuated because they like
(13:04):
to talk about how Islam is more united than Christianity
or that there's fewer interpretations, but the reality doesn't quite
match that. UM. If the Muslim community worldwide spans so
many countries, cultures, languages, interpretations, UM, different families have different
rules I mean, my family was particularly strict in some ways,
(13:28):
but there were families that were stricter and families that
were a little bit looser UM. And so it's not
as clear cut and not as easy to define as
as people like to think it is UM. And if
you turn it around in a lot of ways, I
would say that UM western to Muslimize Western women have
(13:49):
just as many repressions to them. I don't necessarily agree
with it under percent, but this is something that a
lot of muslimomen will bring up. The idea of the
beauty myths. How much of a choice is it to
shave your legs in your armpits? As a Western woman,
it's kind of a loaded question, but we get a
lot of societal pressure to force us to do a
lot of things that sort of playing into the whole
(14:11):
beauty miss um. You know you're not. There's no Holy
book telling you that must shave your arms and legs
unless you count Cosmo or something. But you know, if
you don't shave your arms and legs, you get some
level of social shaming and pressure to do it. And
so it's similar and with an Islam yeah, there are rules,
but how much you follow them really depends on how
(14:32):
much social pressure you get, And there are a lot
more Muslim women that don't cover their heads than there
are women in general who don't change their arms and
legs in American society. I would say, yeah, I mean
that that what you're saying totally reminds me of the
question that I wanted to ask you about, um, the
whole commentary around head coverings and burkas and uh, specifically
(14:55):
like when when France was passing that law, I just
remember reading so so many articles actually on on both
sides of women saying like, yes, absolutely, this is you know,
it's completely repressive. And obviously these were like white women
saying that, and then on the other side hearing like
from women who wore head coverings or face coverings and
(15:17):
actually felt a form of liberation from that. So I
was wondering what your what your thoughts are on on
kind of those those issues. Generally, banning something doesn't necessarily
make change sort of the culture around it. So even
if we are assuming that Muslim women are forced to cover,
(15:38):
which is not necessarily the best assumption, banning them from
entering the public square doesn't help matters because it sort
of forces them to be home. It forces them to
be away from public discourse. So even if our goal
were to be let's have fewer women covering, forcing them
away from public interaction isn't necessarily the best way to
(15:58):
go about it. And then to look at it a
little more deeply, when I was a mustli woman, I
considered myself liberated through covering because I didn't have to
submit to beauty norms. I didn't have to wake up
at the crack of dawn and curl my hair and
put makeup on and what I assumed Western women did,
which may or may not be true, but you know,
in essence, I could get up and put my head
(16:19):
scarf on, and I thought I was being judged for
my intellect rather than my body, and so I found
liberation through it. So I don't think it's fair to
sort of tell people, well, you must feel this way
about this thing, um, and that you know, the more
the more we engage and interact with each other really
just overall, the better. As as platitudinous as that might sound,
(16:41):
well in your experience, Um, when you know you moved
away from the religion, I'm assuming there was time when
you you probably decided to stop wearing a head covering.
Did you feel I mean, do you feel now kind
of outside of Islam more of the measure of these
(17:02):
the beauty myth, the beauty ideals and and all of that. Oh. Absolutely,
because I don't live in them withlim country, live in
the United States, and I have my whole life. I
didn't feel much pressure from people to cover my head. Um.
I felt pressure from within my religion. But you know,
it wasn't like outsiders would goak at me if I
didn't wear a headscarf and not I don't wear a headscarf.
(17:23):
I do feel a lot of pressure. I mean, I
have naturally curly hair, I don't straighten it, and I
live in southern California. This does make me an object
of of sort of oddity. You know. I get people
touching my hair without my permission and saying things like, oh,
I know a great product to fix that problem, and
I'll look at them sort of thing, what problem exactly? Um,
(17:44):
I don't My body isn't necessarily the ideal. I'm sure
all women think that way, but I definitely fall outside
the norm in a lot of ways. And yeah, I
I have to think about it more. I have to
sort of realize that now every piece of who thing
I wear, every choice I make in terms of my hair,
my makeup, my nails, even it's making a statement in
(18:07):
a way that I kind of didn't expect. So I
have to think about these things a lot more, and
it can feel a little bit overwhelming sometimes, especially at
first it was really overwhelming. What are some I mean,
we've kind of talked about some of the common misconceptions
just in terms of people assuming that, like you said,
the myths of the monoliths, saying hey, well, you know,
(18:29):
all Muslims everywhere must believe and act the exact same way,
which obviously is is wrong. And we've touched the on
um on the head coverings and stuff. But what are
um I guess some other misconceptions about um maybe gender
in or at least from your experience of gender in
(18:50):
uh Muslim communities, just and also the idea that that
it's inherently repressive for women, because I feel like that
that is something that does that's all. There's always the
undercurrent of that and almost like every every media coverage
that I will will read about it. Well, I mean,
I mean, I do a lot of work with feminism
(19:13):
in secularism, and it's it's Bear's repeating. Patriarchy is pretty
much everywhere, and you can find it in everything. I
thought that by entering the secular community, I'd be stepping
away from patriarchy. I believe this too, you know. I thought, oh, well,
religion must be the root of all this sexism and
double standard and all that. And then I get in
the secular community and well it was still there. Um.
(19:37):
So no matter where you go, there's some element of
sexism in the world, and it's worth sort of fighting
against and it's worth bucking, of course, um, And brave
women all over the world buck the trend no matter
what tradition they come from. But it's it's there, and
it's everywhere. Um. In terms of Islam itself, um, the
monolithic thing, it comes up a lot, especial when you
(20:01):
talk about Muslim practices and the actual Arabic terms. I
find that a lot of outsiders will use the word
borka to mean any kind of head covering, which is
really inaccurate. If you don't know the terms. I just
would advise saying headcovering or face covering. Um, Borka is
actually particular garment. That would be like me calling your
T shirt a button down. It just doesn't make any sense. Um.
(20:24):
Another one is a big one actually in terms of misconceptions,
is that Muslim women cannot inherit. A Muslim women actually
can inherit. They just inherit less than men do. And
that is tied into the Islamic notion that men are
providers and whatever money that they have goes towards their family,
whereas if a woman has money, it's hers. She doesn't
(20:45):
have to give it to her children or husband or
share with them at all. So um, Muslim woman can inherit,
just less. Um. There's another, I guess kind of related
miss that Muslim women are not allowed to work. That's
actually not true, and especially because in the Islamic marriage,
a Musli woman actually is not required to do childcare
or housework. She is permitted to put into her marriage
(21:10):
contract with her husband. I don't want to do any
housework and I don't want to do any childcare, and
you have to hire a maid for that. So if
she chooses to do that, that frees up a lot
of times, so she could definitely work if she wanted
to do that. Um. Another big myth is that multiple
wives are commonplace. It's not commonplace at all from Muslim
women to be one of many wives. UM. Just financial reasons,
(21:33):
because according to Islamic law, a man can have up
to four wives, but he has to treat each with
exact equality. So if you buy a giant house, a
diamond ring, and a Mercedes bends for one wife, if
you take another wife, well that's what you also have
to do. So most Muslim when men just can't afford
to have more than one wife, UM, another one. And
(21:56):
this is one that people will sometimes even sort of
oddly directly asked me. They'll say things like do you
have a forced marriage or an arrange marriage? Um. While
it is pretty common for Muslim women to have some
sort of arrangement going on with their marriage, at least
in the sense that their parents will introduce them to
someone or engage in some sort of matchmaking, UM, forcing
(22:18):
to a girl to marry is explicitly prohibited in Islam.
You're supposed to ask her permission and get her consent
at least in some way, so that's definitely out. UM.
Another one is that all women who are covered would
force themselves or have been forced to cover. Um, that's
that could be true. I mean, I know there are
(22:38):
girls out there who have been forced to cover, and
I'm not trying to say that it never happens. But
that's not always true, and it's not fair to assume
that that's the case. Um. And again we get back
to the armpit and leg shaving. Are we forced to
do that on some level we are? On some level
we aren't. So it just it depends on the situation.
(23:00):
Another one, this is getting into I guess a little
bit more of the icky nous factor um or I
see ickyness because people have sometimes directly asked me questions
about it about me personally, and I find it kind
of weird, but it's worth addressing. And that's about the
hyman um. People sometimes will say things like, oh, well,
if a girl doesn't bleed on her wedding night and
(23:21):
she's Muslim, she gets killed. Right. That's actually more the
Old Testament than the Koran. The Kuran actually says that
if you marry. If a man marries a woman and
she does not bleed on her wedding night unless he
can he has any kind of credible evidence to prove
that she isn't she has had sex before marriage. He
has to believe her because she is a Muslim woman
(23:43):
and she should not lie. And so you know that
the whole idea of muslim ending obsessed with hyman. It
might be true in certain Muslim cultures, but in the
Koran itself, unless he has evidence against her, he cannot
assume his new bride is not a virgin if she
as she is um And this last one I kind
of want to go over a little bit. I was
(24:05):
surprised to hear because I had always heard this about
Jews and Catholics, but I've had non Muslims asked me, Hey,
you know, so Muslims have sex through a sheet, right?
And I the first time someone asked me that, I laughed.
I'm like, where are you getting this information from. I've
never even heard of this, but I've had more than
(24:25):
one person asked me. So I thought it bared mentioning
Muslims don't have sex through a hole in the sheet.
That's something I've heard about Jews and Catholics, and I've
heard that it's not true about them either, So that's
definitely not true. It's kind of funny in a way
because I feel like any outside group to mainstream Christianity
somehow gets demonized with the same myth about the sex sheet. Well,
(24:49):
your kicks are a page also mentioned on there. When
you're you're talking about what you're going to address in
the Skeptics Guide Islam, you mentioned the seventy two visions
and pubic care maintenance. So I wanted to know why
why you put those out there. I assume that's another
Those are two things you know that might come up
a lot or um Why why I mentioned this talking
(25:12):
about the seventy two versions and pubic hare maintens and
what and what specifically do you want to um clear
up at the Skeptics Guide about those two points. Well,
one of the very first things I wrote about Islam
on the blog was about the seventy two virsions. I
was just tired of of this question because people people
(25:32):
won't even present it as a question. They'll sort of
make a crack about it or joke about it. They'll
be like, oh, ha ha, you know, if you had
been stayed Muslim and you you're you and your husband
had died, you would have seventy two versions of Heaven.
How can you compete with that? Ha ha? Or what
if those seventy two versions turned out to be angry
nuns or World of Warcraft players. Um. You know, people
(25:54):
make a lot of jokes about it, but that's because
all they've heard is the term seventy two versions. Um.
Just the term itself is a little bit deceptive in translations,
because in classical Arabic, seventy two is meant to be
a number. It would be similar to me saying to you,
(26:14):
if I told you once, I told you a thousand times. Um,
I don't literally mean I've said it to you a
thousand times. I mean I've said it to you a
lot of times. And so seventy two is intended to
mean many or a lot or more than you could
ever imagine. And virgins um is another thing where people
go wrong. They think it means, you know, some sort
(26:35):
of shy, shrinking woman or an inexperienced woman or something
along those lines. Um. The concept of virgins is the
ultimate in sort of sexual pleasure. Is not one that's
limited to Muslim culture or Arabic culture. Um. It's something
that until very recently was very common in Western culture.
You know, you can read historical books and documents and
(26:59):
stuff that talk about you know, the pleasures of betting
a virgin and all that. So it goes back to
that sort of I mean, pretty patriarchal, misogynistic notion granted,
but this idea that a virgin, untouched woman is the
best that a man could ever have. Um. So seventy
two virgins is essentially a way of saying as much
sexual pleasures you could ever want. Um. And another big
(27:23):
misconception associated with that is that the versions are going
to be people, whereas in Islam the virgins or who
are ring which are called don't even try to pronounce
that it's okay, Um, the virgins are created by a
lot of specifically for heaven, so there as I jokingly
(27:43):
kind of called them heavenly sexpots. So that's what they're
supposed to be. Um. And in terms of pupid hair maintenance,
this is sort of a specific instance. But um, not
the first time it happened, or not the last time
it happened, but the first time it happened. Um. It
was this guy new and he was kind of crass,
I guess, as far as people go. And he had
(28:05):
a sing for Middle Eastern women and he was telling
me about how he was telling one of his jim
buddies that he wasn't really into white women, he was
really into Middle Eastern women. Um, and his Jim buddy
laughed and said, oh, ha ha, you need a machete
to get through that pubic hair. And I kind of
looked at him, and he said, what's what's wrong with that?
(28:25):
You know? Yeah, Middle Eastern women tend to have more hair.
I said, yeah, but in Islam actually, and this is
not always practiced by every group I've been finding, But
the way I was always taught, and the interpretation that
I always got, is that Muslim men and women are
required to keep their pubic hair and armpit hair maintained. Um,
it's not supposed to exceed the grain of the length
(28:48):
of a grain of rice. So um. When I hit puberty,
my mom handed me a razor and told me to shave.
Really yeah, And I had never even shaved my arms
or legs. I was like, and when I got my period,
so I was very confused, and I said, what do
you mean shave? What what are you talking about? And
my mom, you know, she was raised in kind of
a more shy culture where they don't really talk about
(29:10):
the body, and so she managed to communicate to me
that I was supposed to shave my mom's and it
was it was very weird um for me. But you know,
that's actually one of the it's part of the body
purity laws in Islam that men and women are supposed
to keep their pupid hare trimmed or shaved. I did
not know that most people don't. Well, what what are
(29:34):
your thoughts on Islamic feminism, because from stuff that I
had been reading in preparation for our interview, it seems
like they're um Like, one of the prevailing ideas behind
Islamic feminism is that um actually, like the Koran and
(29:55):
the guidelines that are outlined were gender revolutionary in a
way here to what other things that were going on
um at at the time in terms of gender relations. So, um,
if you could, let's know a little bit like what
what it is and kind of what what you think
about it As an atheistic, secularist feminist. Well, when I
(30:21):
was kind of transitioning out of Islam, I did read
up a lot about Islamic feminism, and I was always
kind of a fan of it in the sense that
I sort of saw it as unraveling what we're kind
of the patriarchal structures within Islamic cultures versus Islam itself,
and so I always liked that idea of going back
to basics, going back to the Quran and Mohammed's example
(30:43):
as opposed to what culture had to say about it UM.
Now that I'm away from it UM, I really just
admire people who do work in Islamic feminism. They seem
really brave to me because they often make a lot
more enemies because they're doing things that go against what
people think is Islam but really isn't. UM. And in
(31:05):
the work of insiders within any religion is always more
credible and helpful than outsiders. So I'm doing what I
can to increase secular people's understanding of Islam and UM.
Muslim feminists and progressives do their part to reform from inside,
and they often can have way more of an effect
than someone like me can to the actual Islamic community. UM.
(31:28):
One example I can give just off the top of
my head is Irshad Manji. She is a Muslim progressive
out of Canada. She's a out lesbian as a matter
of fact, and she came up when UM when I
first left Islam because my parents took me to see
this mom up in northern California and he and I
were talking and he said something about her, and I said, oh, well,
(31:52):
she's a progressive and a feminist and a lesbian. How
can you even bring her up? And he said, well,
she's at least inside the house, and by that he
meant that she's at least within the framework of Islam.
She calls herself a Muslim, so she can do a
lot more work in terms of someone like her in
any case, not necessarily just her, but she can do
a lot of works for reform and bring some changes
(32:15):
about in the Muslim community than someone like me can.
So I definitely give them a lot of props. What about, um,
what are you talking about reform from the inside? What
about men in the community. I mean, I'm going to
assume that they're uh, there have to be men who are,
you know, wanting to do similar things in terms of
(32:36):
gender equity. There definitely are. I mean, it's just, um,
a lot of them are Western educated in some way,
so that kind of taints them a little bit sometimes
in the eyes of certain Muslim groups. But there are
there are definitely Muslim men who are working to make
things better for women in the Muslim community. So yeah,
they they they definitely exist. It's just it's tough going
(32:59):
for them. I have a lot easier, so I, you know,
I just pass off to them. Really, now, this this
might sound like a really basic question as well, but UM,
just for uh to help enlightened listeners and myself as well, like,
what are some when you will be talking about reforming
from the inside inside, what are some of the major
(33:22):
kinds of reform that um uh, you know, Azamic feminists
and people more in your position would be advocating for U.
We'll definitely uh. There's there's a lot of work against
any sort of forcing because when you have a societies
where men have all the power and women don't necessarily
(33:44):
have as much of a say in terms of the
legal side of things, you get a lot of situations
where you know, things are are not necessarily allowed legally,
but that's kind of how the practice goes. So it
depends on what country you're talking about. UM. One problem
within my own community, which is the Indian in Pakistani
(34:06):
Muslim community, is a forced marriage. It's not huge, it's
not like everybody's getting a forced marriage, but it happens. Especially,
you'll hear about immigrant families sending their kid to their
home or origin country for a vacation and then they'll
end up getting married and they'll take away their passport
and things like that. So there actually is a bureau
(34:28):
in England against forced marriage because the Indian Muslim community
is so big there. So that's one particular concern, um,
but in general, just working against the idea that you
can force women to do anything, and also the idea
that um, like you were talking about Islamic feminism, this
notion that Islam was revolutionary in terms of gender roles
(34:50):
and just sort of bringing it back to that because
you'll go to Muslim countries and they won't actually actually
allow women to inherit or their force women to get
married and things like that, and that's not supposed to
be allowed in Islam. So a lot of Islamic feminists
and Muslim progressives will say things like, well, we need
to go back to the values of the Quran. Um.
(35:11):
I mean, it just depends on the country. I guess
there is a major takeaway or anything that we that
I didn't ask you specifically about in terms of women gender, um,
anything like that. Um, that you would like listeners to
to take away from this conversation, what what might it be? Well, um, well,
(35:32):
I guess mainly it's two things, and it bears repeating
about the monolith. Just really people need to realize that
they have a texture to nuanced understanding about their own
cultures and their own religions. They need to understand that
other cultures and other religions have that exact same thing
going on, where different people have different ideas and it's
not necessarily safe to walk in with all these loaded assumptions.
(35:55):
And the second thing would be to listen to more
voices than just my I speak from my particular perspective
as someone who is born, raised and educated in the
West but comes from a Muslim background and I no
longer believe in Islam. But there are lots of Muslim
voices out there. There an infinite number of blogs written
by Muslim women. Um, there are other x Muslims who
(36:18):
speak as well. There are Westerners who live in in
non Western countries and deal with muslimomen all the time.
There are so many voices out there, and people just
need to sort of texture their own understanding by getting
out there and actually exposing themselves to those voices. Well.
Especial thanks to Hina for talking with us about this
(36:40):
very interesting topic. I think she really enlightened us in particular.
I hope she also enlightened you guys out there listening.
And if you listeners have anything to comment on, any
perspectives you'd like to share, questions you'd like to ask,
please hit us up. Our email address is mom stuff
at Discovery dot com. Yeah, and if you'd like to
(37:00):
do any further reading about this UM, I recommend checking
out the Muslim Women's League website as well. It's m
w L USA dot org and they have UM all
sorts of topics that they talk about UM, especially from
different gendered perspectives. But yes, big thanks to Hina for
talking about us, because uh, he was really cool to
get the perspective of someone who has been inside that
(37:23):
community now is sort of outside the community, but still
you know, it gives you a unique perspective on things,
and any Muslim listeners especially shoot us an email moms
at Discovery dot com or find us on Facebook. And
now back to our letters. We've got a couple here
on our episode about Guidacologists Office one oh one and
(37:46):
I have one here from David and here rights. First,
let me say that I am a gay forty year
old man. I have never been nor have I needed
a guy. No. However, I was really appreciative of the
information about goes on and here's why I work as
a certified community based sign language interpreter. While getting my
(38:07):
bea and interpreting, I was being asked to interpret for
a gynecological visit. Since this was an assessment on my skills,
it was taped with permission. During the visit, I realized
that I had no clue what anything in that office was.
This includes the woman in her parts too, uterus, cervix, vagina,
and moore were thrown out. Mentally, I was overwhelmed when
(38:30):
my esteemed instructor, an older woman with many years of
experience in the field, provided feedback. The one line that
stood out for me was this, David, it is very
clear you have no idea how the female body works.
You may want to take some time to study that
in depth. Thanks again for the show, and thank you
David for that delightful email. I I really like knowing
(38:51):
when we can educate people for whatever purpose. Yes, we
sign language or resign language. Okay, Well, this one is
from Melissa. She said, you want to add a couple
of things to our topic. She says, I happen to
have a male gynecologist and I wouldn't trade him in
a heartbeat. He and his staff are friendly, insightful, and informative.
When I am getting examined by him, there's always a
(39:13):
nurse present in the room. The reason for this is
both a legal one and a time one. Legal in
the sense that if for any reason the patient tried
to bring a lawsuit for inappropriateness by the doctor towards
the patient, there is always a third party and it
is not a he said she said issue. Also, as
a timesaver, the nurse is there to assist the doctor
with any implements or tools and general procedures. I'd like
(39:33):
to add in two more tips as well to help
the ladies while they are being examined. For me, it
has always helped to make small talk with the doctor
and nurse to help ease any nervousness, and it provides
a good distraction throughout the examination. It is also very
important that your female listeners not feel embarrassed or ashamed
about their lady bits because the gynecologist has seen all
shapes and sizes and it is no different than them
(39:56):
looking through their own anatomy books. Good point. We lista
thank you Yes excellent things to keep in mind and
thanks to everyone who has written to moms Stuff at
Discovery dot com. You can also message us on Facebook,
Like us there. While you're at it, you can follow
us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. You can find
us on Tumbler as well. It's stuff I've Never Told
(40:16):
You dot tumbler dot com. And if you would like
to get smarter this week, you should head over to
our website It's how Stuff Works dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how
stuff works dot com
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