Not Ignorant, Not Helpless by Larraine Ali

This is an essay written by Lorraine Ali about women in the Muslim world. The author starts out saying “If I’d never known a Muslim woman, I’d probably pity any female born into Islam.” This is how Ali gets our attention. She wants us to read on see what it’s really like to be a Muslim woman. Ali tells us that “Americans stereotype Muslim women as timid creatures, covered from head to toe, who scurry rather than walk. They have no rights, no voices and no place outside the home.” Ali goes on to tell us that she happens to know plenty of Muslim women and that these stereotypes are not always the case. She says she has seen many women argue about politics with MEN at the dinner table, she has seen them slap their husbands on the head for telling off color jokes. At a media conference she witnessed Muslim women with hairdos that were just like J. Lo’s.
Ali tells us that many Afghan women are forbidden to attend school. Saudi women are not allowed to drive. Over the past few decades these societies are not the norm any longer in the Muslim world. During this time Egypt women have become cops patrolling the streets. Jordan women make up the majority of students in medical school. Syria courtrooms are filled with female lawyers. Leila Ahmed from the Harvard Divinity School says “Women are working, in every profession, and even expect equal pay.”
With all of these rights that the Muslim women are gaining most women still feel neglected when it comes to politics. Every woman wants to know what the country is doing and where their husbands are running off to. Their husbands can go off and fight but they can’t. Some of leaders in the Muslim world believe that allowing women into the military is considered “hiding behind the skirts of a woman.” Women in Islam were having their very own women’s rights act. Doria Shafik was one of these women. In 1940 Shafik fought for her right to vote in Egypt. Although she was not allowed to place her vote she kept on fighting until finally she was able to cast her first ballot in Cairo in 1956. Ali tells us that “millions of women in the Muslim world still love the societies they’re born into, regardless of jihadist manipulation or American intervention. If reform is to come, they will be the ones who push it forward.”