Juggling my Identities as a Feminist and a Religious Person

Religion has always been a huge part of who I am. Struggling with your religious identity is something every religious person goes through in their lives. And it is not pretty. But it becomes much more complicated when it turns out your religion sometimes goes against your core beliefs as a person, when it enforces rules and practices that undermine the very things that you and your ancestors have been fighting against for centuries and encourages those that directly go against your well-being. Before we go any further, here is when I should mention that this post is an extremely biased segment based on my personal view on religion and feminism. It is based on my questions, my observations, and my beliefs. By sharing this with you, I'm trying to open up possibilities to engage in discussions about the same, encourage similar questions, and hopefully get clarity on things that have been mudding my brain with doubt and apprehension. It does not cover a fraction of all views that there on the subject and is based on my limited research into the same. While some might find fault with that, it is my staunch take that my raw, unfiltered observations and my thoughts about those observations are what is needed firsthand. As I will cover later, it is my belief that many inconsistencies and inaccuracies are because of the interpretation of our actions through a lens, be it from a lens of the system around us, the people around us, or the lens of our own prejudices. While I cannot fully exempt myself from these lenses, I will try not to further blur the perceptions of what I know to be true from what I have experienced firsthand.

It wasn't long by the time I could observe certain glaring instances of discrimination happening around me. Almost every major religious organization has practices that subjugate the role of women in society. Now, I'm not gonna sit and point every single one out because I'm sure all of us have witnessed such practices. Another major problem with these discriminatory practices is the question of whether they actually are discriminatory practices. Everyone's interpretation of it is different. But there are a few common ways that society occludes these practices trying to justify their derogatory influence on women. In some places, it's painfully extreme and obvious, and in others not so much. But rest assured, it's there. As the random, unknown business tycoon in the Barbie movie said "Oh, don't worry, we're doing a pretty good job at patriarchy, we just got better at hiding it". This statement was so painfully true that I started laughing. And it stands true even when it comes to the topic of religion.

An important way these communities disempower women is that often they are held to a much higher standard of morality than men. Of course, this stands true in all aspects of life. The dialogue 'You're a girl, you should know better' rings through our ears all the time. But this particular aspect is much emphasized, and sorry for the language but there's no better word for it, exploited by many of the religious institutions around. Women are commonly held in higher levels of responsibility and considerably more is expected of them than men when it comes to questions of ethics, morality, and concepts like community honor and pride. People get away with it by giving many different explanations, a few being, 'Women are closer to God', 'Women are by nature prone to make mistakes', 'Women will be compensated for these subordinate positions with higher gifts in the afterlife', etc., etc. But notice that all of these share a common undertone- to guilt, to incentivize, to even force women into believing that they are in fact obligated to follow this standard of higher ethical and moral living, without question and often compromising on things like their rights, their needs, and their wants. And most of us are too scared to retaliate because what if, just in case it is true? What if we are in fact incurring the wrath of the Almighty by not practicing the albeit glaringly prejudiced customs and traditions that are being expected of us? Again, I'm not going to sit down and list all of those conventions here but urge you to give it a little bit of thought. Has your religious community ever expected something of you or a woman you love, that seemed to dangerously to edge the line of threatening their individual autonomy and choices, choices that are otherwise available to the men in the same community? Have they ever made you or a woman you love feel like they're second-tier when compared to the men in that same religion? It does not even have to be a practice or a custom, it could be as simple as expectations about their feelings, their roles, and even their countenance. And often this constant tension between expectations and desires (I say desires, but one can argue that many women face subjugation in a level at which we can safely assume that their very needs and rights are being compromised. A simple experiment is to just switch the roles between the genders and see how a situation would be viewed from the male perspective) often leads to a lot of mental turmoil and agitation.

Now, the fact remains that almost all men and most women are in denial about this fact and a major chunk of that denial is a consequence of the fear of divine retribution. We, women, are faced with a conundrum here, we are stuck between our identity as a woman who understands that these subjugations compromise our well-being, which is detrimental to ourselves, our family, and the whole community as a matter of fact, and between our religious identity, shaped and cultivated throughout our lives and passed down to us through centuries. What warrants the complete negation and repudiation of something that has been preached to us in our loving families and communities, that has been bestowed upon us as a token to carry onto the future generations? Add to that the fear that God frowns upon you when you carry out an action that is empowering to you and gives you strength and autonomy but goes against what He and all His saints and disciples have preached. This is a struggle that has no easy answer and has no obvious solution, how much ever one might hope. 

A core thing to remember when trying to address this issue is that religion is not patriarchal, but patriarchal systems have made religion the patriarchal system that is it today. Remember how I talked about how we tend to interpret everything around us through a lens? Well, unfortunately, the lens of patriarchy is so strong and so sturdy that even after a couple of centuries we've spent trying to break it down, it still doesn't seem to budge. For example, El Saadawi, an Egyptian feminist writer, beautifully explores how patriarchal systems often use religion and interpret religious texts to maintain male dominance in society. She also implores for a separation of religion from oppressive patriarchal practices. But it is easier said than done because more often than not, we are not able to discern what exactly the oppressive patriarchal practices being followed are. This is because of a term called mellow patriarchy. In mellow patriarchy, societal expectations and norms still favor men and masculinity, but they may be masked by a more laid-back or seemingly benevolent attitude. This makes it much more difficult to discern it. Again, here we come back to the thought experiment we did before. Ask yourselves the difficult questions, critically analyze and scrutinize all that is happening around you through a different lens than what you were wielding all this while. Continuously ask yourself if what you are doing is ultimately good for yourself, your faith(not your religion), and your community in that order, and if it fails to tick the first two boxes, reconsider. Because at the end of the day, your community and even your religion are just a vehicle for your faith, to your ultimate journey to God. When it boils down to it, and you ask me what I plan to do about it all? I say that never in a million years would I give up my God and the culture that has been passed down to me. Yes, I hold with me the gift of my faith and the treasures of the rich heritage of a thousand years but it is up to me to make sure I pass it on to my daughter without the blood and tear-soaked stains of the thousand women who came before me.