Feminism, Religion, and Cultural Relativism

By: Kathleen Kelley

October 24, 2013

As a vocal feminist I am often asked to explain my other, seemingly contradicting identities and passions—my proclivity for hip-hop and the Middle East, as a member of a sorority or as a person of faith. However, I have never found my faith and feminism at odds; rather, my faith has enabled me to reconcile my feminism with the world.

Despite being promptly pulled from Sunday school by my mother who found the pastor leading a room full of children in singing "I’m no kin to the monkey / The monkey’s no kin to me" or storming out of youth group in middle school after partaking in a shouting match with the pastor, who insisted that homosexuality was an abomination, I found myself drawn to Christianity. I finally found my faith community in a cozy, unadorned Methodist church where the focus of the sermons alternated between love and tolerance, and where youth group involved eating a gluttonous amount of Twizzlers while watching social justice documentaries.

The youth leader emphasized the importance of reflection, and thus while we were actively engaged in service and examining the struggles of others, I developed a faith that ultimately demanded I acknowledge my own privilege, values, and actions, before judging others.

My faith is embodied in Mark 7:3-5, in which Jesus demands "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? [...] First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." In other words, my faith has taught me the importance of cultural relativism.

My travels have not made it easy to recognize the plank in my own eye, or rather, within contemporary American society. On a recent trip to Malaysia, where I spent several days with the family of a fellow Hoya, I reflected on my own experiences navigating Islam, having studied in both Egypt and Oman, within the lenses of feminism and cultural relativism.

I have seen much more intolerance in the form of Islamophobia within America, than within Islamic spaces and communities, where I have never felt anything less than wholly welcomed. And while Islam, in addition to every other major religion, has at times been used to justify gender-based violence or discrimination, the problem is not inherent to Islam itself.

In Egypt, I was told my by my host father that the veil is worn to "protect" women from the lingering male gaze, and in Oman, I was told that the abaya is worn because in the days of Bedouin warfare, it was not safe for women to leave the tents, even to use the restroom, except under the cover of night. In America, I have heard countless feminists and Islamophobes alike decry that the veil* is a tool of the oppression, without acknowledging the plank in their own eye. These same individuals shamed 20-year-old singer and actress Miley Cyrus for her lack of attire and sexualized dance routine at the VMAs or insist that a woman wearing a miniskirt is "asking for it" [sexual violence].

In Oman I found myself frustrated that women are not allowed to enter mosques or even touch the Qur’an when menstruating, and yet I remembered sitting in my high school’s cafeteria during the 2008 Democratic primaries and hearing "I’d never vote for Hillary Clinton, I don’t want someone in office who is PMSing every fourth week." While I laughed it off, I felt that we, women, were reduced to beasts—out of control and unreliable for a fifth of our reproductive lives. In fact, a recent study by Kotex indicated that 56 percent of girls agree with the statement "talking about period care is looked down upon by society."

In Malaysia I was assured that men were only allocated a larger, more central space within the mosque because they had a greater obligation to attend prayers. Despite my immediate raised eyebrows, I reflected that I attend a university where men-only "secret societies" remain.

Ultimately, a religion or a faith community is only as tolerant as its members. While I am not condoning gender-based violence or discrimination, there is, to date, no society exempt to these phenomena. We must speak up, we must break the silence; however we must first do so within our own communities, and rather than urging others to speak up, we must empower them to do so of their own volition.

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*The veil is a complex issue, and I certainly am not implying that cultural relativism is the only reason not to criticize the veil.

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