Stephanie Jane reviewed It's Not About the Burqa by Mariam Khan
Voices that need to be heard
4 stars
At one point in the previous book I read, a fictionalised biography of Josephine Baker, the author, Eilidh McGinness had a male character decide that Josephine could never be Muslim because she isn't 'subservient'. This lazy stereotyping jumped out at me but, as the women writing essays for It's Not About The Burqa each take pains to point out, for most non-Muslims in the Western world, actually having the opportunity to hear Muslim women's voices is almost impossible. We are incessantly fed the stereotypes until those portrayals become the only available narrative - a gross caricature of a woman who doesn't actually exist. It's frustrating enough as a white British woman who wants to listen. I can't begin to imagine how difficult it is to actually Be a silenced Muslim woman.
The main impressions I have taken from It's Not About The Burqa is that, of course, Muslim women cannot …
At one point in the previous book I read, a fictionalised biography of Josephine Baker, the author, Eilidh McGinness had a male character decide that Josephine could never be Muslim because she isn't 'subservient'. This lazy stereotyping jumped out at me but, as the women writing essays for It's Not About The Burqa each take pains to point out, for most non-Muslims in the Western world, actually having the opportunity to hear Muslim women's voices is almost impossible. We are incessantly fed the stereotypes until those portrayals become the only available narrative - a gross caricature of a woman who doesn't actually exist. It's frustrating enough as a white British woman who wants to listen. I can't begin to imagine how difficult it is to actually Be a silenced Muslim woman.
The main impressions I have taken from It's Not About The Burqa is that, of course, Muslim women cannot be shoe-horned into a neat media-friendly box. There is no convenient 'they' because 'they' are as diverse in their attitudes, opinions and dreams as any other large group of women. Most of what we are told to blame on faith is actually cultural practices and traditions that Islam does not demand, and Muslim women's voices in the West are more effectively stifled by our patronising attitudes than by Islamic rules. The problem is our diminishing of Muslim women's experiences by making our own assumptions, talking about or for them, but rarely with any of them.
These seventeen essays are powerful and candid. I found myself swinging between enthusiastic agreement and moments of embarrassed self-recognition, and having my own preconceptions challenged. The collection covers a wide range of topics from the extent of women's marriage rights under Islam to the need for women to have community spaces to share learning, from how women cope with multiple layers of gender/racial/religious oppression to their right to wear what they damn well choose. When I reviewed Zeba Talkhani's My Past Is A Foreign Country I commented on how refreshing it was to read a Muslim woman speaking for herself. I feel the same about It's Not About The Burqa. These seventeen women have every right to be heard and it is past time for everyone else to shut up and listen.
