& THE OPPRESSION

The oppression of Muslim women has been a longstanding issue that has become normalized and even encouraged throughout the last few years. Modern day feminism is not intersectional at all. Modern feminism, like mainstream feminism, has always been about the rights of white women at the expense of women of color. Women who are people of color (POC) have been forced into the position of “scaffolding” to prop up and ensure that white women are able to fight for the rights that they deem important, all while promising they would help those same women afterwards. They never have. In fact, the ability for white women to detach themselves from the oppression of POCs by occupying the minimized group has absolved their role in the continued perpetuation of white supremacy. If we look at the ways in which women of color are oppressed, specifically Muslim women, white women in their own situations have fought for the same issues but in a different packaging.

White women have historically fought for the right to an education without persecution, which further transitioned to the right to hold a job. Muslim women, on the other hand, have had to fight tooth and nail for the same, and in recent years have had to deal with the added pressures of oppression mounting on a global scale—oppression which prevents them from pursuing the same rights and freedoms as their white female counterparts.

Dr. Mariam Noor is a Danish-Somali Muslim and an engineering PhD who invented a ring for leaky heart valves. Her state-of-the art medical device was recognized as a breakthrough in the world of cardiovascular health and surgery, and propelled medical innovation and development for all of mankind. Denmark passed a law to ban hijabs in the country, as it was seen as a symbol of oppression for young girls and women. Ironically, if this law had been passed just a few years earlier, Dr. Noor would not have been able to pursue her higher education, her PhD, nor the life changing research she dedicated years of her life towards. Dr. Noor’s dreams, professional aspirations, and her ability to invent medical devices with the capacity to save millions of lives, would not have come to fruition because she wears a hijab. Furthering the conversation, white women have fought for their ability to dress immodestly and for their rights, just to be attacked and shamed for doing so. Muslim women however, are vilified for wanting to dress modestly.