A Subject You Enjoyed Studying this Semester

Hi everyone!

Today we are going to write a post about A Subject You've Enjoyed Studying this Semester.

You must say:
What the subject is about
Why you like it or why you're interested in it
What it is useful for

You must write at least 180 words.


This is my sample post:

Western Feminism and the Arab World

A topic that I am really interested in learning more about are the misconceptions of feminists over the views of the lives of women in Eastern and Middle Eastern societies and how we can free ourselves from these prejudices.

Feminism as a movement for women’s rights originated in Europe and, therefore, it has done a great job in defending women’s rights in those parts of the world where white people are dominant. Nonetheless, this kind of feminism does not really address the needs of women coming from other parts of the world, women who are basically not considered white or who do not live under liberal Western values.

Because I volunteer in a solidarity organization for Palestine, and we work on the ground connecting our local social struggles with that of Palestine, I have learned how in our Western society there are many negative preconceptions about women in the Arab world in general. There are many prejudices against Islam, for example, such as the idea that all Muslim women live under brutal male oppression. There is also a very common misconception that being Arab and being Muslim are equivalents, when in reality, not all Arabs are Muslim, and not all Muslims are Arabs.

This is why I have started to read papers and watched speeches from Middle Eastern female scholars, either Muslim or secular, who talk about the lives and struggles of women in this region. The misconceptions that Western feminism have created around the lives of Arab women, and how they somehow feel entitled “to save” Arab women from male oppression are, in my opinion, very dangerous. These ideas of saviourship inevitably cast an image of inherent weakness in these women, as if somehow they could not take care of themselves, but worse of all, the very arrogant idea that we in the West can actually tell them in the East how they are supposed to decide how to live. This sense of entitlement is a form of colonization.

Examples of women working for their rights in Eastern societies are numerous, and I can share with you some names of Palestinian women, because this is the territory I know best. Janna Jihad, Ahed Tamimi, Hanan Ashrawi, Khalida Jarrar, just to name a few. When you have time, you can search them on the internet and learn about their leading roles.