"From belly dancing to burqas"
On November 12, 2014 I attended a seminar held by Dr. Afshan Jafar. The topic of the seminar was "from belly dancing to burqas". The whole point of this seminar was to clear up any misconception, and to eliminate the stereotype of Muslim women. One of the neat things Dr. Jafar did was to have us write four things we think we know about Muslim women. It was astounding to hear the similarities in everyone's answer. Some of the more common words used were oppressed, shy, beautiful, covered, submissive, traditional and shy. What was even more surprising was to know that we all had incorrect preconception. The message she tried to get across was that Muslim women are not as timid and oppressed as they are portrayed to be. That just like any other group there are different degrees and levels to their belief. From the conformist to the nontraditional.
The Muslim religion is considered to be a very patriarchal one. So it was interesting to find out that a lot of these women were not force or expected to dress and behave in a certain manner. Instead, they choose to do this out of pride and respect for what they believe in. She thinks that the fallacy we have of Muslim women is based on ignorance and media coverage of their way of life. Media such as magazines, TV, Internet etc. and her purpose was to try to set the record straight.
This seminar was very informative. I learned a lot about the muslim religion and I also learned that unfortunately I was guilty of doing the same things such as generalizing and stereotyping a certain group of people just as others do when they look at me based of my ethnicity. Thanks to this seminar this is not the case anymore and I will try my best to do that with everyone and everything going forward.
Three course readings I'm reminded of by this seminar are:
1. The Wise video where he said at some point in our lives we are all guilty of judging a person based on what they look like.
2. Christensen's "Unleashing the myth that binds us" where she spoke on the role of the media and how it brainwash us to think and react a certain way and
3. McIntosh's "White Privilege" that touched on women's rights in society.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqMi5iWpTQs
http://submission.org/Misconceptions_about_Women.html
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