CNN ran a column yesterday by Theresa Corbin, “I’m a feminist, and I converted to Islam." She’s 34 and lives in New Orleans. She runs a site, Islamwich, which she describes as “one slice muslim. one slice ‘merican. and all that comes between."
In her column, Theresa Corbett wrote:
"I am the product of a Creole Catholic and an Irish atheist. I grew up Catholic, then was agnostic, now I’m Muslim. My journey to Islam began when I was about 15 years old in Mass and had questions about my faith. The answers from teachers and clergymen -- don’t worry your pretty little head about it -- didn’t satisfy me.
So I did what any red-blooded American would do: the opposite. I worried about it. For many years. I questioned the nature of religion, man and the universe."
In short, she was the pedestrian full-of-herself teenager. Some stay that way and become liberals. She became a Muslim.
You get more attention that way:
"It was 2001, and I had been putting off converting for a while. I feared what people would think but was utterly miserable. When 9/11 happened, the actions of the hijackers horrified me. But in its aftermath, I spent most of my time defending Muslims and their religion to people who were all too eager to paint a group of 1.6 billion people with one brush because of the actions of a few."
The actions of a few -- condemned by even fewer.
She insists her new religion is pro-woman, even though women are the property of men, denied schooling, forced to marry extremely young in some countries, and stoned if they are raped in many countries.
But I am not here to argue.
I am here to review the inconsistencies:
"These days, I am a proud wearer of hijab. You can call it a scarf. My scarf does not tie my hands behind my back, and it is not a tool of oppression. It doesn’t prevent thoughts from entering my head and leaving my mouth. But I didn’t always know this.
Studying Islam didn’t immediately dispel all my cultural misconceptions. I had been raised on imagery of women in the East being treated like chattel by men who forced them to cover their bodies out of shame or a sense of ownership.
But when I asked a Muslim woman “Why do you wear that?”, her answer was obvious and appealing: “To please God. To be recognized as a woman who is to be respected and not harassed. So that I can protect myself from the male gaze.”
Men however are open to female gaze.
But I get the connection to feminism and Islam. Both are outside the American mainstream and neither seems to care about the rights of others.(http://donsurber.blogspot.com/)
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