Pathways to Equality

 
 
While many of the resource persons who shared their stories have had difficult lives or life experiences, the women cannot simply be reduced to a group of victims. What is most incredible about the stories is that these women have survived and found ways to care and provide for themselves and others, and many have overcome their difficulties to thrive and even help other women thrive.
 
We found three interconnected ways in which the resource persons overcame difficulties and worked to build strong and independent lives for themselves. First, many of the women, while telling their stories, emphasized the ways in which they learned through their experiences and developed a critical egalitarian consciousness that could inform their future decisions. Second, some of the women who faced difficult life situations managed to pivot from the difficulties to develop more empowering lives, even if they sometimes had to make a bargain with patriarchal structures based on qiwamah and wilayah. Third, some of the women were able to proactively foster nurturing and egalitarian relationships with their partners despite social and religious norms that promoted unequal gender relations.
 
 

Development of a Critical Egalitarian Consciousness

 
Many of the resource persons developed and grew as individuals through their experiences, and accordingly made choices in how they navigated their relations with different structures of authority, including parents, siblings and extended families; religious and legal authorities and norms; and other institutions in society. This, in turn, had an impact on their future experiences.
 
Most of the resource persons initially accepted and relied on information and ideas conveyed to them by dominant sources of authority, whether at home, in religious settings, at school or elsewhere in society. But some experienced a change in awareness and understanding, sometimes through formal education but often only after difficult or painful life experiences where they began to question what they saw around them. These shifts are exemplified in the reflections of the resource persons and the ways in which they carefully considered the prevailing patterns of authority and knowledge. Depending on their experiences, they sometimes resisted or rejected traditional sources of authority, or even began to build new understandings on their own. Many of the resource persons shifted from passive participants in their stories to active seekers of knowledge who could choose where they were going.
 
 

This type of development could be seen in the life stories across the countries and regions that were part of the project, despite huge differences in culture and context. Through formal education or informal access to knowledge generally and religious knowledge in particular, women grew in their ability to think, question and make informed decisions about their lives.

Safia, who is from Somalia but now lives in Canada, first learned about religion from her maternal grandmother in Somalia, who became the spiritual leader of a Sufi order. She built a school for women from which nearly 5,000 women have graduated, which Safia said “showed us that women can do anything.” Her grandmother’s influence impacted on her own life, as it made her value the importance of learning and taught her to question ideas instead of just accepting them as ‘truth’. Safia reflects about her grandmother:

She had her own business, she ran schools and a place where women could come and get information on religion. She showed them that male interpretation of the Qur’an is different from the way women would interpret it. She would do this by inviting male religious scholars, Sufis and women to debate one another. The women would ask the men why they had to do this or that. It was amazing the way they opened up.

 
My grandmother not only learned how to read the Qur’an literally, she also learned how to interpret it and understand its deeper meanings. She went to Yemen for two years to study the Qur’an. My grandmother also spoke Arabic very well. She understood that what the Arabic language says and what the Arabic of the Qur’an says are two different things. She found out a lot of things that women never learn. Most scholars use the hadith to give us explanations and rationale. However, most of the hadith are from men and interpreted by men. 
 
She also told us about polygamy and that when Ali [cousin and son-law of the Prophet] wanted to marry another woman, the Prophet got angry and said, ‘First you will divorce my daughter.’ [That] means that unless the husband could treat the multiple wives equally, the Prophet did not allow it. And the Qur’an itself says, ‘And we doubt that you can do that’, but people do not quote this part; they only talk about multiple wives.

For Amina, a prominent Egyptian psychoanalyst and human rights activist, education was a key element in her path to empowerment and her career. Amina was heavily influenced by her grandmother. She was not allowed to go to school, so she paid her male siblings to teach her what they had learned. Like her grandmother, each step of Amina’s journey was affected by her gender. Amina’s father didn’t feel it was necessary for girls to go to school because they would just become housewives; Amina and her sister were able to attend only because their mother insisted. Amina’s father promised she could go to university if she passed her exams, then refused to honour his promise. So Amina went on a hunger strike until her father relented. Her father would not let her live in a hostel, so the whole family moved to Alexandria for her to attend university there. When she wanted to pursue a Master’s degree in France, her family would only relent if she married first. In each step of her education, Amina’s eyes were opened to the world around her, but also to her relationships with authority in her personal life.
 
Murti, the village chief from Indonesia, talks about her own education and how she uses that as a model for her children’s education:

I raised and educated my children the same way my parents raised and educated me. There was some advice from my parents that I will never forget. My parents often said that it doesn’t matter how poor we are, the education of our children should be the number one priority. Never treat your sons and daughters differently in any aspect of their lives because everyone should be treated equally. Never control your children but let them make their own choices instead. As parents our task is to encourage and help them to make the best decision, especially when our children start to enter adolescence and become adults.

Amina, a convert from Canada, married her Arab husband when she was still quite young. She observes that her personal and religious development took place throughout her very difficult marriage. Her experiences with a domineering husband, combined with the fact that she was introduced to Islam as a literalist and oppressive religion, robbed her of any sense of self or autonomy. But at the same time, she sought out literature on Islam so she could learn more about her new faith. As she faced more significant problems and questions about her marriage (namely her husband’s polygamy), she began to read more books and articles that opened her eyes to a wider range of ideas about Islam. She says of the books, articles and Internet posts:

They were written by believing Muslims, but they took critical approaches to ideas that I had read and been told were beyond question. In a sense, they gave me permission to ask my own questions

Through seeking knowledge and developing a critical consciousness, Amina was able to find her own path as a believer and as an independent woman without the oppression or subjugation she originally experienced.
 
Sinta of Indonesia survived two difficult and abusive marriages. But the marriages and divorces did not ruin her. As she navigated her way through these marriages, she continued to learn about her religion and question common assumptions about gender roles. After her second divorce, she decided to use her experiences to prevent this from happening to other women. She looked back to her upbringing in an Islamic boarding school and started to build an Islamic discourse on gender justice, equality in Islam, that Islam did not teach us to commit violence, that we should share our experiences, and the importance of husbands and wives working together in the family. She now teaches the Qur’an and speaks on women’s rights, domestic violence and the importance of harmony in marriage, and she has built and runs a pesantren (Islamic boarding school) for girls.
 
 

Empowerment after Difficulties

While many of the resource persons have had difficult lives and have faced significant challenges, it is incredible how some of these women, despite the challenges and injustices, are able to make choices and take steps to overcome their difficulties and forge lives where they experience dignity and respect.

 
Mimi of Malaysia eventually decided to divorce her husband four years after he took a second wife. Her divorce was devastating to her, leading her to question her self-worth. Yet Mimi took her weakness—her divorce and life as a single mother—and used it as a base from which to start an association for single mothers to help them navigate their way. She said the women would share their stories, listen to one another, support one another and try to motivate one another. “We became like a family, helping each other.”
 
Many of the resource persons from the Gambia are in leadership positions: Maimuna and Fama have leadership positions within their villages, Kumba is a businesswoman and Anta is a well-educated nurse and community leader who is active in politics.
 
Natoma from the Gambia married at an early age and divorced when her husband decided to take a second wife. She then agreed to marry a rich and influential chief as his third wife, negotiating conditions such as living in a separate compound from the other wives, which is rare in the Gambia. She used this comfortable perch to pursue leadership positions, such as a role within the ruling political party, coordination of a regional adult literacy programme and playing a role as a trusted and influential advisor in her village. She realized she needed to be married in her society, so manipulated the patriarchal structure of polygamy to achieve her leadership potential.
 
Nawa of Indonesia was infected with HIV by her husband, who was a drug user. Since his death, she has built a new life for herself and her daughter, who is also HIV-positive, and empowered many others at the same time by working with prominent HIV and AIDS organizations..
 
Nurul, also of Indonesia, has lived through three marriages and abandonment by two husbands. Instead of crumbling, she took on the role of head of household and main breadwinner for herself, her daughter and her parents, and became actively involved in an organization for rural female heads of households, where she helps other women through her role as a paralegal.
 
 

Egalitarian Relationships

Several of the resource persons shared how they and their husbands decided to base their relationships on equality and mutual respect. To a large extent, this required a conscious decision on the part of both spouses and a commitment to discuss issues when they arose.

 
Noreen from Canada is extremely happy and content in her marriage, which she views as a partnership of equals despite the traditional roles they often play:

My marriage is so different from my mother’s, so equal, so much better. I found such a good man...My husband is my partner, so we share expenses...I contribute to the household financially but my husband makes more money than me. It’s significant, what I contribute, sure. But it’s not just the money you bring in, it’s the support you give, the attention to the team. And it’s also, of course, about my own self-worth. It’s about me feeling like I’ve contributed, that I’ve used my brain...When it comes to disagreements, we work things out together. When it comes to sexual relations, he has never forced me; it’s a healthy relationship.

Murti of Indonesia met her future husband, an Army non-commissioned officer, when she was active in the village youth, sports and arts organization, an experience through which she said “I began to understand better that the positions of women and men should be equal in all fields. From here I also understood that how my parents treated us and what they taught us were indeed how it was supposed to be.” She found her future husband to be friendly, sociable, open-minded and said they thought alike. They lived in a military barracks, where Murti continued to be active in arts and sports groups and learned from the other families around her. After her husband’s retirement, they returned to their home area and she was elected village chief of her village and he was elected village chief of another village. Her husband supported her in the election process and in her leadership role.
 
Yama of the Gambia is now 78 and has been the village head since her husband passed away. She says that her husband was kind and honest and they worked together side-by-side on their farm. She has only one biological child but has taken in many other children and raised and supported them.
 
Murja of Nigeria was forced to marry her first husband when she was 14 and he was 28, and had a miserable marriage. After her divorce, she was able to go back to school, where she met her second husband. His encouragement and support contributed to her success in her exams, and he is supporting her furthering her education. They are happily married and have two children.
 
Lila from Canada had an extremely abusive and controlling husband in her first marriage. She reflects that her second marriage is “equal and just” in that she and her husband are choosing some traditional and some not-so-traditional gender roles, and her husband is very sensitive regarding consent and power. She says:

He’s very, very sensitive to not abusing his privilege. I think this is the thing that a lot of men don’t have—they’re not aware of the privilege that they have, that they do these very small things that they don’t realize are letting us know that they’re in charge. And even in a supposedly gender-equal culture like Canadian secular culture, nevertheless, men have these patriarchal norms and they let women know in subtle ways that they are the boss.

Nadia from Malaysia and her husband have consciously tried to build an egalitarian relationship, sharing responsibilities as members of a household instead of dividing responsibilities based on roles as husband or wife. They both contribute to household expenses based on their abilities and they share household duties. They try to teach this perspective to their children as well.