semana 10

I enjoyed reading the first 9 chapters of El lunes nos querran. In this class we discussed the chapter ‘feminism must die’ in ‘It’s not about the burqa’ which talks of the importance of understanding that feminism can often ‘White feminism’ which does not consider or represent ethnic minorities. Often White feminism denounces islam as an anti-feminist religion, however this chapter argues that this is untrue. examples are given such as education of women exisiting in Islamic countries long before feminism existed. I think this was important as it allowed us to read ‘El lunes nos querran’ while understanding the culture dynamic within the novel, namely, that the narrator does experience cultural opression, but to fight back against this ‘cultural’ opression, such as wearing make-up and chosing boys to date, does not detract from her ‘being Muslim’. I belive the connection between the novel and this weeks reading of ‘feminsim must die’ therefore highlights the importance of not falling into the trap of making the assumption that what one Muslim family practices is what every Muslim practices, or that integrating into western culture makes one less of a Muslim.