By: Nashiha Pervin

Your bigot friends and prejudice peers might be onto something. Islam seriously might be oppressing women. But the question is…why have Muslim women been ignorant to this fact for so long? I took it upon myself to do some digging and soul-searching into my religion. After my close scrutiny, I was shocked as I was exposed to the ways we were oppressed in our daily lives. And like an enlightened child, I started doodling down these very facts. So without further ado, I bring to you the top five ways Muslim women are oppressed…

We voted, even if the candidates were unqualified.

It was horrific enough of the presidential candidates that were presented before us in this year’s election, but I think nothing screams oppression like Islam telling Muslim women that we could vote 1400 years ago. I mean, in comparison, the women in the USA were only voting since the 1920’s. Doing the math, that only means that Muslim women had to face the horrors of voting for unqualified candidates much longer.

We actually have to choose our own spouses.

There are so many decisions that need to be made while adult-ing. Like what you want to do with your life, where you want to live, who you want to become and lastly, who you want to marry. But instead of having it the easy way out and just letting our parents pick a husband for us and showing up to the alter, we actually have to approve of who we’re going to marry.
Like we actually have to talk and get to know him and give our consent to the marriage. We can’t even get around this matter in a sly way because Islam automatically nullifies any marriage without the women’s consent. Wedding planning is stressful enough, but actually picking a husband? Ugh, just another thing to add to the ‘to-do’ list.

We could be independent and still have to be taken care of.

It kind of eats away at many of us women how our husbands have to take care of our every need. From providing food, shelter, to even the clothing on our backs… it’s their God-given responsibility to do it all. I’m an independent woman; I should be able to take care of myself. But Islam says that I could be of the wealthiest, but even then my husband has to fulfill his responsibilities towards me. I’m not obliged in any way to spend anything at all.
In simpler terms “his money is my money, and my money is my money.” And here people thought women were being oppressed when the true victims were males all along.

We oppress ourselves by wearing the hijab.

God, these bigots and racists are absolutely right. We Muslim women do oppress ourselves by observing the veil. How you might ask? Well just think about it like this. We wake up, get dolled up, our makeup is impeccably on fleek as our hair is styled to perfection. We then scan ourselves up and down and think “hot damn, I’m fabulous” …only to cover ourselves up and hide it from the world. It hurts our self-esteem to know that we’re rather dashing and you can’t witness it for yourself.
But if you ever get lucky, sometimes we’ll slip-up and accidentally flash you our wrists. You’re welcome.

And finally, we’re oppressed by one thing, and by one thing only…

Let’s overcome oppression together!