Prolific Immigrant

Very often, women are pitted against one another, so many represented as not being “a girl’s girl.” You know these women, we all know at least one woman around whom we are uncomfortable when they get too drunk and start show-boating for male attention. The woman who would justify sleeping with the man on whom you are crushing because “it’s not like he was into her, and why shouldn’t I? If I avoided every man who every one of my friends liked…, there’d only be 30 billion more…”

You know her. And she turns your stomach. And you should pity her because usually, her self worth rests entirely in the realm of how men react to her. And woah is her when her looks shift.

Listen. I too need attention from men. When I don’t even know I need it, and I suddenly get it, I would be a lying liar who lies were I to lie: It doesn’t affect me, I don’t even notice it. And when it’s from a boy I actually like, even better. I am overrun with a hysteria that amounts to a mass email / text to all of my female friends, and where my phone is broken, I will send smoke signals that HE SMILED AND SAID HI AND DO YOU THINK MY OUTFIT IS OKAY, SMOKE SIGNAL LOOKS A LITTLE BLOATED, etc.

But for a normal healthy woman with her self-esteem recipe in good shape, this comes in measured doses. It is not a daily thing, but rather a once in a while thing. Our self-worth is composite of an awareness of what we bring to the human table, rather than what we bring to — specifically — the male table.

That girl mentioned above, contrary to what media keeps trying to shove into my head, is not the norm. Or maybe I have just been blessed with most of the women in my life. (And I hope that you are, too.) She is not the norm.

The norm is women who love one another deeply.
Women who love one another even when we want to punch the other one in her stupidity.
Women who support one another when there is nothing left to say, but only the deepest most heart stopping pain to manage.
Women who tell one another that they are better, that they deserve better, that they can do better, that they will do better, and that they don’t have to show their boobs to get there. But if they did, “then I’ll help you get the right bra, but I would just like to raise my hand and say that I don’t think you need to show your boobs to get this. Let’s go shopping! I love you.”

That is the norm; these women, are the norm.
And if you don’t know these women, then you need to seek them out, to learn from them, and to become one of them. Trust that they will enrich your life, as they do mine.

All of the above to say, please read this article by Emily Rapp, an ode to the beauty and power of female friendship, the love story that all too often goes unsung. A snippet: I was that desperate mother now; it was my baby who was going to die, and soon. It was already too late. I literally could not bear it. I asked for help and I got it. My friends stood with me in the middle of the scary, sky-howling road I was on, knowing they couldn’t take away the pain of the experience, but promising to be there when I emerged on the other side of the grief tunnel when my child would be gone. I feel them, every day, standing there as I stumble through the blissful, heart-breaking hours with my son whose brain and body fail him a little bit more each day. It is not an exaggeration to say that I would not have survived – that I will not survive — without my women friends.

Share it with the women you respect and hold dear. Share it with your daughters to lead by example, and to remind them that their strength is not in how men react to them, but also — if not more importantly — in how women who know them, are women who respect and love them.

Thank you for your friendship.

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**As balance to the earlier article about when to pull support from friends, this is a necessity.

“Since masculinity is defined through separation while femininity is defined through attachment, male gender identity is threatened by intimacy while female gender identity is threatened by separation.” -Gilligan

Women are defined through attachment.

Yesterday, I wrote that there is this thing which weighs me down. And yesterday, this very thing crushed me. This is something that happens from time to time, only yesterday was the first time I chose to write about it. Always and unequivocally, it is triggered by a conversation about marriage with my family. The last time it happened, I didn’t write about it, and instead spent eight days, evenings in bed falling asleep at 8pm. I promised myself I would never let that happen again, because my life is so f/cking blessed as is without a man and a stretched uterus and what a luxury that this is what depresses me, right?

Now. Because it is only when I understand things that I can put them to rest, and because I understand things best after I have written about them, I put fingers to keyboard and wrote about it.

Subsequently, I was overwhelmed by the love that people chucked at my head, and the incredible amount of women whose private messages amounted to shared war stories: “I hear you. I understand you. I too have had to fight this battle,” and also to the slightly more hysterical ones who wrote: “I hear you. I understand you. PLEASE DON’T GET MARRIED BECAUSE OH MY GOD I WANT YOUR LIFE AND TRUST ME YOU DON’T WANT MINE!!!!”

Two particular shout outs: First to SW who sent me statistical information on how most women who are murdered, are murdered at the hands of their spouses. Second, to JJ who very clearly hates her own children, and managed to make this hatred hilarious.

The bottom line is, I am relatively accomplished.

Measured by the same stick used to measure a successful man:
an excellent job and publications,
an exceptional higher education in an extremely difficult M.A. program,
property,
savings,
etc
I am well beyond accomplished.

Measured by the same stick used to measure a successful female:
wife,
mother
I am not so accomplished.

Couple the above measurements with my culture (not to be confused with my Faith), which says that completing our Faith is half of our deen (religion). Said another way: If unmarried, you are incomplete.

Here’s the reality: Islam does not discriminate.
And because I am a Believer, and God knows best, there is no way in hell that God would create such a discriminatory hierarchy within Islam, because Islam is the un-gendered discourse. There is the male, there is the female, and then there is the divine which is genderless.

In fact, there are 99 names of Allah, and the one to which Muslims refer to most, is al-Rahman (the most merciful), within which is rahm (womb). Reflect on that for a second, then get back to me.

To discriminate means to sideline and marginalize those of us who — for whatever reason — have not yet been married, or who never get married. And this is not my Faith.

And if the above logic isn’t enough for you…then how about…
Those who get married and then abuse their partners?
Or those who get married and then cheat but never get found out?
Or those who get married and then divorced and never marry again?
Have they completed their deen more so than those who simply never get married?

The f/ck it does.

As to the “science” which places all women at a disadvantage sooner or later, then to you I send a big fat hey! Remember the time you thought the earth was flat? Or the time you proved that “white people” were better? Or when you were adamant about the classical elemental theory? Or that time you believed ether was a carrier of light waves and radio waves?

One last time: Allah does not discriminate, and on any day, I will gladly take on anyone who speaks to the contrary.

Society however? Men and women will gladly create such a hierarchy, if only to make themselves feel better, while making others feel less. And men, as has been proved time and again, will decry it as their fitrah to shun the women with whom they are most compatible for those whose t/ts sit higher. But God, my God, the God who does not discriminate, and the God who does not favour one gender above another? He would never.

Those of you who believe that He would, then you need to re-situate and re-evaluate. And you need to ask yourself what part of your nafs it is that your perspective feeds, because my guess is it ain’t your piety.

So on most days I believe that, and I internalize it at a much louder frequency than the other side of that coin. But yesterday, the other side took my feet right out from beneath me.

Usually, unlike yesterday, and because I do believe that Allah knows best, I believe that whatever He has in store for me, it will be precisely so that I might reach my full potential. And the reality is, that my full potential may have absolutely nothing to do with marriage or having a child.

To be even more frank, looking at nine out of ten couples around me (Muslim, Arab, and not), on most days, I am pretty relieved I am not married. Because men? Well…they’re not all they’re cracked up to be when they perceive a woman disrespectfully as their property. And I would hazard that less than 5% of all men carry women in their hearts as Allah intended and instructed.

I wanted you to know this, because so many of you are worried about me. And though I was desperately sad yesterday, I am like one of those Bozo the Clown inflatable bop toys, filled with enough air to bounce back harder and faster than most. Only, I am prettier. Obviously.

Thank you.
Love you.
Owe you.

Do you love women? Do you respect women? Are you against sexualized violence? Abuse? Hate? Manufactured realities? Profit over people?

Then you need to watch the following riveting two part video, and you need to internalize every single thing said by the brilliant Jean Kilbourne, and then you need to share this with everyone you know.

Please find Jean Kilbourne here.

I have known some women who — while in the throes of preparing for their weddings — have praying mantis’d their partners.

I have never been a fan of weddings. In fact, I am among the few women who loathe weddings.

As a little girl, I imagined crossing the world with a partner in adventure; I did not imagine a wedding, but rather being a part of a team. I imagined calling my parents with the great news, and then assuring them I was not pregnant as response, that I had in fact waited until marriage to get down.

Truth be told, I have never been drawn to wedding dresses either, though maybe the tiara (which, I mean, I could wear anywhere). When I thought of partnering, I thought not of the wedding, but rather of the beautiful man who gets my mind and wants to raise babies with our shared value system while we make one another laugh. Occasionally we fight, and then he apologises. Obviously.

That said, I have always wanted a ring. I have always wanted that plain boring traditional gold band. Which I love so much, and which I have always wanted to see on my hand, knowing that it is from a man who has chosen me to be his booty call for life, because that’s just the kind of romantic ideal to which I aspire.

But then recently, my world was dislodged.
B informed me that the ring situation? It is not a Muslim tradition.
My father confirmed this, and then laughed when I became visibly upset.
In fact, really very devout Muslims do not wear bands.
(CATHOLICS!! CALL ME!! (I am totes single, and I heart Jesus (blessings and peace be upon him).)

Listen, I know what you’re going to say, that just because it is a Christian tradition, it doesn’t mean we can’t adopt it. And we have, in fact.
But I am still stressed out entirely by this news, because I can not un-know it, now that I know it.
It’s not a sin; so it’s not like if I request a ring, I will burn in hell. But still, this really upset me.

I can not explain to you the ‘why’ of it, only to say that now that I know it is not a part of Muslim tradition, I feel dumb for wanting it. I feel foolish in my hope for a little slim gold band given to me by my partner, and I can not get over this impasse, because I want to carry something tangible from my man. I want to always have something on me, an anchor if you will, which grounds me to the man who calls me his woman. That may sound Neanderthal to some, but this is a solid want in me, one of the few physical things I have ever consciously wanted, in fact. And trust me, I am not a “wanter,” I have never been a big consumer, opting instead for experiences rather than things. But this? This is different.

And it may have to do with my parents being divorced. Before which, my father gave my mother a little golden ring with a heart on it, inscribed on the inside was that he loved her. This ring she gave to me after the divorce, and I wear it on a chain around my neck; a chain which is never removed, a chain on which there is one other ring and Allah. For the longest time, I wore this ring hoping that one day I would be able to give it back to my mum.

Even though their marriage has dissolved fully, and even though there will never ever be reconciliation between them and I will never be able to hand this ring back to her, the ring still represents something extremely visceral and tangible to me, the daughter of this divorce. Bottom line is, at one point, this ring was real, and so were the sentiments inscribed within.

Although perhaps? Perhaps I should aim for a date with a man before I start worrying about the specifics of what he will / will not let my infantile side have so that she may not pout every time she looks down at her left NUDE hand. And we all know — nudity in public is haraam.

Boo.
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Photo courtesy of the brilliant Cathy Thorne, who gave the world Everyday People Cartoons — Cartoons about women, and the people who love and annoy them.

Y’all remember S? He’s been MIA for some time because he’s finishing his screenplay. Though S has been working a great deal on his writing, I am humbled that he still finds the time to pop in here for the occasional quickie read. (Hi S!)

In an email he sent, he asked: PS — I do, however, have one question: When a woman lists “protection” as a prime attraction attribute she looks for in a man, what the heck does that mean? Protection from what? Wind? Rain? Roving packs of dingos? Great White sharks? Bonks on the head? Do women really feel so unsafe they prize a bodyguard above all else?

…so below, I answer the above.

It’s not that I feel unsafe (at least not here in North America where I don’t have to worry about rape as genocide and my man murdered due to his chosen religion) or actually need protection. It’s more that I want to make certain the man I’m with would – should the occasion arise – be capable of protecting me both physically and where exercising his brain happens.

This doesn’t mean I can’t protect myself (though in some instances it most definitely does), nor does it mean that I would not protect myself should the need arise. It also doesn’t mean I can’t speak for myself or stand up for myself; but rather, it does mean that I believe he should afford better physical protection and equal mental faculties as well (as the ‘metaphorical’ bloody knuckle is equally an exercise in fierce intelligence).

Ultimately, I like me a fearless, and aggressive man, both in mind and physicality.

In return, there are things which he could find inside himself (to a degree), but are better received from me. For me equality does not mean ‘sameness’, but rather, recognition that the differences inherent in both must be equally valued and revered.

The best way to explain this is to reference two of my favourite movies, the quintessential chick flicks: Fight Club, and Gladiator.

The former rips into the notion that men live in gyms and sculpt their bodies for the aesthetic (read: Mr. Universe) rather than out of necessity (read: war & hunting), and that this changes the very nature of masculinity. In the later, Crowe’s character embodies all of the characteristics I look for in a man. Especially the short skirts.

As we don’t live in the age of Maximus, I find that I lean toward the aggression of Tyler (who > had he lived in the time of Maximus, would have been a less romantic version of).

Tyler Durden is the anti-Metrosexual. I thought I used to dig the Metrosexual, until I was placed in some situations where the Metrosexual proved himself the Superpansy. The Tyler Durdens of this world are primal and aggressive and they bleed and they don’t manicure their nails (though they do keep them short and clean).

When faced with challenge and fear, they are anything but scared…which, I think, is a rare quality these days because it seems that nothing is easier and more pedestrian than a man on the run.

As an aside and beyond the above, let me get to the nitty gritty of Tyler Durden. As basic instinct dictates, Tyler seems to possess both incarnations of swaggering rightfully-cocky sex-bomb & animal. Keeping in mind that I think Brad Pitt’s kind’a ugly, the swagger which his character carries in the film is based in both his intelligence and his physical ability.

On a personal note, I’ve only ever met two men who fit the above profile(s). They are the archetypical alpha males and always, there is an aggression that sits right beneath the surface and in to which they could tap (and both have) should they need to.

Many women like the soft-spoken and tortured soul, someone I got over when I was 22. I prefer the guy that’s metaphorically spitting blood and with knuckles ripped, defying and challenging anything which stands between him and what he wants, between him and what he stands for.

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A variation of the above was originally published: 06/03/21.

I was recently going through a friend’s bookshelf and among a deeply disturbing volume of this genre’s nonsense, I stumbled upon: Why Men Marry Bitches: A woman’s guide to winning her man’s heart.

I paused.
Took a very deep breath, and proceeded, because I am a masochist.

Meet the two caricatured genders within the book:

A: Men are one-dimensional insecure creatures who will never be honest with a female and who only react to mistreatment and game-playing.

The proof is in the pudding:
1) Men are manipulative even though they don’t really know what they want. Case in point: Men like a good cook in the kitchen. You can feign being a good cook by buying a lot of pots and pans and always leaving them out. He’ll marry you and he’ll never notice that you can’t cook. Instead he’ll start cooking, because he is an idiot who can’t see or deduce past his own nose.

2) Men are simple and only need the following: sexual escapades in the bedroom (and please do not tell him the truth about your past. And if the ‘truth’ is in fact…true…then he won’t believe you anyway. A 36 year old virgin? WHO ARE YOU KIDDING?)

3) Men are disrespectful and must be ‘put in line’ by your glorious ‘bitchiness’. When this happens, you will then be able to change the true nature of the man , turning him into a pussy because that’s what he secretly wants.

4) Men are not honest and are mean-spirited so you must always be on the alert for such behaviour and you must always be able to ‘give as good as you get’. This is called ‘information gathering’ and it is called ‘being sassy’. Please don’t be direct and ask him if something’s up – instead, play games. Better still, go to Hawaii for a weekend of fun in the sun with your girlfriends and feed off of one anothers’ unbelievable pathetic-ness.

5) Always take a man at his word. I love that you’re too dumb to notice that this is one of the many blatant and opposing viewpoints within this book.

6) Men are weak and on this weakness one must play in order to hook and sink said ‘man’; this is the true nature of ‘love and marriage’.

7) Men only want a ‘fun’ girl so never show him your ability to bring down the hammer when necessary; don’t ever have a difficult moment, just be ‘fun’. Furthermore, you must refrain from behaving “emotionally”, since that is your weakness, Female. Finally, please remember that it is in Male nature to be difficult and when that happens, accept it and roll with it while you place a beer in the fridge for him. Give him time to cool off; he will respect your level headed response because he doesn’t expect that from a female. (Sub-section to point 7: Always keep him guessing!)

B: Women are one-dimensional insecure creatures who are not allowed to be engaging, passionate, honest and real. Instead, they must only be reactionary and strategic in their approach to ‘the man they love’ (because when you’re in love with a man, your natural female instinct is to be a ‘bitch’; don’t fight it because it’s inbred since Eve).

Generally, a female must:
Play games.
Manipulate.
Lie.
React.
Entrap.
View men as both the enemy, as well as prey.
Believe that Dolly Parton, she of the unnatural body and face, is a role model to which one must aspire.

Specifically, a female must:
Never tell a man she misses him (or risk being a downer and needy).

Stroke the man’s ego by saying things such as ‘I feel safe with you’ – don’t worry about the truth or merit of that statement. He’s stupid enough to never see through your games. You are brilliant; pat yourself on the back.

Never tell a man you like him. Make sure he says it first, and then that way you will be the one who has control and power over him, rather than the other way around (because there’s no room for equality between a male and female, most especially not in a relationship. Remember: You’re at war, so keep your eye on the ball: INSEMINATION!).

Always remember that every action he takes is about you, and you must react accordingly. While you’re at it, please ask him to reiterate his fondness of you by constantly providing you with reassurance that you’re The One…just like in The Matrix.

Important! NEVER ASK A DIRECT QUESTION. (Or maybe I’ve already mentioned that?)

Critically, a female must:
Never tell a man she likes him, finds him interesting or is looking forward to learning more about him.
Just don’t do anything that would be engaging. Instead, let him do the work because that is the only way he will appreciate you.

Because he, in the same fashion as you, is a mindless insecure freak of nature.
Because he, just as you, is a fkn incompetent socially inept individual.
Because he, just as you, likely spends all of his time fixating on everyone else’s actions and trying to then react to said actions…
Because. Because. Because it is easier to follow and to react than it is to possess confidence…know what you want…and make a point of going for it.

After all, who needs self respect and honesty when one can play games?

Glaring Aporia Within The Plot
The premise of this book is to ‘make yourself gone’ and know that ‘you don’t need to be married to be okay’; to have a full life is when you will ‘make him chase you…until you catch him’.

Which begs the question: If you have a full life and don’t need marriage to feel complete, then why are you buying a book that is all about entrapping a man? Because last I checked, you don’t eat a cupcake to reduce the size of your ass, and you don’t go to the gym, to thicken that same ass. And you most definitely do not purchase a book about entrapping men if you’re not interested in said fkn entrapment…unless, of course, you are in fact a degenerate who believes that 2 + 2 = 17.

Curtain Called
Set aside the above blather and the glassy-eyed nature of the caricatured genders about which this book was written.

Clean your palette and pay very close attention to the following, please…

The only ‘rules’ you need (and this only pertains to the truly confident among you – male and female) are: A quality individual who is worth paying attention to and one worth engaging with will never be entrapped. More importantly, they will see right through the game playing (and if they didn’t, would you want to be with someone so stupid, anyway?).

A quality individual will never think you’ve called too many times or said too much or been too honest. A quality individual will be honest and will expect honesty, and if they can’t handle either, then you will find someone who can take you for all of you. (This should not, by any stretch of the imagination, be misunderstood as a green light for either the male or female to be psychotic; You can love and be loved and respect one anothers’ borders. In fact, this may be the only way to love.)

Specifically, to women, let me say that in your efforts to be ‘strong’, you do not need to be an asshole and you most definitely do not need to be disengaged from the man who has peeked your interest because trust me when I tell you that it takes a strong woman to be weak in the right man’s arms. And if anyone tells you that wanting someone is a form of weakness, then you’re speaking with a needy individual and neediness is a far cry from wanting.

Though you’re a smart bunch, let me clarify: Wanting someone amounts to a realization that they are, indeed, someone who brings added value to your life. Wanting someone is extending a warm set of arms to a person because you wish to do so. Needing someone is because you feel incomplete alone; unfortunately, if you feel incomplete alone, no one will ever be able to fill that gap, marriage or otherwise. (Essentially: Loners are sexy for this very distinction, as they fall into the former category.)

Finally, I will say that being strong is not being a bitch. What it is is a clear awareness of the person that you are and what you bring to the table. No one can touch or shake that if it’s solid within your own mind. Period.

Unlike the bile spewed by such books, the reality is that both men and woman are emotional creatures. The reality is that both men and women have their own brand of crazy; the nuanced approach is to learn about the crazy, embrace the crazy, don’t try to change the fkn crazy, and let the crazy run its course when it needs to. And love and respect your partner all the same, if not more.

All of the above to say: Please stop perceiving the opposite (or same, or either) sex as the enemy. The sisters will thank you, as will the boy bands.

“Love” is not a word alone, but rather it is one composite of respect, honour, mercy, gentleness, kindness, and unconditional grace. Live accordingly and believe in your partner, always.

I have noticed a disconcerting increase of late, an unprecedented display of self-pornification. Young women sexing the camera, or sexing one another. Mouths are open and inviting, tongues are licking, eyes are bed-roomed, breasts and asses are popping at interesting (and I can’t imagine comfortable) angles.

Any way you slice it, each of the images is a message of sex. It is not heart, nor conversation, not warmth nor intelligence, but rather pure and unapologetic pornification which reads “I’d like to get fkd by you, or her, or them, or that camera, or that homeless guy in the corner, or I’ll even take on The Republicans because I hear they’re pros at fkng people.”

They are pornified, and have not been told the two simplest secrets between a man and a woman: (1) there is nothing sexier than what happens behind closed doors; and, (2) sexy’s acme is when brain chemistry is set off before our bodies are.

Imagine how a young woman must feel when the bottom line is that much of her identity, if not all, is premised on her own self-pornification and self-objectification?

Imagine how a young woman must feel when the bottom line is that much of her identity, if not all, is falsified in order to please the gaze of men?

Imagine what we are teaching our young men, when these are the images we continue to project of ourselves?

This is where — though we have so much to thank of the North-American feminist movement — the feminist movement has failed us. At the very intersection of itself with the sexual revolution, it was derailed, and as central focus took the female body, rather than the female mind.

Pursued relentlessly was a woman’s right to do with her body as she pleased. Which, don’t get me wrong, is a necessity. I believe very strongly that a woman should have the right to choose what she will do with her body, while fully aware of the consequences and possible repercussions to these choices. Equally, I believe a woman should have the right to choose how she will exercise her mind, and where she will work, and what she will study, and whether she will raise a family.

What I do not support is a world wherein a woman feels that representing herself as pornified object is her only means of self-expression. That it is her driver, her identifying factor, the only face available. Because this? This, once again, alienates women from their right to choice.

And women’s rights must always be about choice.

Reality is, there is nothing more facile than getting laid. And where we once fought the male gaze as it pornified the female, we are now doing it to ourselves on their behalf.

For a moment, ask yourself why it is that young girls aged 6 have eating disorders because they are dissatisfied with their body “image.”

Ultimately, presenting oneself as nothing but a sex object is not self-respecting oneself (please. Please argue with me, if you will. I would love nothing more than to take up this point with someone foolish enough to argue that sexualizing ourselves is the road to self-respect). The flip-side to which is how can we demand respect of men if we can’t demand it of ourselves?

To recap: Fk and pornify yourself all you want; just don’t kid yourself about the reality of the world in which we live. Also, don’t tell me it is ‘empowerment’ to get laid. Empowerment is a body of multiplicity; it is having the right to education, to work, to safe and clean living, and to do with your body at a physical level what you wish.

Empowerment is the freedom to choose, while knowing that an alternative to this choice is ever available. And where young women are learning that self-pornification is the only road to self-actualization, there leaves no room for empowerment.

Editorial note: The following has been drafted on the fly via berry. Pardon the mistakes and the non-coherency if I am a little all over the place…it is an inspired piece (thank you, Clay!).

I have been watching women fight for women’s rights since the day I knew how to watch, because it started with my momma.

Recently, there has been a surge in this fight for women’s freedoms. Specifically, it has been about our (female) right to choose.

Abortion. We possess the right to choose whether we will or whether we will not. The refusal to stand for a Government (or anybody else) that attempts to tell us we can not make this choice.

When the prohibitions against forms of hijab in some parts of Europe came to the forefront, very few ‘feminist’ sisters said anything. In fact, some of them actually nodded in agreement with this prohibition, arguing that the prohibition is a means to ‘free’ women.

Sadly, very few drew the correlation between a woman’s right to choose what she ‘aborts’ from her body, and with what she chooses to cover her body.

But they are both choices, no?
And last I checked, we defend the female right to choose, not the female right to choose what only some of us see fit.

Choices that affect a woman’s body. Choices that affect society. Choices that are extremely private.
C.H.O.I.C.E.S.

And yet, amazingly, there has been very little blow-back from self-proclaimed ‘feminists’. (Or have I managed to miss it? And if I have, then please post links here to those organizations or individuals so that they receive the necessary accolades.)

Don’t get me wrong. I am turned off by both the niqab and the burka.
But I will support and fight for any woman’s prerogative to choose how she covers her body.

Additionally, and to the core of me, I loathe abortion.
But I will support a woman’s right to that choice, and I will fight for her right to make that choice in a safe environment. And I will stand next to her and protect her should she choose accordingly in a hostile environment.

I have zero tolerance for the sisters among us who actively engage in furthering only their idea of what a ‘free’ woman is. If you fight for rights, you best be fighting for rights for all, even if you don’t agree with it.

So then, this begs the question: Where do we draw the line? (e.g. How far do we defend this freedom of choice; is it ‘anything goes’?)

Naturally, I have a few ideas that are developing still, and I would really love your input to help along this development. (Keep comments clean and respectful of all opinions, please & thank you.)

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Originally published 10/07/19.

It’s 2011. I can’t fkn believe that we are still taking about this sh.t, that it is still surprising to some, that studies have to be done to confirm it,  that it hasn’t earned more attention, that it isn’t being fought harder by both men and women. Please read, share, and share, and share, and share.

My first boyfriend was Libyan.  Here we are at Jabal al-Akhdar (Green Mountain) picnicking with our families.  Ever arguing over his fetish for jogging pants and how he soiled himself publically, we were doomed. 
 

 
See, my family is Palestinian though I was born in Libya and raised between there and London before mum and dad scooped me up and brought me to Canada at the age of four when I began stealing Their jobs and bedding Their men. 
 
Islam has taught me: My blood is Palestinian and it is by grace alone that it has not yet been spilled because of this root.
 
Canada is my home and it’s her culture inside of which I am most comfortable and satiated.  While in Canberra last month, I walked to our embassy’s front doors and noted the etching of maple leaves throughout the stone.  To a girl who is a strong advocate for global citizenship, I found slightly alarming my deeply emotional response to these etchings; to the point of nearly crying, I was swelled with pride and sunstroke, overjoyed to find myself at the front doors of…my home. 
 
Islam has taught me: My blood is Canadian and it is by grace alone that I am not a creepy conservative.
 
Though this is where my heart lives, there remains a strong mix of both Middle Eastern and North African cultural references to which I am rooted and with which I identify.  More importantly, however, is the resonance of Islam within my world as it is this Faith within which I have chosen to find my own sense of worth and integrity.
 
Islam echos within me: Your blood is Muslim and it is by grace alone that you have not yet suffered at the hands of ignorance.
 
In the last few months, I have been reading the news with an unimaginable and uncontrollable sense of loss.  I have been reading all reports of torture in Tunis, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria while the “Muslim” leaders responsible invoked the name of my beloved Allah when addressing the masses.  
 
Islam has taught me: My blood is Tunisian, Egyptian, Bahraini, Yemeni, and Syrian and it is by grace alone that I have not suffered at the hands of such false prophets.
 
Moments ago, I watched the complete footage of Iman al-Obeidi being violently handled and threatened while trying to communicate to journalists how she was raped by 15 of Qaddafi’s men.  Her face is covered in scratches and she is — rightfully so — in a state of extreme emotional pain.  The Qaddafi regime labelled her a psychotic, a prostitute, and / or a drunk, none of which have stuck.
 
I watch the video to bear witness, because it is the only thing I have to offer Iman al-Obeidi.  In knowing her story, she is no longer isolated. 
 
Islam has taught me: My blood is Libyan and it is by grace alone that it has not yet been spilled because of this root.
 
I watch as a woman in hijab is the first to yell at Iman, and is also the first to physically grab her later in the video.  A second woman, also in hijab is who throws a cover over Iman’s face in an attempt to silence her.  I can’t help but wonder why God’s mercy and compassion have not made their way through the veils of these women and into their hearts.
 
Libyan men join the struggle and shove Iman outside and into a waiting car.  She doesn’t know to where she is being taken and I hadn’t realised that I was crying or holding my breath until my requirement for oxygen kicked in and a million thoughts flooded my head, the most searing of all Allah?  SOS.