Eight lessons in feminism I learned from my Malaysian community: 1. I hope these lessons serve as a reminder that feminism writ large does not mean exclusively western feminism, and that we as women can all stand to learn from, rather than judge, one another. Note that the list is by no means exhaustive in fact, it’s meant to be a jumping-off point. Each lesson is a vital component of the type of feminism I subscribe to, which is one that is accessible to women (and men) of all faiths and nationalities. To hammer home these points, I’ve compiled a list of lessons I myself learned from Malaysian women. In response, I’d like to call attention to this brilliant article, which rightly points out that such questions not only feed into the pernicious white savior complex, but ignore the lengthy and vibrant history of Muslim feminism, create a “straw muslimah” that serves western hegemony, and ignore the actual wants and needs of Muslim women. While valid, such questions often feel (to me) undergirded by a certain bias–the suggestion that it might be difficult for me to survive as a western woman in said culture, which points, more alarmingly, towards the belief that the women in my community, the majority of whom were Muslim, perhaps require some sort of enlightenment or liberation from the culture in which they (happily) live. Since returning, I’ve received a number of questions on what it was like to exist as a woman in this culture, specifically in my small town of Pahang. In 2014, I spent ten months teaching English to secondary school students in peninsular Malaysia.
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