Reluctent Feminist - Again!

Every time I go against Feminism and make arguments to people as to why I am not a feminist, I get put into a situation that makes me re-think that statement.

I had an argument once with a most beloved cousin of mine. He argued with me, stating that women need to take control of their lives and the reason women are where they are is because they don’t go and educate themselves and take their rights. I found myself saying out loud “the reason the women are where they are is because of men”

Oops…yip I said it. I am a reluctant feminist.

This story right here is the reason I say that women are not allowed to be educated and in charge of their lives because men make it so.

A facebook post in one of the groups I follow stated:

A very sticky situation:

A sister reverts to Islam and then marries a Muslim born brother who comes from an immigrant background. After few years in stressful marriage, two children or more and irreconcilable differences she decides to leave. He does not support her financially and is not willing to accept wrongdoing on his part. She tries with every Imam in the community to help her out and get Khu'l or divorce from him but they all avoid taking her case. Now she got the civil divorce but no Imam is willing to give her the Islamic documentation of the divorce.

What is your take on this? How should we as a Muslim community deal with a case like this one?

And then I read the comments. It took me a while to calm down. Like a couple of weeks.  And so I answered:

I read through this post and some comments and I have to say I am shocked. Words like “sbar” “mediation” “One side of the story” really got me upset and I had to wait awhile before commenting so that I could be calmer. I will try to be as brief as I possibly can:

“A hadeeth narrated by al-Bukhaari in his Saheeh (4867) from Ibn ‘Abbaas, in which it says that the wife of Thaabit ibn Qays came to the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) and said, “O Messenger of Allaah, I do not blame Thaabit ibn Qays for any defect in his character or his religious commitment, but I would hate to commit an act of kufr when I am a Muslim.” The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said, “Will you give him back his garden [which he had given as mahr]?” She said, “Yes.” The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said (to Thaabit), “Accept the garden, and divorce her once.”

Please note, the Prophet (SWA) did not tell her “be patient”, he did not ask for “the other side of the story” he did not request for them to go through “mediation”. If she didn’t want to be with him, she had to give back her dowry and he had to release her.

It does NOT matter what the other side of the story is. The fact is, she is a Human Being, a Muslim and she just happens to be female and has every right to decide how to live her life. Yes divorce is not something to be taken lightly, but by her seeking a divorce on several different occasions its evidence enough that she is taking it seriously.

This is not a discussion on whether or not the divorce is valid or warranted or not, but whether women in Islam have the right to make choices about their lives. Whether her reasoning is logical or not, she has a right to choose how to live her life and her husband, Imams and everyone else needs to respect that.

Generally I don't like commenting I feel like, its your opionion who am I to impose on that...but for this I could not keep quite. It seems that through out the comments, what she wanted was just ignored and reduced, to her obligation to her children and husband and religion. I am not saying that divorce should be granted for every women who doesn't like her husband at some point in time. But this like all else in this world it seems what women want for themselves is just forgotten.

I see all these women's programmes that are so successful and so many people attend, but pray tell why is every single one of those programmes given by men? What about the women? Why are women not advising other women? Do we not have the intellect or knowledge to do so?

I would like to point out one thing, if she was a man, he would have been granted the divorce, NO ONE would have told him to “sabr” or seek “mediation” or wonder about “the other side of the story”. Because you are given the responsibility of divorce does not mean that you should not be questioned about it, and more importantly, does not mean you should not give it when it is being requested. No matter how hard it may be.

Really I think this “boys club” mentality of the Imams needs to come to an end. And remember that they are custodians of knowledge and not protectors of male brotherhood. You are not taking the side of the women; you are taking the side of what is right. Let the women decide how to live their lives, just like you allow the men to. 

I don’t like the concept of feminism. I don’t like the whole idea of a movement that gives women more work to do.

Something occurred to me. Men should love feminism. This allows for them to be helped financially, it takes the whole “family responsibility” off their shoulder for the mere price of changing diapers and washing dishes every other day. Men are given the choice to be more relaxed, more sensitive and have someone there to share the responsibility with. Really, I don’t get why men are not more for it.

http://www.understanding-islam.com/q-and-a/social-issues/wanting-divorce-for-no-reason-9186

Acceptance is the key

I have spoken to many people who ask the question why? Why did my parents have to get divorced? I often wonder what type of person would I have been had my parents stayed married. The truth is you will never know. All you can deal with is the here and now. Accept the things that you cannot change!!

Parents need to accept:

• It’s going to be a long hard road. And you shouldn't give up hope that one day your children will be fine again.
• The most important thing in life is not being happy. It’s being safe and healthy.
• As the parent that has to move out (which in most cases it’s the men) you will never really get to know your children. No matter how many nights they spend at your house or how many times you phone them. There will always be a rift between you and them. You will never truly know who your children are.
• You are not a bad parent for getting divorced. You are a bad parent if you allow the divorce to kill the dreams and hopes of your children.

Children need to Accept

• Some people get the whole perfect family picture and some people don’t. And now you have become the people who don’t. It’s not the end of the end of the world...it just is what it is.
• Nothing will ever be the same again. And trying to run away, and self medicate is not going to make you feel better. But you WILL feel better one day.
• You can’t change your parents. They are who they are. And loving them is divinely ordained, even if we think they don’t deserve it. Allah (SWT) wills it and that all that matters
• It really is not your fault. Whatever decisions that your parents made, it’s their decisions and their lives. They are allowed to make those choices. Unfortunately you are a casualty of war, but remember Allah (SWT)/God is always with you. And the lessons that you are to learn from this divorce can make you a better person, if you deal with pain.
• Sometimes you have to tell your parents how you feel, even though they don’t listen, a part of them hears.
• You have the right to extract yourself out of your parent’s problems. This is your life, even though you are thrown into circumstances you never chose. What you do with it, is what counts.

In the end, everyone has baggage. Some are more socially pronounced than others. Some are darker and much worse that others. Its not about what happens, but what we do when it happens.

Rules on surviving the War i.e. Divorce

“The thing about divorce is that it doesn’t actually kill you” – Frances; Under the Tuscan Sun, great movie, watch it.

So you are divorced, now what?

Being a single parent is hard. If you don’t believe me, ask a single mother or father first before you contemplate doing it on your own.

I am the most well adjusted divorced child I know and I know quite a few. I was lucky because my mother was who she was. She never kept my father away from us, never said nasty things behind his back. And when we wanted to hate him, she reminded us that he was still our father. She poked and prodded and forced us to open up and deal with the situation. Even though we didn’t want to. Even though we came from a generation where adults didn’t care about how their children felt. We all (parents included) had to deal with our issues. The result of that is my parents can sit in a room and joke and laugh with each other. And my father’s wife as well as his new in-laws. We are weird family to most, but the most important thing is that we are apart of each others lives.

The truth is that you can have a healthy family after divorce. Children can get over it. They will never really be the same like ‘normal’ people. But they can lead normal lives after this. It takes a lot of hard work but it can be done. Will and Jada Smith in their interviews with Oprah talked about have “an extended” family. Jada said it the best “It’s not about us”

Rule No1: It’s not about you!! What is important is that your children have both their parents actively participating in their lives. So put aside your shit, slap a smile on your face and NEVER let them see you angry/sad

Rule No2: Deal with your anger – Whatever your reason for getting divorced, deal with your shit on your own! It kills me when parents don’t see anything besides their own anger and pain. And drag their children in the middle. Don’t make it anybody else’s problem but yours. If you are okay with the divorce your children will heal much faster.

Rule No3: You are the Adult -While the parents are caught in all the emotional turmoil that comes with divorce (whether you hated your partner or not) children become the replacement adult. I don’t know why but divorce ages children. They become pseudo adults over night. Often the parent will lean on the oldest child or the oldest child will feel the need, to step into the shoes of the missing parent.

Here is what I have to say to that. Don’t punish your child for the decisions that you made. You are the one who is the adult. Whether you asked for it or not. It is your responsibility to make sure your child is looked after. It is not your child’s responsibility to take care of you. I don’t care how old you are. If your child does this, don’t leave them. My mother made it very clear that we were the children and she the adult. This helped in getting over the divorce because I was able to hang on to what little of my childhood was left. I was able to ‘return to normal’.

Rule No4: Dr Phil always says – DON'T FIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR KIDS. It changes who they are. This rule applies when you are married and when you are divorced. I have a friend who is about 22. He is single still lives with his family and every time his parents fight, he goes off the deep end. Breaks up with his girlfriend, and replaces everything he is feeling with drugs, clubs and alcohol. I know at least three of my friends that got married to get out of the house, because their parents were constantly fighting. Two of which are now unhappy but will not move back home.

Arguing in front of your kids is one thing, but throwing chairs and calling your kids mother a bitch/slut or father a good for nothing son of a bitch is quite another. Every time you fight in front of your kids you make them a part of your marriage and they are not. They are a product of it. You have no right to burden your children with your adult problems.

My cousin was three when she went to her parents and told them, she hurts inside when they fight. They proceeded to laugh at her. Today that same cousin’s parents are divorced and she cannot express the way she feels. She bottles everything until one day when she will explode. And what will the parents say? I never brought you up like this!

It is important for your children to see that you have processed the divorce and that you honour the relationship you had with your partner. If your children see that you are happy they will be happy. And by honouring your relationship with your ex, you are showing your children that they are not a mistake or a product of a broken home.

Rule No5: Your kids are not your personal messaging service – keep your children out of your relationship and issues with your ex. Like I said before every time you involve them, you turn them into children with adult problems. They are going to grow up one day; they will have plenty of those. Do your own dirty work.

Rule No6: It’s never truly over – Your relationship with your ex will never end. As long as you share children you are forever bonded together. So don’t pretend otherwise. Children want to know that you respect the other parent even though you no longer live together

Rule No7: Don’t Replace – Your children have a mother/father so don’t try and find someone to get married to thinking that this will make them more stable. It won’t. All that it will do is give your children more issues. It sends a message to the child is that their mother/father is replaceable and that one day when they move out, you will replace them. You may want to ‘be happy’. But happiness comes in many forms. You will be a much happier person if you know that the person you say you love more than life itself is well and happy. As a Muslim women living alone, it is better that you get married, but take your time. And when you are ready to get married, the key to a successful new marriage and happy children is this:

Make sure your ex – and current get along
In order for this to happen, you have to have a good relationship with your ex. If you are able to have a birthday party, Eid or wedding with you and your ex and your new spouses, your children will be almost normal. This is the most important thing you can do for your children. Don’t worry about what your aunty, friend or even mother says. Don’t worry about what is considered societal norm. What is important is that your children are able to have both their parents at their wedding, Eid and children’s birthdays. Those moments when family is together will make the hole that they live with that has now become a part of their lives, feel as if it is almost non-existent.

Casualties of War

People have accepted that when there is war, innocent people die. It’s just the way the world works. But when the war is between your parents, that type of justification just does not work.

I have many friends who were born in two parent homes, who are now married and have children. And I die a little for their children every time I hear what they allow their children to witness.

I am a child of divorce. I now pronounce myself, speaker for those who cannot speak. For the children young and old who are witnessing their parents on the verge, going through, or post divorce. It doesn’t matter if your 5 or 35 being a child of divorce is painful. I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a long time until came across this that made me decide to actually do it.

Let me tell you why divorce is so bad. In Islam, the worst thing you are allowed to do is get divorced. As a child (not in terms of age, but in terms of having parents) divorce is the worst ‘permitted’ thing that you can go through. Even death is better because it has some type of finality and reason behind it. Don’t get me wrong losing a parent at any age of the child life horrible. But you know that it was not your parent’s choice to leave. It was their time to go, it was Allah’s (SWT) will.

I want parents and people who have not gone through divorce, to understand how it feels. Divorce leaves a gaping hole in all children. It takes years and years to try and re-fill it. But no matter what you do, you can’t. It feels like something is missing and you don’t quite know what it is and you don’t know why it hurts so much . It changes you. It changes the person you were going to become. Because from that day onwards your reality is different to the rest of the world. You have now become a casualty of war: A child of Divorce. Divorce turns children into adults in the seconds its takes parents to announce that they are parting ways.

Parents imagine this. Imagine that someone takes your child and tells you, you are only allowed to have half of your child. Then this person takes a knife and cuts your child down the middle and gives you half and gives your partner half.

How would you feel? Some people will agree with me that in the beginning that is how it feels for children. It feels like someone has taken a knife and cut you in half and your parents just watched and did nothing to stop them. Remember that your children have not experienced the pure love of having a child. So you are the most intense love that that child has experienced. For adults who are parents themselves, the hurt is just as severe if not worse. They don’t understand why they feel this way, because they have their own children. They experienced the pure perfect love of having a child. So why does it hurt so badly? I don’t know.

I’m not saying that people should never get divorced and then re-married. What I’m saying is that if you’re going through or went through or even thinking about divorce and you have children, you need a serious wake up call.

When you have children the rules change. It’s not about you anymore it’s about what is the best for your child. So that your child can grow up to be a well mannered, well adjusted, healthy member of society.

It is important for you to realise that the way you treat your partner is how your children will allow themselves to be treated in the future. They watch everything you do and then internalise it. Meaning it becomes the script in which their lives will run. (I mean script in the computer way, not the movie way). You can’t be a perfect parent because you are only human but how do you expect your children to have respect for you and your partner when you carry on like animals and have no respect for each other?

What parents don’t realise is that bad behaviour from children like teenage pregnancy, drugs, drinking, and promiscuity starts with the relationship between the parents and children. I don’t negate that some people do this even though they have loving, caring parents, but in my opinion that only happens in like one percent of the population. Most parents' reaction to finding out their children have abusive, violent relationships, or that their child is actually an adulterer or just a nasty person “I never brought you up like this”

Yes you did. Every time you disrespect your kid’s mother you teach your daughters, this is how a man must treat me. Every time you disrespect your kid’s father, you teach your son, this is the way a woman must treat a man. Every time you do not validate and show your children that they are worthy of love, through your actions not how much things you can buy them, you are creating an environment for them to rebel.

Some might say, well everyone has choices. If my child rebels its because he made that choice he is naughty. I disagree. As people we all have a hand in creating situations for others, a neglected child as two options. Looking for the love and validation by other people or looking for love in things.

This is the reason the world is so fucked up. You treat your partner like shit, then you treat your children like shit and then you expect them to grow up and get married and live happily ever after? I’m sorry but that is just not the way it works.

Many people think that Divorce is like a magic pill. Take one, with a glass of water and the person that irritates you will just magically disappear and you and your family will be much happier. Not so. That person that irritates you is someone you had children with. They are not going to just disappear.

Just because you are ‘unhappy’ and your new secretary or pool boy makes you remember what happiness feels like, does not give you the right to break your children’s hearts and change their lives forever.

When I watched one of the opening monologues in the movie Fame I was dumbfounded. One of the characters was auditioning and this is what she said:

My theory is that when parents get divorced, they're given some kind of a handout. When my parents told me that they were splitting, they told me three things. One, "It's not your fault.” Two, "It's not your fault.” And three, "It's not your fault.” Problem is, I don't buy it. No kid does. I've seen the pictures of when you got married. When you were good-looking, and you smiled at each other. Hell, when you even just looked at each other. So what happened between then and now? Me. I... I came along, and I made you tired and cranky and anxious and I made you lose your hair and gain 20 extra pounds and...Somewhere in all of that, I...You stopped loving each other. So I have my own idea for a handout. Next time tell me, "One, happiness is hard."Two, don't make the same mistakes we did."And three, okay, so maybe it is your fault a little." You want me to be honest? You go first.

It’s not about staying in a marriage that you are miserable in because you don’t want your children to be cut in half, even though your husband abuses you. Ask yourself; is this environment healthy for my children? For me and for my partner? So if not, then so be it. Because if you are not okay, and your partner is not okay, your children will not be okay. Divorce was created for a reason. But life is more than just being ‘happy’. If you have issues, sort it out before you take the divorce card out or run into the legs of someone else. If constantly being in the ‘in-love’ stage of your life is how you define being ‘happy’, you are in serious trouble.