Panel discusses gender equality in Muslim households
The Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics hosted an event called The Power, Danger and Responsibility of Voice on Thursday evening in Doheney Memorial Library. The goal of the event was to stimulate discussion among students and political experts about gender equality in Muslim households and how to make progress in these areas through sparking discussion about the issue.
The event began with a screening of the movie Breaking the Silence: Moroccans Speak Out! The film, produced by GlobalGirl Media, focuses on issues of sexual harassment in Morocco. Before the film was screened, a panel consisting of Williams; Heidi Basch-Harod, executive director of Women’s Voices Now, and Ariana Seymore, a freshman majoring in policy, planning and development, provided information about GlobalGirl Media and why these individuals wanted to get involved.
Williams discussed the origination of GlobalGirl Media and why she focused on garnering participation from girls of the global south.
“GlobalGirl Media was the brainchild of not just myself but a number of women,” Williams said. “I said, ‘I want to get more girls behind the camera, particularly girls from the global south. My partner wanted stories that were authentic and reported from the perspective of women through a gender lens.”
Seymore got involved with GlobalGirl Media in order to raise awareness for human trafficking in America.
She explained that many are uninformed or misinformed about sex trafficking in California.
“And the trouble that that girl’s friend was facing really concerned me and when I talked to other people about it they didn’t know that we had a sex trafficking problem in California or in the suburbs, and I thought that would be a great piece to report about because not only did not a lot of people know about sex trafficking in California but there are a lot of misconceptions out there,” she said.
Following the film was a panel featuring Zaid Abu Hamdan, writer and director for Bahiya & Mahmoud; Roopashree Jeevaji, actor in Words with Gods; Sherman Jackson, King Faisal Chair in Islamic Thought and Culture; Muslema Purmul, co-founder and scholar-in-residence at Safa Center for Research and Education.
The panel was moderated by Dan Schnur, executive director of the Unruh Institute and Rebecca Siegel, lifestyle assignments editor at the Daily Trojan,
Jeevaji discussed that in order to move along to the next step to help women combat sexual harassment, it is important that more people become involved in the conversation.
“I think to have a dialogue is very important but I think the next step for women is to involve boys and men and encourage them to advocate for that change,” Jeevaji said. “To make them aware, to create a dialogue that they can be a part of, and create that awareness I think would be the next step.”
Hamdan, who originally grew up in Jordan, also noted how important it is to build a strong foundation of respect in order to combat the larger gender issues that pervade the Middle East.
“I really think this is even bigger than father-son relationships,” Hamdan said. “I think there is an undertone of women feeling inferior in the Middle East and being okay with it and that really bothers me.”
Purmul, who was raised in America but went to school in the Middle East, agreed but added that her experiences differed based on the socioeconomic status of her environment.
“I noticed for myself that when I was in public areas that anyone had access to, in particular a lower socioeconomic background, it’s not because they’re poor necessarily but because they do not have access to a solid education,” she said.
Purmul also noted how people with a more scholarly background in their faith tended to be more respectful in her experience, using a quote by the prophet Muhammed to illustrate this point.
“Only a noble man treats women in an honorable manner, and only an ignoble man of low character treats women disgracefully,” Purmul said.
I must agree with Don. This sounds like another uninspired waste of time and effort. Nothing new learned here folks. This is everyday life in the Muslim world, and whether or not it is even our business to challenge it is up for debate. But here’s the hypocrisy I see: Many of the same people in our society who are wholly against our insertion into foreign lives and affairs (famously President Bush and Iraq, but there are several other examples) have absolutely no problem injecting themselves into the domestic and religious behaviours of Mulsims as discussed by this panel. This is what Muslims believe and how they live.
And a final note for everyone that will change your life: STOP CHASING EQUALITY. It’s the wrong goal. Chase FAIRNESS instead. Equality rarely exists in life or in nature, but fairness is a virtuous goal we should all seek to achieve. Sometimes what’s fair and right is not “equal”. This is life-changing folks! It will change the entire ridiculous narrative of our time.
I don’t get it. The panel assembled and concluded that Morocco, like every other Muslim country, treats its women like miserable slaves. So what was accomplished? Anyone who watches TV or reads already knows this. And the domestic habits of Muslims in their own countries are beyond our ability to change. A waste of time and this article is a waste of space. Sorry, but there it is.