This view is often drowned out in the far more vociferous voices of fundamentalism, however. A stricter interpretation of Muslim tradition and law might actually, as many scholars have asserted, support much greater rights for women and even drastically different methods for determining the extent of those rights than those that are practiced by fundamentalists. But regardless of what the texts, prophets, and traditions of Islam truly say about the rights of women, the fact remains that they are completely subjugated by fundamentalist interpretations of the Muslim religion, and isolated from society because of it.
The isolation that women, and especially young women, experience in this situation is exemplified in contemporary fiction (or semi-fiction) as well; Faiza Guene's novel Kiffe Tomorrow centers around a teenage girl, Doria, who struggles to understand what life is like for other Parisians as she and her mother live at the bottom of the Muslim community, having been abandoned by Doria's father. Her familial situation matches Doria's cultural and gender difficulties; like her father, the world essentially turns its back on her, abandoning her and forcing her to fend for herself. The fact that Doria lives only twenty minute from the Eiffel Tower yet has never...
Without increased attention and awareness of these struggles, these women will continue to remain isolated form the world at large and even from their own communities and societies. The Western world has been better at turning its eye to these issues in countries that seemed far removed from their own way of life, but the truth is these problems can be just as profound, and even more insidious, in supposedly democratic parts of the world.
Tricia Danielle Keaton. Muslim Girls and the Other France. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006.
Fadela Amara. Breaking the Silence. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
Amina Wadud. Inside the Gender Jihad. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2006.
Faiza Guene. Kiffe Tomorrow. New York: Harcourt, 2006
