Egyptian TV Host Riham Said REMOVES VEIL During Interview, CLASHES With Guest Cleric Yousuf Badri

[RainDog]

165. If someone thinks that religious dictates do not allow women choice

and speaks out about that - the issue, it seems, it not telling women how to be proper feminists, but rather stating that religious ideology is prohibiting women from creating their own consciousness regarding their identity as humans.

This is a classic "false consciousness" argument... Religion as a social construct that pretends it represents biological determinism as defined by a religion, with all the restrictions, such as dress, being a form of control to emphasize the "otherness" and second-class status put upon women because of various religious ideologies.

If this is the argument, and I think it is, it is not telling women how to be proper feminists to note when one religious culture or another doesn't allow women to decide what their proper feminism might be by the very nature of the belief itself.

Since religion has such a powerful effect upon people because of its claims to speak for an omnipotent reality, the struggle for an authentic voice reaches beyond the worries of a here and now - and this psychological reach - this manipulation of consciousness that begins at the moment of being, presents women with more difficulty than the gender that is privileged with attributes that are given to another gender, not their own.

That's how I understand the arguments concerning women and belief, no matter what religion, as long as that religion codifies biological determinism as part of its belief.