Kyla Pasha on global feminism and “inclusivity”
Here's a pretty old post from the blog archives of Geekery Today; it was written about 16 years ago, in 2008, on the World Wide Web.
This is from an interview of Kyla Pasha, a Pakistani feminist and co-founder of Chay magazine, a feminist magazine on sex and sexuality in Pakistan. The interviewer is Sarah Seltzer, at In the Fray (2008-06-02):
What about western feminists, who can also be ignorant about global feminism? Do you hope that Chay can be part of a new movement to make the face of feminism more inclusive and worldwide?
The idea of inclusivity to me is a bit false. It suggests that I, as a Pakistani Muslim Feminist — which is not an identity I carry around all time, but just for the example — would like a seat at some bigger United Nations of Feminism table.
There's a table right here. There's a lot of us already sitting at it. Moreover, there are a bunch of other tables. And people wander from conversation to conversation. That's my ideal.
— Kyla Pasha, interviewed by Sarah Seltzer, In the Fray (2008-06-02): Sex in Pakistan
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Contrary to popular belief, Muslim women (and men) are not frigid and are in fact just as desiring sexual gratification as everyone else. I’m sympathetic towards more open attitudes towards sex in Islam, but moderation is key. Turkey is good example of how this path can be tread. Feminism should also not be reduced to sexual liberation and its primarily focus on should be on education and improving socioeconomic conditions of Muslim women.
Completely off-topic:
In case you haven’t seen this yet, I’m trying to put this link up on relevant blogs I read: http://gnooze.com/archives/235
Entitled, “Protestors Tear Gassed! Raw footage – gnooze tear gassed in St. Paul!”