Navel-gazing
On the holy month of Ramadan, a white woman who calls herself a bestselling feminist author sees a photo taken during iftar at the New York City mayor’s home and chooses to zero in not on the shared meal, not on the warmth in the room, and not joy expressed by friends toward each other after a long day of fasting from sunrise to sunset.
Instead, she points out a “random juice jar on the Gracie Mansion table,” and loses her shit over the tiny sliver of skin that is revealed in the gap between a woman’s sweater and her jeans, which exposes—gasp—the navel of none other than Rama Duwaji, mayor Zohran Mamdani’s wife.
Said white woman, clearly not Muslim, and clearly an Islamophobe, puts her own feminist credentials in doubt when she goes on a totally unhinged rampage—on social media, of course—accusing Rama of being immodest and spiritually impure. In other words, an Islamic impostor, a traitor to the Muslim faith, an unworthy occupant of 181 East End Avenue in Manhattan, and therefore, an untrustworthy first lady of the so-called greatest city in the world.
Orientalizing, much?
Like the rigorous academic that she is, she backs up her accusation with input from ChatGPT—and I deeply distrust anyone who relies solely on AI to lend credence to their claims. Dear ChatGPT, she writes, like a clueless teenage girl, as if the internet-scraping platform were the oracle of Delphi, “Can you wear a crop top to iftar?”
And ChatGPT, true to its mostly-programmed-by-white-men nature, gives its authoritative fashion advice: “It is generally not advised to wear a crop top for iftar. Ramadan is a time of modesty and respect, requiring covered shoulders and knees. Crop tops, which expose the midriff, are considered too revealing for traditional, public, or family iftar gatherings. Opt for modest, loose, or flowing, comfortable clothing.”
Armed with the wisdom of the interwebs, our crusading white feminist pounds her gavel and pronounces that “it is super rude by the way for the hostess to reveal her midriff at an iftar celebration in the presence of men who are not her husband.” She also points out that the other female guest, Noor Abdalla, the wife of Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian student activist illegally detained by ICE for several months while she was heavily pregnant and about to give birth to their first child, wore a veil, “as is far more religiously customary.”
Our little XOXO gossip girl even tries to manufacture some intrigue. Because what’s an iftar without a bit of za’atar? She alludes to the “physical chemistry” between Rama and Mahmoud, which she says sizzles more than that between “this newlywed and her husband.”
Like, girl, stop. Just stop. Do you even realize how deranged you sound? What in the Betty Friedan even is this nonsense?
The trouble with Western liberals—and the feminists are the worst—is that they want to be saviors, not allies, not partners, not colleagues. Yes, even liberal white women want to be the ones who liberate veiled women from oppression, who give the girls denied schooling access to education, who tell them, ‘don’t worry, come with me and I’ll bring you to a safe space where you can show your bully button anytime you want.’
In fact, white women are the ones who live in a world of absolutes. We are white, and therefore free to wear what we want and say what we want and sleep with whomever we want. Rama Duwaji is brown, and Muslim; how dare she walk around freely and dress in cropped sweaters, and smile at another man without us giving her permission to do so?
It’s utterly shameful that a self-styled academic whose scholarship has come under fire persists in seeing Muslims as a monolith in which all women should be veiled and modest and subservient. Has she actually traveled to Muslim-majority countries? Has she lived among Muslim communities? Has she sat down to iftar with Muslims?
I have, and I can tell you that Muslim women can be feisty, independent, and as fashion-forward as they want to be. They can be all these and wear a veil if they choose to do so. I know Muslim women who prefer to wear the hijab, and women who don’t. Muslim women who wear crop tops, and women who like loose, flowing clothing. Muslim women who raise families create art, write poetry, cook meals, produce investigative reports, author research papers, manage businesses, run international nonprofits. They are normal, everyday women, who happen to be extraordinary in their own way. They are among my closest friends. And they wear whatever they goddamn please.
In stripping away her own veil of objectivity, the feminist author reveals herself to be an orientalist who refuses to see the multidimensionality of Muslim women; she only values women inasmuch as they serve her particular agenda. Otherwise, they are dehumanized and othered, “rarely seen or looked at,” as the great Palestinian academic Edward Said pointed out in his landmark 1978 tome “Orientalism”; rather, “they were seen through, analyzed not as citizens, or even people, but as problems to be solved or confined.”
White women, stay in your lane please. Rama Duwaji does not need saving.
