Last month, Zeynab commented on the portrayal of Muslim women in the Vagina Monologues, noting that there are no portrayals of positive sexual experiences by Muslim women. I attended a performance of the Vagina Monologues for the first time last week and noticed her observations. Indeed Muslim women were lacking from the moaning sketch. In “My Vagina Was My Village,” a Bosnian woman in a headscarf described the horrors of rape. But there was another sketch that addressed Muslim women, or at least women in a Muslim country. It stood out, because not only did it not portray sexuality positively, it didn’t portray it at all — unlike all the other sketches.

“Under the Burqa” was inspired by writer Eve Ensler’s visit to Afghanistan, where she saw “what misogyny would look like if it were allowed to totally fulfill itself.” I agree that the Taliban’s treatment of women is absolutely deplorable, inhumane, and wrong. But while the Vagina Monologues is about female empowerment, it explores this issue through sexuality. After all, it’s the Vagina Monologues, not the Female Monologues. All of the other sketches in the performances were about women’s experiences with, relationship to, or attitudes about their vagina. “Under the Burqa,” however, describes the dehumanization of women under Taliban rule. Not once is sexuality mentioned. (Nor was it, for that matter, a monologue.)

Of course, it is possible to relate misogyny to female sexuality specifically. Female genital mutilation (FGM) was mentioned briefly in an interstitial, but not expanded upon. It would be the perfect example of when misogyny meets vaginas. But while FGM didn’t merit a full sketch, “Under the Burqa,” with not one mention of sexuality or vaginas, did.

This struck me as a little odd.

Here’s a brief news story about an Iranian-American Muslim comedian Tissa Hami. In it, Hami describes her comedy as her way of helping combat stereotypes against Muslims. “‘Why aren't we speaking out for ourselves?’ she said she would ask herself. ‘Why aren't we doing something? To me this is something I could do. I know it’s comedy. I know it's this much. But, if we all do this much, it's something.’”

Hami’s comedy is meant to encourage viewers to look beyond appearances. She dresses in all black, from her shoes to her hejab, and then comes out with lines like: “I'll be honest with you. I should have worn a long coat, but I was feeling kind of slutty tonight.”

Female Muslim comedians are few and far between, but slowly, they’re becoming more visible. Hami’s comedy reminds me of Shazia Mirza (pictured here), a Pakistani-British Muslim woman who has gained a fair amount of popularity ever since she appeared at a comedy club dressed in hejab and said, “My name is Shazia Mirza. At least, that's what it says on my pilot's license.” Since then, Mirza has been on tours in both Britain and the U.S., and won several awards for her comedy.

Unfortunately, there are a fair amount of people who disagree with this comedy, many of them Muslims. However, in my view, laughter is a good way to break boundaries. Obviously, it can’t be the only thing; we run the risk of becoming the stereotypes we poke fun at. But laughter is a great place to start, and though there are fewer female Muslim comedians than there are male Muslim comedians, enshallah all our funny sisters out there will stand up sooner or later.

Personally, I love a good laugh. There is a saying attributed to both the Holy Qur’an and the Prophet (pbuh), even though I can’t find the location: “Blessed is [she] who makes [her] companions laugh.” And if we can’t laugh at ourselves, we’re taking ourselves too seriously.

P.S. Remember to wear a pink scarf on Friday, Oct. 26th to create awareness for breast cancer!

Zeenat Rahman, a University of Chicago alumni, twisted the idea of The Vagina Monologues into something that could work for Muslim women. Rahman, knowing that Muslims are still misunderstood within the west, decided to make The Hijabi Monologues to help create awareness of Muslim women’s lives. Muslim women tell their stories, and despite the name, the Monologues don’t focus on the “often-contentious issue of hijab.”

So why name it The Hijabi Monologues? I think it would be much more inclusive if it was termed The Muslimah Monologues. But Rehman says,

“The name is a play on the 'Vagina Monologues.' And we think whereas the 'Vagina Monologues' took something that's very private, and brought it out to the public sphere, open for public discussion, we took the kind of public conception that people have of Muslim women which is the hijab, but then what we really seek to do is delve into the deeper, more substantial experience of Muslim women beyond what is on their head or what they wear.”

Sounds good to me!

What I like about The Hijabi Monologues as opposed to The Veiled Monologues is that THM was created by a Muslim woman, unlike TVM, which was created by a Dutch woman. Also, the title “The Veiled Monologues” is kind of a sensationalist one, don’t you agree? Also, TVM focuses on the sexuality of Muslim women, while THM focuses on normalizing Muslim women. I think a possible underlying premise for TVM is that Muslim women’s sexuality is so different from other women’s that we need our own Vagina Monologues. And I don’t care for that premise at all! We’re already sexualized; let’s get normalized, already!

The article didn’t give any details on where this is being shown. If you have the details, share them with us! And if you’ve seen it, we’d love to hear what you thought of it!

What do you think about this? This is a picture from Nader Sadek’s “‘The Faceless’: six mixed-media drawings involving a [burqa]-clad woman interacting with various aspects of black and death metal culture—skulls, tentacles, devils, decaying castles. A soundtrack, limited when I was there to a tinny set of headphones, runs further with the metaphor: metal luminaries … trade riffs and blast beats with Middle Eastern music stalwarts Omar Faruk Tekbilek and Raquy Danziger.”

Here’s the entire article from The Village Voice. Read it and see what you think. Is Sadek just taking advantage of the trendiness of Islamic figures? Is he parodying or denigrating the images of these niqabis by juxtaposing them next to images associated with Satanism or atheism? Furthermore, do you think these women willing participants? Do you think that Sadek uses his Egyptian background as a license to use these images? I’d like to hear your thoughts. Personally, I just don’t really know how to view this.