#how about no woman deserves to be murdered by people who want to uphold misogynist status quo

[i-am-an-atomic-bomb]

just a heads up the arabic (?) protest graffiti post was made by a radfem and terf, the og post is tagged as radfems and radfems please interact

i feel kinda weird for deleting this post cause it is a very important issue but alright if the op sucks this kinda stuff could be a gateway through their blog for people interested in more stuff like that to harmful ideology trying to pass as feminism, you know. the usual transphobia and racism and more.

i generally don’t really pay attention to people’s urls so i didn’t notice and i’m sure the person i reblogged it from didn’t see it either cause i know they’re reliable and really doesn’t seem like someone who would suddenly turn cryptoterf after we’ve been following and talking to each other for a year. oh well, accidents do happen.

was it you who messaged me earlier ? thanks for giving me a heads up as to what the post is about, cause if it were an unrelated meme i wouldn’t have bothered to delete cause come on it wouldn’t really harm anyone in the long run if was a non-political thing but if it’s post by a terf about feminism then deleting it is a given. and i couldn’t find the op’s username cause apparently i blocked her before.

and yeah, terfs posting about the tragedy of what’s happened and happening to these women in iran and then in turn happily allying with far-right „activists” and politicians cause they hate trans women and want nothing but tragedy to happen to them is a really shitty, hypocritical thing to do. and it’s especially spitting in the faces of queer women in the middle east.

[verdantwyrm]

Anya, The Virgin Mary or the Vengeful Bitch

Or, shorthandedly, the Anyalysis.

I'm going to be occasionally stealing some points from my Curly thread over here, which you should absolutely also read. And also some segments from here, my small analysis of Jimmy and him being a monster vs choosing to be.

This analysis will be going over partially some of how she's treated in-game, but also how she's treated outside of the game as a representation of sexual assault and abuse victims, which is to either make her a mournful, bleeding heart virgin Mary, or a vengeful, final girl that's a violent, hysterical she-bitch. Which she is neither.

I think it's perfectly fine to orchestrate fictional characters killing their abusers, there's nothing inherently wrong with just that, it's more how people actually write it.

Just like any other trope, there are ways to go about it that are extremely harmful and ways that are generally inoffensive. As a victim myself, I personally see so many issues in wishing harm against your abuser, and there is nothing wrong with acting that out in characters you feel comfortable and relatable towards, but there are ways to do this that don't end up doing more harm than good— which is where most people fail. It's an objectively hard topic to address, because it requires nuance and understanding, possibly even lived experience to truly understand why someone would want this. Grieving, the absence that comes with being a victim, is not straightforward or black and white, it's an uncomfortable topic thats often on a spectrum of anger, grief or sadness that most people do not want to engage with because they have a very nearsighted opinion on how a victim should react– the perfect victim.

No one actually likes her as a character, they only like her for what she represents.

The Sexism of the Final Girl

I am sick and tired of people making up the realities in their heads where Anya overcomes Jimmy and kills him,

The trope of a "Final Girl" is not the feminist girl boss you want it to be and is incredibly misogynistic. The definition, as told by Wikipedia

"the final girl in many movies shares common characteristics: she is typically sexually unavailable or virginal, and avoids the vices of the victims like illegal drug use. She sometimes has a unisex name such as Avery, Chris, or Sidney."

There are feminist ideals and intentions behind it, but it is not inherently feminist as a concept and is often very misogynistic despite its intentions to display the woman of the group to be strong, better or uphold moral superiority for declining sex, drugs or any of the vices mentioned forehand. It is a sexist trope, and all it does is ridicule women for "falling" for said vices as if that inherently makes them inferior or deserving of murder or assault.

On the surface, the use of the final girl trope may seem like a progressive portrayal of feminist strength and ideology. It can be satisfying to see a strong, independent "girl boss" overcome an otherworldly predator or rapist. However, upon further examination, it is clear that this trope perpetuates prejudice and reinforces societal expectations for women. The final girl is typically portrayed as a straight, white, morally superior woman who abstains from "immoral" activities like drinking, drug usage and sex. She serves as a voice of reason and represents the ideal woman in our society.

Most importantly, she survives while those who deviate from societal norms face violent deaths. This trope is a subtle commentary on the expectations placed on women in our society - good girls will prevail while those who do not conform will suffer a violent and brutal death, usually at the hands of a man. Ultimately, it seeks to shame women for behaving in ways that are not considered "ladylike."

The film industry as a whole has a history of using females as vessels for pain and suffering. Hollywood loves to profit off of female suffering. These male directors may believe they are earning brownie points with audiences by having female survivors in their films, but in reality, they are simply using feminism as a disguise while indulging in the fetishization of female pain.

It is rather exhausting seeing who we are being reduced to one note Virgin Marys with bleeding hearts, scorned mothers or wounded victims of assault who will never recover, never love or never will have sex again. I do think Mouthwashing does an excellent job of telling the story of a rape victim, but how other people treat her beyond that, it's almost impossible to even have a character like Anya or even Angela from Silent Hill 2 without people stripping them and violating what their character is and instead of focusing on what they represent, a victim.

But back to Anya specifically, she does not even exert any interest, desire or want to murder or harm another person. People dehumanise her the same way Jimmy dehumanises her. They strip her of everything she could be, everything she wanted to be and make her out to be a perfect victim, a bleeding heart, a weak and pathetic woman.

How about Anya has a nice day, how about Anya smiles, and she's happy and safe. What about that? Huh? Or do you only like her when she's a victim. People care more about Anya being a victim they can save, a victim they can nurture and heal and rescue than anything else. They care more about her being weak, sad, frail and miserable. Always the mother, always the victim, always the virgin Mary and a sacrifice but never ever a woman and most definitely never a person.

It's even worse when I see people continuously writing and "re-imagining" Anya being Raped just so Curly, Daisuke, Swansea or even a self-insert reader situation to save her. I totally get that you want her to be happy, and to be rescued and for that to never happen but you severely miss the point of the story that there was no one there to save her. And constantly rewriting it to put a man in the favour of the situation comes off as very shallow and misogynistic the way you're all so ready to have someone rescue her like she's some distressed maiden in need of a big strong man, it also takes the point away from her entirely.

The horse that bites

Jimmy's constant dehumanisation of Anya affects how other people perceive her character as well, that she's weak, small or a crybaby in some sense because of how she responds to situations - emotionally, which is then amplified by Jimmy's pre-existing hatred and lack of respect for her.

Jimmy tears her down every chance he gets, makes her feel little and even compares her to Polle in his hallucinations. And Anya knows that he and Curly have a very lengthy history, so her caution and anxiety about even mentioning the incident, let alone saying the word “rape” is borderline impossible for her. It’s a manifestation, it’s a verbal acceptance and confession that it’s even happened. Something she has been trying to avoid coming to terms with.

And when she does eventually tell Swansea what happened, as much as you want to think she told him- she most likely told him to not do anything, to try and keep the peace for as long as possible.

Again, her vagueness is not her fault, nor is it her responsibility. It was Jimmy’s responsibility to not abuse and rape her.

It’s also very present that Jimmy is verbally abusive to her, putting her down at every opportunity by ignoring her very talented medical skills by saying Pony Express only hired her to cut corners in an attempt to reduce costs because she failed Medical School and that she’s not a “real nurse” because of that, and how he constantly questions her skills despite keeping Curly alive for such a long time in such a state.

After being insulted by him multiple times, she fawns to get him to actually do something beneficial because she knows he responds well to praise, and he complies, all while still insulting and belittling her for being "weak" and "sentimental"

Anya shows a clear fear of Jimmy and has consistent fawn responses around Jimmy. She is extremely careful not to make him upset and praises him to keep him amused and compliant to a degree.

Just like Anya says, our worst moments don't make us monsters. It's one thing to fuck up, and immediately suffer the consequences and acknowledge your mistakes— But it's another thing entirely to purposefully make it so you never have to deal with the repercussions and then make yourself out to be the victim. Jimmy takes every opportunity to blame everyone around him. All the time and Anya is no stranger to this.

Curly genuinely saw the good in Jimmy, in the same way, Anya sees the good in others and possibly even tried to see the good in Jimmy despite the pain as one of the key important things about how everything went about is that Anya never directly refers to her rapist as Jimmy, nor does she ever actually insult or talk badly about him, she only expresses her disinterest in talking to him because of his reluctance to cooperate with her. They both believe that our worst moments don't define us, and Curly had his own interpretation all of how we're defined by our past, but not slaves to it.

She is scared, she is terrified at this point and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that nor should we rush to change that. Her being scared is realistic, she is a scared lady in a very scary situation with an even scarier man who constantly switches between dissociation and lashing out depending on what's going on around him. And she is not that person to fight back, to be violent or to hurt him and that is perfectly fine. She doesn't need to be a girl boss feminist and fight back, she can just be a scared and quiet woman stuck in her own terror, and trying to infer that one Is the "better" option downplays victims who freeze in their own terror and makes them out to be weak or a hapless damsel because they're incapable of "standing up for themselves"

She has every single right to be absolutely terrified and that is in no way a bad thing. I actually really, really dislike the interpretation that Anya is angry, resentful or has any revenge towards Curly, or that she has to be this, hysterical mad woman sent out to kill or hurt Jimmy. I don't believe she's either of this. Anya deserves peace, and I think it's extremely important to understand just how similar she is to Curly. And I'm full of the belief that if Anya had actually done something to Jimmy (hurt him, kill him, whatever) she would be demonized and the misogyny she already faces in the fandom would be worse tenfold. Do not lie to yourself.

Not to even mention one of the many, many reasons as to why Anya OD'd in a room with a lock in the first place. It was to make sure Jimmy could never touch her again? Or do something awful to her body, even when it was lifeless and cold? It was to keep the gun safe, to protect Curly, to protect herself, to take control of the situation, to finally not have to worry about him ever touching her again. And Jimmy still violates it, even after she's dead.

He touches her, drags her body, and props her up in that chair. Even after death, she is never free from him. She thought she was going to finally be free of him, his rage, his desires, his touch, and she died thinking this, that he would never ever be touched or hurt by him ever again. She died thinking all was well, that it would all work out in the end, it had to. She died thinking Daisuke and Swansea would somehow make it out of there, tell her story, and make Jimmy face the consequences of his actions, it was the ultimate sacrifice, it was the greatest thing she could ever do.

Jimmy ruined her life, and he ruined her death, her sacrifice. To keep herself safe, to keep Curly safe, to keep the gun away from him, it all meant nothing.

Thinking outside the Ship

Anya is fun, she is enthusiastic, loves to make jokes, draw, play board games with Daisuke, read, and teases Swansea about his love for sweets which he doesn't even bother to object to and Swansea hands her a note so that she could give it to Curly during his psychological evaluation,, implying that they're casual enough for an exchange like that to occur, and even has what seems to be a budding relationship with Curly himself, taking to his comment about being fit to fly in her eyes like it's a common exchange of flirting between the both of them and she even teases him at the birthday party to "hop to it" in terms of the cake. She is at ease around him, her walls have dropped, and she feels safe to talk to him, and even attempts to try and get him to open up more to her.

She reads psychology books, she is extremely determined having applied to Medical school on total of eight different times and obviously has the skills and interest to keep doing it despite failing and only joined Pony Express so she could make money and keep trying to get into medical school.. She also has good taste in music, one that Swansea and Curly enjoy very much. She also seems to get along well with Daisuke and even allows her emotions to show with anger when they play games they seem to have much of the same sense of humour, judging by how Daisuke is genuinely worried about her when she locks herself in the Medical, they seem to have a positive relationship. We don't know much about her relationships with the others beyond what the wiki can provide.

She seems to have the best relationship with Curly, although. And after the crash, she can't bear to give Curly his pills due to him being in visible agony and her own trauma of forcing him to do something he very obviously doesn't want to endure, likely due to memories of her assault being triggered by both the act of forced insertion and the sounds produced by Curly during it.

Anya also spends most of her free time studying. She runs to clear her head. And when she really needs to destress, she binges on the worst reality television and fast food. She is a very free-spirited woman who is eternally doomed to be reduced to nothing but a hapless, miserable victim.

Final Comments and Thoughts

I don't have much to say here unlike my last analysis, but the situation on the Tulpar is not as straightforward as people would like, I understand it's extremely cathartic to think of a situation where Jimmy gets what he deserves but it isn't realistic, and thats what this game is trying to say. Abusive corporations, exhausting capitalism, this environment breeds Abusers like Jimmy and victims like Anya and Curly. There was nothing that could be done. Pony Express is what doomed them all, they're the catalyst.

Anya deserves to be written and viewed as more than just a representation, a victim or a vengeful hysterical bitch. She deserves to be happy!

Thank you for reaching the end of the thread, please don't be scared to share your thoughts in the tags or in my inbox, I'd love to hear them! good job! (っ˘з(˘⌣˘ ) ♡

[ventbloglite]

I've had this argument with an uncle of mine before.

It was very difficult to explain to him that there is much evidence, from literally hundreds of years, of women being oppressed specifically by men to determine that the affect of misogyny and the affect of misandry aren't equal. That women on average have a lot larger a fear, not necessarily unfounded, of violence from men than vice versa. However, it's also ignorant and misogynistic to act like women are not capable of that exact kind of violence too.

When we say they 'aren't equal' that doesn't mean that one (misandry) is therefore alright. Misandry isn't 'being mean to a man', or 'saying no to sex' or yeah 'getting a divorce'. I hate that these are the things misogynists, radfems and misguided misandrists think are the issues. How deep in toxic masculinity, misandry and bioessentialism must you be to think that those are what misandry is, regardless of your own gender? Pretty deep I'd wager. I think most men just have absolutely no idea about the actual issues they face as men specifically (having 'issues' is not the same as 'being oppressed' by the way, I will not debate with idiots who think all men magically have no issues at all), or what actually counts. That makes it so hard to discuss actual issues faced by men, much of which aren't related to women at all.

That being said;

Women can, and do, abuse (including physically and sexually) and kill men. Don't quote statistics or reasons on me (although if I'm honest if a woman kills her husband whilst defending herself let her go free ya know what I mean), because these kinds of acts are not okay. They just aren't. Stop looking for the mythical acceptable groups to abuse and murder. If these acts are preformed because of the womans hatred of men or viewing men as deserving of it, this is misandry.

Irrational hatred of men resulting in you claiming to be a feminist whilst reinventing/upholding the misogynistic bioessentialism that oppresses women in the first place, reinforcing the worst negative traits onto men that you can as if men aren't people as much as women are and including onto little boys, abusing and hurting men because they 'deserve' it and then telling them to take it like a man and that nobody will believe or support them because they're a man, saying you would abort/don't want to have any male children because the would absolutely no matter what become awful misognists, telling trans men not to transition because you don't want another man to exist, wanting to seriously and with no sense of irony put men into 'camps' or to 'kill all men', making jokes about even though suicide is one of if not the top reason for male death in many countries the rate still isn't high enough and more men should kill themselves - this is misandry and this is harmful.

No. This is still not equal to the way misogyny soaks into literally every damn thing and influences so much of how every society, or most societies no absolutes, works. You can't fucking move for the misogyny.

A 'femcel' however is no better than an 'incel'. Being poisoning into irrational hatred based on someone's sex and/or gender is still irrational and unacceptable. Feminism will never make an actual difference if a part of you kind of wants things to stay the same because that allows you to put all your rage towards men instead of actually changing things.

Let's not do this stupid 'but I have it worse' bullshit. Yes, call it out as not equal, but don't act like it's not an issue at all or is just acceptable if the group doing terrible things is an oppressed group.

I leave you like this. There is a stupid debate that sometimes comes up. What hurts worse, being kicked in the balls or giving birth? The answer is of course, giving birth. But Jesus does getting kicked in the balls hurt like a bitch and people should absolutely not just do that for no reason.

[femvulvaphile]

let’s break that weird shit down, then

“We’ve been here since the beginning. I know your hate group, your little Nazi sub-sect, has this lie you like to spread that we suddenly spring into being from whole cloth in the 1970s, but that fighting all through history? WE’VE. BEEN THERE. FOR ALL OF IT.” cool but that’s literally not what I said. transwomen’s and women’s fights are inherently different. Sex-based oppression doesn’t DIRECTLY affect transwomen: you will never be shunned for menstruating, you will never be afraid of having your prepubescent vulva mutilated for the sick pleasure of a men five times your age, you will never be afraid of being impregnated against your will, or of miscarriage of a wanted child, or of all the pregnancy and birth complications who are still killing women all over the world. you will never know what it’s like to have men catcall and grope you when you’re nine years old just because your boobs already began to grow.   

"The demonization of trans women is a relatively recent invention in the grand scheme of human history and it is one that you have helped re-surge into the modern world.” that’s bullshit. the “demonization” you’re talking about can refer to one of two things: either the conservative view that transwomen are “deviant men” (which I definitely agree is shitty), or the radical feminist view that transwomen retain their male socialization and so, as a group, can represent danger to women (which is backed up by research, btw, and the amount of “receipts” in the form of news reports of transwomen hurting and murdering cis women AND in the unending threats and harassment that radfems receive online and irl).

"The idea of ASAB and tying it to gender in some inviolate and unchangeable way is something colonizing white people brought to this country, and others they invaded.” cool but that’s bullshit? pretty much every culture on earth has a history of identifying biological sex and applying sociological roles to them. that’s not a white invention, that’s not the fruit of colonialism. the concept of “gender” as behaviors and roles based on reproductive function has existed for as long as people have existed. some cultures have stricter rules about them, others are more loose. some cultures refuse to acknowledge non-conforming people as their “original gender”, and then you have things like two-spirit or hijras.

"Whether you realize it or not, and…let’s be honest, you probably do, your actions, your hate group, is just a laser-guided subsection of what fascism and white supremacy stands for.” wtf tho. fascists and white supremacists and nazi want a “pure” world without “lesser” groups, like black people, jewish people, homosexuals, gnc people. how is female-only radical feminism the same? are you aware that plenty of radical feminists are woc themselves, and even jewish? are you aware that the vast majority of people you’d call “terfs” aren’t even american, or english speakers? we literally just want men to stop fucking murdering us.

“Without colonization, without white supremacy, your argument, your constant, hammering on “male” as if to conjure some demon from the word, would mean nothing.” male violence has been a reality in human history. it’s not a theory, it’s not up to debate. it’s a fact. you know it is, according to your original post talking about men posing the most danger to transwomen. women all over the world are victims of men. it doesn’t change whether we talk about it, or use the words male, men, amab.

"I don’t mean that in the rhetorical sense, I mean literally, your words would not have a cogent basis without that.” again, bullshit. male violence is everywhere, in every culture, in every part of the world, regardless of how much contact with europen colonization the culture has had. japanese men are violent, russian men are violent, french men are violent, english men are violent, american men are violent, cuban men are violent, argentinian men are violent, brazilian men are violent. nazis didn’t invent misogyny.

“How fucking dare you invoke my dead sisters, how fucking dare you bring up that most of us getting murdered are PoC, while peddling Nazi approved propaganda.” uh. it’s “nazi approved propaganda” to say that women face violence from men and therefore need safe spaces from them? and I brought up the groups that murdered transwomen belong to because YOUR GROUP likes using them, using your so-called dead sisters, as argument points, as proof that a white middle class educated men with a dress and lipstick is somehow more oppressed than any woman on earth.

“Meanwhile, asshole,” oh cool name calling when I wrote a relatively calm and non-offensive post. “I was talking about SHARED SPACES. LGBT focused communities, the ones you are perpetually try to focus trans lesbians out of because you view us as the worst of what you already consider the worst.” yeah, maybe we wouldn’t need to do that if “lesbian” transwomen could stop demanding so much from women, or if they’d stop claiming protagonism when they don’t even experience SAME-SEX ATTRACTION, which historically has been, you know, the entire defining poing for “lgbt” people.

“You didn’t even notice it, did you? You were just launching into Pre-Written Terf Rhetoric #5 without so much as reading what I actually. Fucking. Said.” dude, you’re calling me a nazi literally just because I said women deserve female-only spaces and transwomen should create their own safe spaces away from men instead of demanding entry and protection from women.

"Your insistence that we’re “straight men” only serves to try and push us out of those communities as well." you have more in common with straight men than with lesbians, tho. you don’t experience same-sex attraction, you’re not female, you can impregnate a female lesbian (depending on transition specifics, but let’s be honest: the big problem is the transwomen who claim “there’s no need to need to transition bc my dick is a woman’s dick”), if you’re not “passing” you don’t need to fear homophobic violence from strangers.

“Jesus fuck, like did you even notice that was the fucking point? Like your shoving us aside as non-women is already fucked up but that wasn’t even the point of this particular post.” the point of your post was vilifying women who question the notion that “transwomen are exactly the same as women”. the point of your post was putting the blame on women, “terfs”, for what men do.

"The idea that men view us as also men is so beyond laughable I can’t even properly convey it.” they view you as “DEFECTIVE” men. they definitely don’t view you as women. men are violent towards you as a result of toxic masculinity - a non-conforming male is a threat to their notion of rigid male-female roles. the violence towards you is closer in motivation to the violence towards gay men, rather than the one towards women.

"But I’m just going to say: You don’t live our lives. You don’t live our experiences.” yes. just like you don’t live the lives of women. which is exactly why I said transwomen do deserve safe spaces, but not by invading female-only safe spaces.

"If you don’t know how wrong you are it’s because you’re incapable of treating our words as anything but the words of the target of your hate and thus discarded.” you’re lumping me in with nazis (I’m a latina gender-non-conforming lesbian, I’d be raped and killed by actual nazis faster than you could type “op is a terf”), refusing to actually ACKNOWLEDGE the things I said, bringing up way more arguments than the ones on your original post, and then blaming me for not being able to read your mind.

“The power you hold is that you have been aligning yourself with right-wing christian groups,” bullshit. again: women can’t even get men to stop raping us. how exactly do you think we have any power, any voice, over THE most misogynistic men on the planet?

"the power you hold is that your ilk has been speaking to audiences wherever they can find them in academia for decades,” again, bullshit. women have been in academia for, like, two years, in comparison to how long men have been dominating every public and private space.

"the power you hold is that you went into the communities that might have helped us stay alive and sowed false accusations to turn others against us,” b u l l s h i t. YOU came into OUT communities demanding we treat you as equals, when we are observably NOT equals. sex-based oppression doesn’t affect transwomen the same way it does women. men’s violence is distinctly different based on your sex.

"the power you hold is in helping, insidiously, to uphold the institutional biases that keep us marginalized, alone, and dying.” the same can be said of modern trans rights activists, tho. you’re all contributing to the strengthening of gender as a hierarchy - and not because you need to conform to survive. no, your original message (the one we can still hear from drag queens and transvestites from stonewall, for instance, that your kind likes to claim as “transwomen”) has been corrupted to the point where people look at a feminine gay boy and tell him he must be trans, he must transition, he must be a woman because he likes makeup and is attracted to men. your kind tells parents of vulnerable children that their little boys and girls will KILL THEMSELVES if they don’t take hormones as soon as possible. your group tells lesbians they need to suck dick to be proper lesbians. your group supports (and breeds) more murderers, rapists, and pedophiles than radical feminism could. your group tells women of color, lesbians, survivors of all sorts of male violence, that they’re the problem. you tell us we’re even worse than men. you tell us to die, you threaten us with rape, with baseball bats. you punch sixty year old women who dare take a picture of people trying to silence women. you rape and murder a twelve year old girl. you rape and forcibly impregnate a female trans person, and then brag about it. you support rapists and pedophiles being housed in women’s prison because of their “gender feels”. 

you tell women to shut up about their own experiences. you tell women they’re not the “right kind” of women. you tell women they’re not woman “enough”. you tell them to sacirfice themselves for yet another male.

“And yes, before you even start, I’m blocking you. I don’t debate Nazis or Nazi bootlicks.” still nowhere near being a nazi, but alright.

bonus:

“also do they just have a terf blog name generator somewhere, i swear all terf blogs read like a bunch of synonyms for vagina and spellings of rad and possibly a wolf reference or phile or fetishist, all put in a random name generator” that’s hilarious to men because I literally saved this url after I seeing an asshole claim that lesbians aren’t allowed to call themselves lesbians if they don’t suck dick, and that they’re actually vagina fetishists. the person used -phile on something, I can’t recall what, and I immediately thought “hmm, yes. I love vulvas. I’m a vulvaphile. A female vulvaphile.” 

[nedsecondline]

Woman imprisoned for converting to Islam tells Indian Supreme Court: “I want freedom”

WTF! Religious fascism and sexism alive and well in India sanctified in courts! "In 2016, Hadiya, a 24-year old woman from a Hindu household who was pursuing training in homeopathic medicine, converted to Islam. Several months later, she married the man of her choice, Shafin Jahan, a Muslim from her home state of Kerala. Hearing news of his daughter’s conversation and subsequent marriage, Hadiya’s father filed a police case alleging his daughter had been the victim of “love jihad.” Six months ago, the Kerala High Court ruled in favor of Hadiya’s father, declared her consensual marriage null and void, and placed Hadiya — an adult woman — in the custody of her father. Hadiya had been held against her will at her father’s house since May until this past Monday, when the Indian Supreme Court, after finally allowing her to speak, ruled that she could return to her medical college — under the condition that the college’s dean be appointed her “local guardian.”"

On Monday this week, a young Muslim woman faced the Indian Supreme Court, finally allowed to speak after being imprisoned for converting to Islam and marrying a man of her choice. After months of petitions, news coverage, and speeches from everyone but her, she said laid out her demand clearly: “I want freedom.”

In 2016, Hadiya, a 24-year old woman from a Hindu household who was pursuing training in homeopathic medicine, converted to Islam. Several months later, she married the man of her choice, Shafin Jahan, a Muslim from her home state of Kerala. Hearing news of his daughter’s conversation and subsequent marriage, Hadiya’s father filed a police case alleging his daughter had been the victim of “love jihad.” Six months ago, the Kerala High Court ruled in favor of Hadiya’s father, declared her consensual marriage null and void, and placed Hadiya — an adult woman — in the custody of her father.

Hadiya had been held against her will at her father’s house since May until this past Monday, when the Indian Supreme Court, after finally allowing her to speak, ruled that she could return to her medical college — under the condition that the college’s dean be appointed her “local guardian.”

Feminists across India have been protesting the court’s treatment of Hadiya, and the case has inspired serious debate about women’s autonomy, state persecution of Muslims, and the politics of conversion in contemporary India. I’ve been covering Hadiya’s story here at Feministing in the context of these debates, but it’s not just an Indian controversy. Hadiya’s story sheds light on issues — state regulation of women’s bodies, Islamophobia, and racism — important to us in the United States as we continue to protest American state violence against Muslims worldwide.

“Love Jihad”

As the Hindu right has ascended in India, so have allegations of “love Jihad.” The panic over this non-existent, alleged conspiracy whereby Muslim men seduce and then “forcibly convert” Hindu women, has spread from right-wing propaganda to state investigations policing interfaith marriages between Hindu women and Muslim men. Hadiya’s case has been taken up by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under an anti-terrorism framework.

The stereotype of Muslim men as sexually violent threats to the “purity” of Hindu women has a long history of India and is pronounced in the rhetoric of the Indian right. The Indian government has also used stereotypes about the aggression of Muslim men to deny the agency of Muslim women. For example, while the right-wing government cynically championed the recent Indian Supreme Court verdict against triple talaq (a form of instant divorce previously allowed to Muslim men under Indian law), it was actually Muslim women’s collective power which had brought about the decision.

As numerous feminists have pointed out, the painful irony of the Hindu right’s supposed championing of Muslim women is that these are the very politicians and organizations responsible for horrifying, and deeply misogynist, anti-Muslim threats and violence. The ruling party in India, the right-wing BJP, is known for using anti-Muslim hate speech, including one BJP party worker’s grotesque threats that Muslim women’s bodies should be disinterred and raped.

This is sadly not an empty threat, considering the widespread sexualized atrocities committed against Muslim women in the 2002 Gujarat riots, a series of brutal anti-Muslim attacks in which current Prime Minister Narendra Modi was likely complicit. A recent sting operation revealed right-wing Hindu leaders bragging on tape about spreading the myth of love Jihad and using false allegations of rape to terrorize Muslim communities and violate women’s autonomy.

From Family to Court

While all people over the age of 18 are legal adults under the Indian constitution, the legal system has often been a tool of maintaining patriarchal control.

Numerous Indian feminists have critiqued the social conception that a woman is the ward of her father, who passes her to a husband of the family’s choice. Local caste governing bodies, known as khap panchayats, are often criticized for upholding patriarchal control and limiting women’s constitutionally-entitled right to autonomous citizenship. But the legal system, too, is complicit, with recent decisions about rape reinforcing the idea that women cannot be raped by their husbands or deserve rape for pushing socially-defined boundaries. Furthermore, regulations of women’s autonomy and mobility are highly tied to religion and caste, with most honor killings actually being a murderous response to intercaste unions.

In Hadiya’s case, the Kerala High Court violated Hadiya’s rights by citing the”Indian tradition” of patriarchal family control, rather than abiding by the Indian tradition of robust constitutional protections for women and minorities.

The Supreme Court’s decision to allow Hadiya to return to her college is heartening. Still, it’s disturbing that the Court even allowed Hadiya to be imprisoned by her father in the first place; that it’s taking seriously allegations of “mental kidnapping” and “indoctrination” rather than accepting that an adult woman has the right to choose her religion; and that it took months for Hadiya’s voice to even be heard in court.

Most disturbing of all is the fact that, even after returning to her college, Hadiya may still not be permitted to meet her husband. The Supreme Court has placed her under the guardianship of the principal of her college, who has stated to the media that he has the power to decide who she meets — and he is unlikely to permit her to meet her husband. Meanwhile, the college’s housing, like many such dorms for women across India, has draconian rules, including mandatory 10:45pm lights out and only 1 hour daily access to cell phones.

As feminist group Pinjra Tod (“Break the Cages”) writes, this is one more example of how women’s educational institutions in India often reinforce patriarchal authority by severely restricting women’s mobility.

“I need the freedom to meet the person I love,” Hadiya said about the restrictive hostel rules. “I’m asking for my fundamental rights.”

“I want to remain true to my faith”

For many sitting reading about Hadiya’s case in the United States, it’s easy to dismiss the proceedings as the distant happenings of a “Third World” country where women’s rights aren’t as “developed” as in the United States. This, of course, is baloney. The regulation of women’s bodies is a fundamental form of political control across contexts, apparent too in American Islamophobia.

Appeals to white women’s supposed “purity” has long been a tactic of American racism. We see it in the historical use of alleged sexual sleights against white women as justifications for the lynching of black men. Most recently, we saw it in Dylann Roof’s use of white femininity to justify his horrific, racist 2015 murders.

We can see a similar sexualized racism against Muslim men today, as politicians appeal to sensationalized tales of sexual violence to fuel Islamophobic and anti-immigrant sentiment. And of course, anyone who witnessed the American Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is familiar with the racist and infantilizing claim (sometimes perpetuated by feminists) that Muslim women need the American government to save them. Just as right-wing Hindu groups campaign as champions of Muslim women while also sponsoring violence against them, the American government has historically “championed” Muslim women’s rights—while enabling abuse of them at home and dropping bombs on them abroad.

In the war for cultural supremacy, women’s bodies are made into battlefields. That’s why it’s even more important to listen when women like Hadiya, whom an entire state machinery has attempted to silence, speak.  Try as her father might to prevent Hadiya from speaking in open court on Tuesday, and despite the uncertainty of her future, Hadiya’s voice rang clear.

“I have endured mental harassment and been in unlawful custody for 11 months. I want to go back to my college and continue my education…I want to remain true to my faith, ” she told the court in Malayalam, translated by a lawyer. “I want freedom.”

Cover photo: Hadiya with her stethescope; from social media