Merve Kavakçı - the former Turkish politician - claimed the modern evaluation of the situation of Muslim women was inherently biased. She believes there is a Western assumption that Muslim women are subjugated, which is attributed to Islam - a non sequiteur in her view, since while Muslim women do need to be liberated, it is not from the religion but from their indigenous culture. This is a crucial point: it's worth noting, for example, that female circumcision - the biggest stain on Islam's reputation - is predominant in Egypt, a secular country, and virtually non-existent in Saudi Arabia. The distinguishing factor is the different cultures in both countries.

She should have been more mindful of the reasons why Islam is seen as
oppressive by non-Muslims - she failed, for instance, to tackle the question of whether the Qur'an and the hadith may have inherent qualities or messages that lend themselves to a male dominant interpretation, a monopoly she herself acknowledged. Women from the very beginning of Islam participated in military combat and were given rights of divorce, alimony and so on, but such scriptural verses which compromise women's credibility in testimony, raise issues surrounding women's inheritance rights in addition to controversial texts in the Qur'an cannot be ignored in any debate about whether Islam subjugates women

A fifth-century favorite form of entertainment will be performed as Kisa Dance presents “Welcome to My Harem” on Saturday, July 12, in Memorial Park.
Kisa Dance, featuring 20 Kisa Girls with veils, will open with a dance to an opera in the free program at 7 p.m. at the band shell. The two-hour show features Egyptian, Spanish, cabaret, sword, zill and tribal dances, many set to popular music.
“There’s even a fan dance,” Carol La Bau said.

[...]

According to La Bau, traditionally, the belly dances were performed by Arab Islamic women, primarily for their own amusement and exercise, and were largely ignored by men. But outsiders viewed the dances and learned them, and when they traveled from Persia to Egypt after the fifth century, they continued to perform them. Belly dancing became public entertainment, often performed by Gypsies. The dance soon grew to be a favorite of Western performers.

It is easy to mock the word "fusion", but it is the only word Atlas feels comfortable with in terms of describing her own music. "People say, 'Oh, fusion, eurgh, this is a new thing, and we don't like it,'" she says stonily. "No, actually - it's not a new thing. It's what the Rahbani brothers were doing in the 50s, 60s and 70s, trying to make a kind of union between Arabic music and western music. It's not that I'm here going, 'Oh, I'm going to do this, and mix this with that, and hey, isn't it new and punky and original?' No, it's not, it's been happening way before. And this fusion is natural to me, because that's what I am."

Tip: Hit the local scene first. Bands tend to stick together on a regional basis. Just make sure any unsolicited friendship requests include a brief note introducing your band and asking for their support.

Keep things fresh with a weekly blog post, FYI bulletins for general band news, and a concert calendar. Mixing things up in terms of the music available on the page can help too. Although it's tempting to upload as much of your catalog as possible, it might prove advantageous to release tracks in smaller bunches. Keep the content moving.

Back in the 90s, for example, the DC PR shops told us that all we had to do was call everyone we didn't like "religious political extremists." They had focus-grouped this and other such phrases, had power point presentations and contracts with major interest groups and the Democratic Party. Problem solved! No one actually had to do (or pay for) the hard work of learning enough about the religious right to be able to make sound, fact-based judgements about what was important; what was not; how to make an effective argument; or develop effective means of communicating it.

I think recent history has born us out, as the Democratic Party has had to scramble to recover from the widely held perception that the party was unfriendly, if not actually hostile to people of faith. This perception was partly due to many years of pounding unfair characterizations of the party by the Religious Right and their allies in the GOP. But it was also created by this particularly counter-productive response from the party and related interest groups.

Knowing the difference between bigotry and fair criticism is an integral part of the task of contending with the religious right.

Some of you know that, instead of attended the PA Folktours Belly Dance camp, I attended the Wiscon Science Fiction convention, of which I've written about here before.

The accounting of the "trolling" at this year's Wiscon has had many tellings; the one at Alas, a blog seems to be the best of the lot.

What happened, in a nutshell, is that some young lady choose to mock Certain People at Wiscon on a fairly large online forum. This mocking was, in the main, for not matching up to mainstream ideas of looks. She took images of people of "a size", and sought to mock these women, sought to degrade them, for a joke. She attended their panels just so she could have fuel for her fire, words to add to how she saw them as pathetic. Indeed, there are a ton of issues surrounding this to unpack, so I'm going to take a tack some have not, and in the meantime, express a piece of gratitude about the Con.

The many, many stereotypes about Feminists are stupid. And one Moss invoked in the the second half of her "report" was that Feminists are single-mindedly supporting Hiliary Clinton. She went so far as to complain when, at one panel, there was reasoned and intelligent discussion about the campaign, not marred by partisan bickering! How dare these reasonable feminists ruin her mocking!

Feminists are not brainwashed. We are not all of a type, and much of what happens at places like this is that the various styles and ideas about Feminism come together, and talk, and work forward. It's true, I suspect, that the fact that it's also Fandom mitigates some aspects, yet I can also say that this is true in many of the places and groups I worked in with I was in the movement on a more active basis. Just as in the "belly dance" community, I've been accepted, and rejected, so too is the Feminist community not all of one type.

That Moss saw Feminists -- saw Women -- being reasonable, and intelligent, and accepting differences, blew her "thesis" (shambling mess that it was) out of the water. That she saw all types of people and bodies there, she expected. But I don't think she at all expected them to be intelligent, and rational, and to be willing to be strong, and fight back. That they would use their voice to call shame to her escapade, and to show her the errors of her ways.

Moss shows that Objectification isn't always about "sexy people". Just as Jim Crow America reinforced the Objectification of African-Americans, so too do acts like this render people with non-mainstream bodies into Objects of derision. Acts like this try to re-enforce the stereotypes that separate and bind us all. Certainly, women who dance regularly in public have seen every evidence of this.

By not being a meeting of stereotypes, and being a meeting of open minds and brilliant ideas, I am grateful to Wiscon. And by finding a voice to their anger, and using in to change the outcome of this morass, I give honor to those who have been done ill by this act.

And for those who wonder why I went to a "Feminist Science Fiction" convention, I say to you -- because of that last paragraph.

I'll be writing more about my experiences there, and soon.

Yes, my focus was to video the musicians -- they rarely get anything specific to them, and it's grand to have all that music available to dance to! Also, I was quite tuckered out by that point, so not only did I not dance, but many others were tuckered out by that point as well. In fact, you can hear many of them in the background...sorry about that. :(

My friend Joel dropped me a note and asked why I was asking people to post a deposit (to be returned at the end of the summer). It felt wrong to him. I wrote back,

When I do a non profit seminar (they're always free), the number of people who say, "yes I'm coming" and the number of people who come is not the same.

So, if I have room for ten, do I do a seminar for eight, or do I book 12 seats and play airline seat manager for the day?

I have no doubt, none, that if it were free, at least one person wouldn't show.

That got me thinking about free music, free samples and other free interactions. They're different. Paying a dollar for a song isn't expensive to anyone who pays $3 for a cup of coffee. The dollar isn't about expense, it's about selection and choice and commitment.

There is no commitment, one way or the other, for free. If applying to college were free, the number of schools people would apply to would approach infinity--yet the cost of the application is trivial compared to the cost of tuition.

Free costs.  If people aren't committing something -- energy, time, money -- they tend to stray.  I can't ask for a deposit (not giving it back would do even more damage to my rep), so I'm simply going to charge a fair, non-undercutting fee.   The nay-sayers will balk, yet I'll get the students, and the class, that will be awesome!

What say you? I know "don't teach for free" is the Conventional Wisdom, but do you find it to be true? Is there another approach you think might work better for me?