S1E6 - Learning about Muslim Women from the Outside Artwork

Think Like A Lady Podcast

Welcome to Think Like a Lady! A podcast that enlightens tough issues about a woman’s place in a dominantly man’s world. Our discussions intend to stimulate thought provoking perspectives that are rarely the narrative in mainstream think tanks. From how the age of severe economic inequality has undermined women in the workforce to navigating the intricacies of the early suffragette movements who denied women’s rights to women of color.Let’s face it. Women are awesome. We’re not here to talk about us being awesome as just some empty platitude. We have some staggering data to prove it. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, as of 2019, there are now more women in medical school than men. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Education, women outpaced men in earning bachelor’s degrees by 1982, they earned more master’s degrees than men by 1987, and by 2006 they took up the majority of doctoral degrees conferred in the United States.Ok, but enough of us gloating. It seems that even though we’re just now beginning to dominate on so many frontiers, we’re still putting up with ridiculous challenges. From facing harassment in mosques, churches and other places of worship, and of course the workplace to the pink tax, Dua and Afroze talk about their own microcosmic experiences that lay bear on an intersection between their experiences as Muslim women who grew up with one foot in the west and the other foot in the east. Women have managed to conquer vast and numerous frontiers despite not being given the reigns to pioneer. It’s time we knocked men off of their high horse.

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Think Like A Lady Podcast

S1E6 - Learning about Muslim Women from the Outside

September 16, 2020 • Afroze & Dua • Season 1 • Episode 6

On this episode of our podcast we sit down with Carley Deardorff, an international communications strategist. Carley grew up in a small town in Texas in a majority white community. Post 9/11 she had no exposure to Muslims and her only source was the media that vilified Muslims. The impression that Islam is a patriarchal religion, where women have no rights, the tendency to conflate local cultures with the religion itself and the unforgiving attitudes towards Muslim societies in which “Radical Islam” is the default and “the moderate Muslim” is the alternative... when neither exist.

Carley discusses the minimal exposure she had with Muslims growing up. And not befriending one until she was in her master’s program. However, she had unlearned much of the propaganda well before then. Coming to the conclusion on her own that most Muslim women don’t feel oppressed and the definition of freedom simply means the choice of a woman to wear whatever she wants. She came to the conclusion that what she thinks freedom looks like for a woman looks different from what freedom may look like for a Muslim woman who covers. Her self realization of who Muslims are reinforces the fact that it does not require a token Muslim friend for a person to come to the conclusion that Muslims, particularly Muslim women are regular everyday people.

Due couldn't join us for this episode but will be back with us next week!