Only fertile women are marriageable, she said.

At a lecture I recently went to, the female speaker - a well-known and well-loved Arab woman with a charming accent and persona - bluntly said that men should not marry women who could not have children. She cited a hadith to back up her argument.

Hadith hurling aside, I couldn't believe that there wasn't a peep of protest when she said that. (I was shaking my head, not approving of this at all, and was ready to fall out of my chair.) Her statement sounded so fleeting and inconsequential, as if it was just another day that we could decide who deserved to be loved and who didn't.

We were taught that marriage is "half of your deen": unions between two compatible and loving people has such a big impact on how we are able to practise other aspects our religion. I've written previously about how meeting a married couple with cerebral palsy changed my idea of marriage. That while we are so caught up in our social norms of what marriage should look like (with this much money, between people of such status, that they MUST have children, that it should last forever), meanwhile there are couples who quietly defy these expectations.

Besides the tiny details of the existence of male infertility, or how a man would know his future wife is infertile, or questioning the diagnosis of fertility itself, I think it was extremely pompous of the speaker to suggest that "infertile" women are not marriageable.

Conception, pregnancy and childbirth are not exact sciences. There are many things that modern obstetrics and gynaecology don't know about or don't want to acknowledge, seeing that it's a relatively recent science dominated by white men (as almost every form of Western knowledge is). For me as a Muslim mother, and going by my first-time experiences, there are also many things that I leave to God.

Allah knows what every female carries and what the wombs lose [prematurely] or exceed. And everything with Him is by due measure. (13:8)

That's my favourite Qur'anic verse pertaining to pregnancy, that a doula friend introduced to me. She used this verse to explain that from an Islamic point of view, unnecessary medical induction (which is often done as a matter of convenience for the OB's schedule, and which often ends in a Caesarian surgery) indicated a lack of knowledge or faith in God.

But apparently it's easy to be so black-and-white when it comes to deciding which women are marriageable and which are not.

10 telltale signs you’re most probably a Muslim mother

1. You have a book of foolproof baby names.
The Qur’an contains about 30 names for boys, suitable for any parents or in-laws from an Abrahamic faith. There’s only one ready name for a girl, though, so maybe you can consult a book on Islamic history for more ideas.

2. Your healthcare professional is wondering why you’re whispering into your newborn’s ear.
It’s called the adhan, and if you’re lucky you’ll get to hold your newborn babe as soon as he/she is born and let your voice be the first thing he/she hears.

3. You say “alhamdulilah” probably 50 times a day.
If this comes involuntarily out of your mouth every time someone burps, farts or sneezes, then you’ll be doing a lot of this with a baby or several children around.

4. You are expected to put something sweet on your baby’s mouth, make them bald, and sacrifice an animal.
One tradition called tahnik involves placing dates or honey on the lips of a baby within the first seven days of life. Another tradition involves shaving hair of a baby (or the alternative: snip off just seven hairs) after 40 days, weigh it and donate an equivalent amount of gold to charity. Yet another called aqiqa calls for the slaughter of a goat or cow to express gratitude for the birth.

5. Piggy plush toys are a source of discussion.
Imagine this: a well-meaning non-Muslim colleague gives a friendly, furry, stuffed toy pig as a present. You actually have a conversation (with yourself or someone else) about whether it’s okay for your kid to play with it. If you decide it’s okay, you might still have to deal with other Muslims telling you that your child shouldn’t put the toy in his mouth.

6. A discussion about whether it’s okay to let your children see you naked must include fiqh and not just revolve around issues of body-image and self-esteem.
One mother wrote on the internet about how she lets her sons see her real post-baby body so that they grow up with realistic images about women’s bodies, instead of thinking that the airbrushed photos in magazines are real women. I figure that someone that has seen your insides can probably see your outsides without being too shocked. Besides, a discussion about which parts of the mother’s body is visually off limits to her son is way too Oedipal for me.

7. “It’s sunnah” becomes your stock answer for extended breastfeeding.
Even though a minimum of two years of breastfeeding is recommended by the World Health organisation, many in our parents’ generation who were influenced by the aggressive marketing of infant formula companies may try to stop you from breastfeeding your child beyond six months, or up to several years. Luckily if you’re Muslim, you can always say the Qur’an indicates 30 months for pregnancy and breastfeeding (46:15).

8. You have to deal with equal numbers of people telling you that you can or cannot fast while breastfeeding.
Opinions are pretty divided about whether a pregnant and/or breastfeeding mother should or shouldn’t be breastfeeding in Ramadan. Luckily, whether you fast or not is only up to you and your baby. Just listen to your body.

9. You worry that your kid gets ham sandwiches at the day care.
If you live in a non-predominantly Muslim community or country, a ham and cheese sandwich is a totally normal snack. Be sure you let your caregivers know what your child should eat – or pack it along when you drop her off.

10. You feel simultaneously terrified and hopeful about Islamophobia.
Parenting can be the most joyful and the most scary experience of your life. From the moment your children are born, your greatest fear will be losing them. While being Muslim after 9/11 has not been easy, you’re hopeful that your children will be the ones to change the world for the better.

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This article was originally published on Aquila Style

Why you should talk about sex before marriage.

It’s time to clear the air and shame in our communities about sex education, sexual rights and chastity. By Sya Taha.

The shame that surrounds sex in the Muslim circles I’ve encountered sometimes makes me think that talking about it is equivalent to the act itself. (Well, guess what – I’m going to open my mouth-vagina anyway.)

Sex and intimacy between Muslim couples is often a topic that is saved for the marital covers – with lots of nervous giggles (often coming from all parties including my middle-aged premarital counsellor). Couples may find this difficult and embarrassing to talk about, even if they find it necessary.

Much of this comes from the expectation that our spouses should be virgins, with zero experiences of sex or even affection like holding hands or hugging members of the opposite sex (also known as “halal dating”). But somehow, the moment we are pronounced man and wife, we’re expected to go from zero to sixty in as many seconds. Foreplay – that’s like, kissing, right?

The reality is that many young Muslims are having all sorts of sexual experiences. Even the definition of that is highly subjective. An Indonesian friend who interviewed several young Muslims about their sexual experiences found that some of them did not consider oral sex or intimacy with members of the same sex to be “sex” per se. Meanwhile, the obsession for abstinence-only sex education and the strict definition on virginity as the absence of penis-vagina intercourse means that some Muslims are engaging in anal sex, and without the knowledge and tools to keep themselves safe.

Before getting married, it’s worth discussing with your partner if he/she is a virgin or that he/she has previous sexual experiences. There’s no shame if both of you want to marry only strict virgins, or that both of you are fine if one of you has had experience. The point is, both of you have to be okay with it. If you want to remain a virgin while your partner has experience, then great. But if you know a thing or two but expect your partner to be totally innocent and clueless, then you might want to evaluate your expectations. Likewise if you feel you have to hide your “past” from your partner.

I once had a Muslim friend tell me that sex education was not necessary: women can learn from their husbands on their wedding day. When I asked her where the young men would have to learn about sex from, she was silent but we both knew the answer: pornography. Needless to say, I think this double standard is highly damaging to both husband and wife.

Pornography is highly staged and doesn’t reflect the real-life spectrum of sexual acts and experiences. Trying out porn moves on your wedding night is not the way you want to empower your marriage. Unless you seek out specifically feminist pornography, much of what you can find on the internet also focuses mostly on male pleasure and universalises ideas about what men and women like. Everyone is different and likes different things – it’s a lot better to get what you want and give what your partner wants.

There’s a dark side to talking about sex, too. Unfortunately, in many of our societies, any kind of sex-related act is seen as the ultimate lack of piety – including rape. This happened to a Muslim friend. She was raped by a then-suitor. The guy then insisted on marrying her, threatening to shame her as a “loose woman” if she refused to marry him. Eventually the threat of marring her family’s name overwhelmed her and she ended up marrying him. (Predictably – and thankfully – she is filing for divorce.)

Recently, I read a blog post written by a young (married) Muslim woman that talked about what to do if one wasn’t a virgin, without unpacking the concept of virginity or chastity. Predictably, she said we had to make lots of du’a, but what I found more distressing was that she conflated rape and consensual sex as being unlawful sexual acts in the eyes of God.

Rape can happen to anyone because it’s the rapist’s fault – hijab or no hijab, halal dating or not. Rape is an unspeakable crime and it’s not something for the victim to be ashamed about. There are many Muslims who see a previous sexual assault as a loss of virginity and carry the shame with it into their marriage. (These issues must be worked through with a licensed therapist.) But virginity and chastity are two different things.

Sex, on the other hand, should be consensual. More than that, it should be wildly enthusiastic. With this in mind, rape can also happen within a marriage – though many may think otherwise. Marital rape is when you do not consent to sexual intercourse. As a partnership of mercy and affection (30:21), marriage should be a safe space for mutual love, pleasure and respect, not for one party to mindlessly demand rights from the other, or to unquestioningly do something they don’t really want to, in the name of obligation.

Testing for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) is also important. I can’t stress this enough, as it’s part of the things to consider before you commit to each other. You don’t want to be surprised with symptoms a few weeks after your wedding. We often think to test for major diseases like HIV/AIDS, but others like syphilis can be non-deadly but equally damaging (or at the very least, annoying). If one of you does have an STD, you will have to think about what you will do – would you treat it first and then marry? Or is it a deal-breaker? For common and incurable STDs like human papilloma virus (HPV), will you agree to use condoms and dental dams for the rest of your life, or are you okay with contracting it and learning to keep the virus under control?

Sure, the conversation is going to be uncomfortable at first. Many of us are not used to even using the proper words for our genitals (personally, in my native language, the words feel obscene and vulgar; proper texts use the Arabic equivalents instead). Many of us might grow up with shame around masturbation, which means that we may not know what feels good for us.

But at the risk of sounding cliche, communication is the most important tool. So starting slow and experimenting with different positions, places, props and moods can be a wonderful time for practising your sexual communication skills in your marriage. Open and matter-of-fact communication can also help in times of stress or bad health, as a rejection of sex doesn’t have to leave you feeling hurt. If you like wildly different things, communication means that you can find a compromise or a middle way.

The good news is that sex gets better the more you can talk to your partner about it, especially if you can let each other know what you’re enthusiastic about and can appreciate what your partner likes. Safe and healthy sex gets better with time. Have fun!


This post was originally published at Aquila Style

Pregnancy and midwifery: Between modernity and indigenous knowledge

After a long hiatus of starting a new job and growing a human being (both equally hard work), I'm back and feeling more eager to write, especially since I have more free time now (yay for maternity leave).

The Malays have a saying, setiap anak ada rezekinya (lit. each child brings its own provisions). Needless to say, that these provisions come from God. I always thought this was an excuse for couples to not space their births and have as many children as biologically possible, ruining their health and finances.

That is, until the Dutchman and I decided to have a child. It was May of last year, and I was still freelancing and looking for a permanent job (in the bleak economy of the NL). I had always planned to have a kid right after I signed a nice contract with decent health benefits. Seeing how companies are not likely to hire a (visibly) pregnant woman, I figured that if I was going to be pregnant, I'd rather be paid for it.

In the end, the job front seemed to be going nowhere so I figured that there are just some things we can plan for, and some things that we cannot. And lo and behold, a month after I got pregnant, I also got a full-time job that I can work at from home, where I can write and edit -- pretty much the perfect job ever :) So I've definitely rethought setiap anak ada rezekinya since then.

In preparation for what will happen in the next few weeks, I've been reading a bunch of really interesting books, and I feel really lucky to have stumbled upon the natural birth movement, by chance. Like many others, my idea of labour and birth came from television -- a highly medicalised, interventionist and masculinist version. That these human processes are inherently dangerous and require active management by obstetricians and machines. God forbid one hired midwives (possibly the oldest profession ever): those nasty, dirty, uneducated and foolish women.

Even as a feminist, I never gave a second thought to this. Medical and technological advancement is good, right? Women should not have to go through the pain of childbirth (which are variously framed as a punishment for Eve eating the apple, or as a potential channel for martyrdom) so go ahead and use all these forms of pain relief available today!

Until my mother told me two stories: one about how my siblings and I were born by Caesarian section, and another about a midwife named Fatimah who worked in the kampung, or village, where she grew up.

Our births

Due to concerns about her high blood pressure, all three of us were born by C-section around 37 or 38 weeks (that's why I know I'm probably not going to give birth at this time because she didn't go into spontaneous labour yet). No one else was allowed into the operating theatre, and my mother underwent general anesthesia. She remembers only being dropped off at the hospital by my father, who came back the next day when she woke up.

Although the hospital was pro-breasfeeding in theory (evidenced by their constant screening of films to new mothers), things were different in practice. My mother recalls the social pressure to choose the kind of formula milk to feed us with (Australian milk powder being viewed as more superior than Malaysian milk powder).

At night, babies were sent to the nursery instead of being roomed in with her. Because babies definitely needed night feeds, they were probably being fed formula milk in the nursery -- something my mother was not even aware of. Not being able to nurse regularly, she had problems with demand and supply, causing her a lot of pain from engorgement a few days after birth with one of us.

Three C-sections was the limit in those days (circa 80s), because of the risks of such major abdominal surgery.

Bidan Fatimah

She was about 40 years old, and she was a midwife for the area of Kampung Melayu (area from the borders of Geylang to Jalan Eunos). My mother recalls that she was friendlier and more pleasant than another older midwife who also worked in the area at that time. She was medically trained and carried about a bag with all her equipment, during her prenatal visits (of which women had only 1 or 2 during their entire pregnancy).

Before urbanisation and the migration of most of Singapore's population into high-rise apartments built by the HDB (Housing Development Board) in the 70s and 80s (great read about that phenomenon here: Part I and Part II), my mother lived in a wooden kampung house in Jalan Ubi (now Eunos Crescent). Her mother gave birth to 11 children (9 survived) in that home, with the help of a midwife). My mother recalls that her eldest sister also gave birth to 3 of her 4 children in that same home, in the 70s.

source

Kampong houses were made of wood, and had metal grills on the windows. A favoured position for birth was to kneel on a mat and hold on to the grills. This way the birthing woman could stay upright, helping her baby descend and still support herself.

I loved hearing these stories from my mother. In part, they helped me to cement my decision to give birth at home. Not a popular decision, surprisingly even here, where I thought that a third of women gave birth at home (according to my midwife, the figure is more around 5-10% today). We've had to deal with well-meaning family members suggesting, hinting and asking why we don't want to birth in the hospital (Dutch directness seems to fly out the window in this case, I wonder why).

I think it's safe to birth at home in NL, by the way (duh, why would I do it if I didn't think so). All pregnant women on basic insurance automatically get midwifery care (and I've met the nicest Dutch people -- who knew they were all working as midwives!) and only get transferred to an ob/gyn at the hospital if there are medical complications. A friend in such a situation told me that she longs to go back to the care of midwives, because the level and quality of care in a hospital just doesn't match the one-on-one attention at a midwife clinic.

When we decided to birth at home, one of the midwives from the clinic came to inspect our house and make sure that it's suitable. Since we live on the first floor, with one staircase leading to our house, it's considered convenient enough in the case of a hospital transfer (we also have to ensure that the hallway is clear). Home birth is also only possible if one lives within 15 minutes of a hospital -- and we live 5 minutes away. To me, it makes total sense to stay as long as possible in a comfortable and familiar place (also where one is immune to germs!).

As a feminist I support women to make their own choices about where and how they want to birth. It's a human right, according to this film, although enforceable only in the EU. My own principles lead me to favour less intervention by the dominant modern science of obstetrics, and more empowerment to exercise what the indigenous knowledge of my own culture and that of others'.

More on indigenous knowledge for pregnancy diets, supplements, and birth stages in upcoming posts!