i do not need to be saved by femen

i saw this article on my twitter feed today, and i thought "yes!  this.  totally this."

if you haven't heard of the group femen yet, i'll leave you to use an internet search engine to find out more about them.  let's just say that much of what you'll find is NSFW.  it's a form of protest that uses nudity to gain attention. and that it does.

their latest protest is against "islamism", in some sort of attempt to save muslim women. it's a protest in support of tunisian protestor amina tyler, who posed topless to protest against honour killing, and has since been out of contact with femen.  but the protest slogans painted on the topless bodies of young, white women are coming across as an bigoted and imperialist attack.

there have been plenty of muslim women speaking back via social media, including the twitter hashtag #muslimahpride.  i love this one that appears in the article:

“Only if Femen and Richard Dawkins would come to rescue us from our oppressive men and religion” said no muslim woman ever! #muslimahpride
— ﺻﺒﻴﺤﺔ ﻣﺤﻤﻮﺩ (@SabihaMahmoud) April 4, 2013

and this:

We don't accept the stereotypes enforced on us by the west. Nor do we need #Femen to become our collective mouth piece. #MuslimahPride
— Sana Adnan (@ConfusedEmpath) April 5, 2013

and for me, that second one comes to the heart of the matter.  i love that muslim women are speaking out and being visible instead of being spoken about and spoken for by other women who think they know best about liberation and freedom of others.  from looking at the femen protest, you'd never know that there were muslim women activists working in their countries to fight against honour killings and others crimes against women; muslim women fighting for the right to drive and to work, to achieve and be counted.

and from looking at those protests, you could never tell that some of the worst problems muslim women face are as a result of invasion, occupation, drone strikes and bombs, carried out and/or funded by the west.  no, the femen protesters are working in a paradigm wherein the west can only be liberators, muslim men can only be oppressors, and muslim women can only be helpless victims.

it's hardly surprising that muslim women are saying they don't need this kind of support.  because it really doesn't help.