Struggling, struggling, struggling, during this wonderful time of the year

Salam Aleykam and Ramazan Mubarak,

Indeed, Ramazan is the most wonderful time of the year. Fasting forces us to give up all of the pleasures of this world and focus on performing the prayers and deeds that will help determine our fate in the next world. Fasting is purifying for us both physically and spiritually; it restrains our desires, removes the possibility of excess, and encourages charity, a sense of community, and general feelings of goodwill and piety. And of course, it’s so much easier to do all of these things because Shaitan is locked up.

So why do I feel so miserable? This should be the happiest Ramazan of my life, since I have someone to share it with, a source of support to me as I am a source of support to him. And in that way, it is wonderful. This morning, after J. had turned off one alarm and I had turned off the other, as my still-sleeping body was falling back towards the bed, J. caught me half-way and pushed me up again. “Come on, mama,” he said. “I’ll get up now, too.” Usually I get up first and make breakfast and then I wake J. up when the food is ready, but he literally held me up to make sure we’d get up on time. If I was alone, I’m pretty sure I would have slept in, I felt so tired. But with J. here with me, marital teamwork ensured that sleep didn’t overcome us.

So, in that way, this Ramazan is very special. But, like last Ramazan, I’m feeling so emotional at times that I’ll just burst into tears at least once a day. I know that part of it is because of low blood sugar, and that will happen to me any time during the year when I wait too long between meals. I become an emotional wreck, and when I feel that coming on when I’m not fasting, it’s easy enough to fix with a granola bar or glass of orange juice. But now, with these almost sixteen hour fasts, relief is always hours away.

It doesn’t help that my best friend, cigarettes, are also forbidden to me. That’s gotta be where half this over-emotionality is coming from. InshAllah I’ll be able to kick that disgusting habit for good this time. J. hates it so much, and I always said I’d quit when we got married, but then it was “I have to quit drinking first, I can’t do both at the same time”, then, “I can’t right now, I have too many assignments due and I can’t afford the extra stress” then “I have exams, I can’t quit during exams” and then it was “I’ll quit during Ramazan, it’ll be easier then...” So inshAllah this time I can actually do it. For those reading, please make dua that this poor slave can pull through the cravings long enough to break the habit. At least when I was quitting drinking, I had smoking to fall back on.

And then, of course, there is the whole family issue. Missing them, but also resenting them, and still feeling so much anger towards my father, an anger that is just too brutal to deal with during this holy month. Yesterday when I tried to sleep, I dreamt a sad dream of my family. When I woke up, I cried, and then I was overcome with anger.. not just at my father, but at all men, and all the violence they do, and everything they get away with, and the justifications for all of those things that people just... accept! As if it makes any sense, as if you can ever really justify these things, the pure violence of a beating or the softer violence of the status quo, the one that says that men are this way and women are that way, so men can or must do this because it is natural for them and a woman who takes issue with it somehow just confirms the stereotypes that breed this supposed disobedience in the first place.... I just can’t stand it.

This is very, very hard for me when I see things in Islam that just don’t make sense to me. And I don’t mean the stuff that bigots always bring up when lambasting Islam, like the four wives and “beat your wife” thing. I disagree with polygamy for these times because I don’t see it as necessary in a first world country, but for third world countries and the time of the Prophet s.a.w., it makes perfect sense. Likewise, I know that “beating the wife” is a symbolic gesture to express displeasure, and of the twenty five different meanings of the Arabic word, “beat” is much better expressed as “drive away” than “abuse”.

But there are still some things that trouble me... namely the idea that men can just do whatever they want and it’s okay, but women aren’t allowed to, any woman who does want to do such things must not be a normal woman, because it’s somehow considered unnatural for a woman to desire the same things as a man.

I know that so much of it is tied in to my experiences and what I grew up with, having my dad cheat on my mom all the time, the way he would actually brag about it and in his smug way, try to justify it, and encourage my brothers to fornicate too. And the constant threats against me, the outlandish accusations, his need to constantly remind me that women are whores and women only exist to please men, and some women are destined to be whores but Muslim women are only for their husbands...

Of course it made me hate the idea of sex, and loathe men in general, which sucked because I actually get along better with guys. I feel like we have more in common, but such friendships were only possible when I could de-sex them, a symbolic castration that let me consider the possibility that men had hearts and weren’t just walking wangs propelled by that fat sense of entitlement and the piggidy sex-greed they all seem to have.

Honestly, I consider myself a lesbian who fell in love with a man. I was and am physically attracted to women, but not emotionally, which makes it easy not to get involved in that stuff. When I realized I was attracted to J., it definitely was the shock of a lifetime. Especially because he’s such a manly man. And I love that about him! I consider him the epitomy of masculinity, and I find it extremely attractive. I really am incredibly, incredibly attracted to him, and our relationship is quite traditional when it comes to gender roles. My friends tend to be surprised by that, since I’m such an angry feminist, but it really works for us.

And yet, honestly, I don’t consider myself completely female. With J, I am very womanly by the standard definition, but in my interactions with others, my general attitude is much more “manly”, at least by the standards of hegemonic masculinity. When it comes to J. and my cats (cats in general actually, and other adorable animals), I’m want to gush about their incredible cuteness, something I’ll probably end up doing with babies over time, although I’m just now starting to see children as something other than expensive nuisances. I faun over J. and am always attendant to his every desire, I’m the perfect host when guests are over, I take responsibility for other people’s emotions too often, I’m a very good cook and baker, I’m very clean, and I make an effort with my appearance. These are considered womanly qualities. But I’m also very hard-working and ambitious, I have a horrible temper, a fierce determination to succeed, excellent critical reasoning skills, a very strong sense of justice and courage, and I struggle to keep my gaze lowered when I see a very attractive woman go by in a low-cut dress. Aren’t those considered manly qualities?

Being split as I am in this gender continuum, what does this make me? Anatomically, I’m female, and when it comes to love, I definitely feel more female, because I don’t believe that men are capable of loving the way that women do. Yet I feel more like a man than a woman at times, but I suffer all of the disadvantages that women do. What does this make me? If I have the love of a woman and the sexual desire of a man, why is it that I am supposed to accept that men have higher sex drives, the idea that justifies male promiscuity but calls it natural? Why are men promised such sexual rewards in heaven, but women aren’t promised anything of that nature? Let me tell you, so long as my husband is chaste, I only have eyes for him, but if he was to go whore around, I would want the same option to do that myself. As it is, I keep my gaze lowered because it’s the right thing to do and I respect my husband too much to do otherwise. But if he were to betray my love and seek pleasure elsewhere, I would want to do the same. Not because I can’t keep it in my pants, but because I don’t see how it’s okay for men and not okay for women.

I’m really struggling with these things right now. I’m so angry and confused. And add guilt to that, because it’s Ramazan, and I know that I’m not supposed to be feeling this way. Instead of feeling the warmth and peace of Ramazans past, I’m feeling very angry and bitter, and I’m unsure if my fasts will even be accepted, for all this negativity I’ve got inside me. I know that I’ve got to deal with the family stuff, it’s probably the only way I can make sense of these questions I have now. But it hurts, and I guess it’s easier for me to latch on to the wider issue of gender relations and the legal and holy laws governing them, rather than confront the very complicated feelings I have about my family, and especially my father. Who was the cruel one who dug up my graveyard? I could really do without these ghosts, right now.