Same room ≠ same space
universalidentity mentioned you in a post “NIA Masjid & Community Center”
I saw someone reply back to this as “same room =/= same space” (putawaytheglobe) . Actually our masjid has given women lots of options for spaces to pray in, or occupy. In some ways, we have superior space options to the brothers.
Dear Salma,
Asalaam aleikum! Thanks for your response to my comment. What I meant was that the back of the room is not the same space as the front of the room. When Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the Montgomery bus in 1955, she was saying that for blacks to be "allowed" on the same bus as whites was not sufficient; the same logic applies to the treatment of women within mainstream Muslim communities, and it is shocking that that still needs to be said almost sixty years later. I realize that this is a radical position and I don't expect most readers of the sideentrance blog to agree with me, but that was my gut reaction to the post about the NIA Masjid. I'm glad your mosque gives women so many options, and that you are satisfied there, but as long as there is enforced gender segregation, it wouldn't be a mosque I would feel comfortable in.
