Naima B. Robert – Can Muslim Women Really Have it All REAL TALK

I I watched one of your interviews, and

you said that women

were lied to when they were told that

they can have it all.

Why did he say that?

Ah, done with it. I'm so done. I'm

so, so, so done. The thing is,

I

this is new. Okay? Because if you've been

following me for any length of time, you'll

see that, I've always been talking about

empowerment

in my own way. Right? Yep. It's never

been a case of

get the Muslim women out there. We need

to be out there. We need to be

here. We need to be there. Representation.

I'm not really I'm not really about that

life. Yeah. But I am about

empowering Muslim women with a sense of self

worth and self confidence

and not allowing other people's BS

to get in here to tell you stuff

that is not from the deen and not

from Islam and nothing to do with what

Allah wants from you. So I've always been

about that.

I was invited to a marriage,

seminar.

Yeah. And they were actually it was interesting.

It was it was a marriage seminar, but

it was about gender equality in Islam. And

I was on the panel. There was another

imam, and then there was 2 other influencers,

and they were millennials.

And we're having a conversation about gender, I

guess, so it made sense, you know, that

that that kind of the conversation went that

way.

But these young women are not married. They

would like to get married. But as they

said,

they can't deal with the toxic masculinity

of Muslim men.

They talked about misogyny. They talked about the

patriarchy.

All the buzzwords. Right? I

was profoundly bothered by this because

I just I could hear how they sounded

from the man's perspective.

I could I could hear them.

If I was a a Muslim man, I

could hear how they sounded. Right? They sounded

like

man bashing,

you know, male hating feminists. Okay? No cap.

And I thought to myself,

whatever it is that you're watching,

reading,

studying is poisoning your mind

about men.

And

this is going to be difficult for you

if you actually want to find a life

partner and form a family

and and and and actually kind of have

a Muslim life, if that makes sense. Just

a normative Islamic life. Right?

How will you accept that your father is

your wakil?

How will you accept that? Isn't that the

patriarchy?

Yes.

How will you accept that you need to

have a waleed to get married? Isn't that

the patriarchal control again?

How will you accept that you must obey?

Oh my god. Obey. Oh,

obey my husband. Oh my.

She said, oh, word.

How will you accept that? Isn't that toxic

masculinity? Isn't that misogyny? Isn't that all of

that stuff that those people are talking about?

So at that stage, at that point, I

said, you know what?

We need to be careful

because what we're doing is we're allowing ourselves

to be drawn along a path

that is already turning out badly for these

people.

Already

you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't

know where Yes. See the TikToks and the,

you know, the women.

Right? If they're older women, they're complaining. Where

have all the men gone? If they're young

women, they're saying, men, ain't she? You know,

men attract.

You men who do.

And I I was like, as Muslim women,

we need to be smarter than this. Okay?

And but the thing is, you already see

it. I'm already seeing Muslim girls making TikToks

about no man can tell me about this,

and no man has got the right to

say x y zed to me.

That is the conditioning.

That's the programming.

That's that's what's happening right now. Okay? And

so to in answer to your question

about having it all,

yes. We were lied to. Women were lied

to in the sixties. Okay? And we are

still being lied to today.

There's always going to be

a payoff. There's always going to be a

price to pay for whatever it is that

you want.

And I think that that whole thing of

you can have it all on your own

time, how you want it,

it's just nonsense. Doesn't work. And we're seeing

the the the like I said, we are

seeing the effects of that now. And I

think if I think if we're fair, Joanna,

I think many of us have seen potentially

already in our own communities

where

families

or society

told women

to study for 10 years

and have a career first. Right?

And then find a good husband. And how

many of our sisters

in their mid thirties

and and and maybe they started looking late

20 hard. 30

it's really hard. This is real, guys.

And those poor women, you know, lovely women,

beautiful women, intelligent women

practicing.

You know, they they want the family.

They want the husband. They want the children.

But the choices they made

now mean that that may not happen for

them

because of those choices. And, again,

it's I believe it's because

people thought that we had all the time

in the world that we can get to

do everything on our time. And when we

are ready, the right man will come, and

he'll be there. And I think a lot

of women are finding that that's just not

the case. And

on the one hand, you can get angry

about that and say, but why why would

these men not marry an older sister? It's

not fair. You know? Why why do they

discriminate against older sisters, etcetera? Right? Why do

they discriminate against, you know, I you know,

I'm a good person. I'm a good woman,

and I get it.

And I'm not defending that. But what I

am saying is that women

realize the reality of the situation.

You're not in charge here. You can't shame

men into wanting to marry older women when

naturally, biologically, and maybe just preference wise, they'll

prefer someone younger to start a family with.

Is it our place to shame them for

the results of our choices?

Even though we didn't know we were making

that choice at the time, and I know

I know I know.

Many sisters will not like that I'm saying

this. Already sisters are not happy that I'm

saying this. Okay? I get it.

But

I don't want to sell fairy tales to

people. I don't think it's honest

If we realize that something's happening in our

community

as a result of ideas that we have

gained from somewhere, we need to call it

out because I I remember I said you

know, I in one of my interviews, I

said, like, this is not a fairy tale.

And people had an issue with that. But

I I'm sorry. If you if you've been

any amount of time in this life,

you know

choices have consequences.

I've made choices,

and I've paid for those.

Just like you're gonna make choices, and you're

gonna pay the price for those choices, It

isn't a fairy tale. There are real world

issues here that we have to start facing

up to and and get real about if

we are gonna get the outcome that we

want. Some of us may never get that

outcome

because of the choices that we made. And

sometimes we have to accept that. You know?

So, yes, it's great

to lift and uplift people. It's important for

our own well-being.

But when it comes to anything to do

with others,

I don't think that it's honest to feed

into people's fantasies.

I think it's better you give them a

dose of reality

so at least they can see how the

land really lies

and make decisions

based on that rather than you fed them

all the stuff, you built them up to

this place, and they think that there's you

know, they they believe a narrative that's not

true, but they feel great about it. And

they're making decisions from that place, and they're

not gonna see the results that they want

because reality

smacked them in the face.