A Tale of Two Marriages

Ibegan to question the various motifs of the white feminist narrative and especially, the high value placed on ‘independence’, when I realized the pain and vulnerability of Kitty’s social situation in comparison with the level of love, respect, security, and sheer adoration that my Muslim mother Aisha enjoys. Contrary to white feminist narratives, surprise surprise: Koran-reciting Aisha is a thousand times more respected, empowered and secure than my white Quaker, university-educated friend Kitty. Kitty and Aisha were born within a week of each other in the year 1931. Like my mother, Kitty married young. She had three children and continued to live within ten or so miles of her birthplace all her lifelong. Her husband (also white English) was in a high status, high income profession as an architect. Speaking English as her mother tongue, with her husband’s status and income as back up, Kitty could engage on equal and perhaps class-privileged terms with everyone she encountered in her daily life, whether neighbors, the teachers at her kids’ school, health visits to doctor’s, or engaging with her colleagues at work as a secretary/bookkeeper. My mother’s life was very different. She did not engage on equal terms with the people in her milieu in the UK — not by a long chalk. <a href="https://medium.com/fourth-wave/a-tale-of-two-marriages-12f697b82bce">Read More</a>