Muslim women have always been the recipient of various intersecting oppressions. From religious patriarchy to western feminism, everyone wants to dictate how they should be. Islamist men forcing them into hijabs, western women forcing them out of it. The question is, what about their own choice?

Muslim women experience both misogyny and Islamophobia from the western world. Women of color have always had a few extra barriers in the way of their liberation – which was discrimination from the whites, and fighting through their own cultural and internalized misogyny. And it even gets worse for them when they're Muslim. Because apparently, the west knows better.

It's strange how often people try to show their 'care' for Muslim women's claimed persecution by embarrassing them. By making them look like they're kids who can't choose for themselves – through gaslighting and patronizing.

One thing the west must remember is, they're not the saviors of Muslim community, especially the women. Muslim women have been fighting this battle of their own for hundreds of years, and acting like they don't know what they're doing and taking away the credit of their struggles is peak colonialist behaviour.

What we should be doing is amplifying their voices instead of speaking over them. Listen to them. White feminists do not speak for them, neither should they. Especially when said feminists look at them as some object of fascination.