“There’s a professor at Concordia and she identifies as a feminist orthodox woman. She said that secular feminists say she’s too religious to be a feminist, how can she identify as a feminist as an orthodox woman, but orthodox women will say ‘how can you identify as orthodox if you consider yourself a feminist?’ I actually started putting together a ‘zine to bridge that gap of communication between those two groups — the secular feminists and observant women. I had a really interesting conversation with one of the more observant women, who said that the problem is that both sides feel sorry for each other. I think that it’s true in many ways and maybe we need to take a step back and not feel sorry for the other side and just accept that they’re happy, but still have dialogue. It’s a really interesting perspective, because you don’t really think about it a lot. Especially as someone who feels more empowered, you tend to feel sorry for those who seem less empowered than you, but how often do we think about their agency and how happy they might be in their position.”

Category: People