Summery of "Reform: Not Ignorant, Not Helpless by Lorraine Ali"

Joshua Daniels

September 12, 2013

English 150-26

            In an effort to change the perception held by Americans of Muslim women, Lorraine Ali writes to set the record straight and to make all aware that Muslim women are more than just “timid creatures with no voices.”  She explains how people of Western civilizations tend to associate all Muslim women with the oppressed groups that we are most familiar with in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and post revolutionary Iran.  Ali’s motive for writing this story is to send a message to Americans and the World that many are misinterpreting the power within the Muslim woman.  No longer is she hiding behind a mask, but she’s out being a leader among women and requesting the stereotypical perceptions to change.

            Muslim women are motivated and qualified to more than what many people may realize.  They can be found in many professional positions, such as medicine and law, regardless of how their nations or our nation may perceive them.  They are becoming very ambitious and, as the article mentions, “very sensitive about how they’re depicted on either side.” It is apparent that these women are up and coming.  They are intelligent and determined to move forward individually and collectively. Muslim women are changing and so should the thoughts towards them.  Ali simply calls it, reform.

Works Cited

Ali, Lorraine. "Reform: Not Ignorant, Not Helpless."  Newsweek/Daily Beast

11 Dec. 2005. Web. 12 Sept. 2013.