Just over a month ago, a group of Muslim women and I strode through the marble courtyard of the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C., just down the street from the vice president's official residence on the exclusive Massachusetts Avenue, lined with embassies and mansions. "Down!" a man barked.
"Down where?" responded Fatima Thompson, 45, an American-Muslim convert who lives in the city. "In the grave?"
In fact, the man wanted the women and me to go through a side door designated for women and climb down a stairwell into a basement space reserved for "sisters." It's beside the men's restroom.
My stomach turned. My son, Shibli, 8, was with us, and he had more rights than we as women. We were intent on rejecting second-class status. To me, it amounts to gender apartheid. Our goal was to walk through the front double doors designated for "brothers" and pray in the forbidden space of the opulent musallah, or main hall, of the mosque. [USA TODAY] Read more
