(RNS) The walls that segregate Muslim men from women inside many American mosques took a long time to go up, and it could be a long time before they come down.

Just ask Fatima Thompson, 44, who on Saturday (Feb. 20) led a group of 10 women and two men in a “stand-in” at the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., hoping to persuade leaders at the stately mosque on Embassy Row to remove a seven-foot partition that separated men (in front) from women (behind).

“Every woman should be able to stand with the congregation. That’s the correct way,” said Thompson, who converted to Islam 18 years ago.

For all the furor the Saturday protest was stirring, it proceeded relatively quietly. Rather than sit behind the 1990s-era partitions inside the mosque’s main hall, Thompson and the other women sat in the rear until the call to prayer went out. They moved-up and formed lines behind the men, and prayed without incident.

But moments after completing their prayer, a few women angrily told the protesters they had to leave, and two police officers who had arrived agreed.

Outside, Thompson said she debated a young man who supports the partitions, who said mosques needed partitions for the same reason unisex bathrooms need doors. “It’s sad that this young man compared the mosque to a bathroom,” Thompson said.

Thompson’s small demonstration is the latest effort by Muslim activists to reform conditions in American mosques they say are discriminatory and degrading to women.

Muslim prayers are typically led by male imams. Behind them are rows of men, and behind them, rows of women and children. But according to a 2001 report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in nearly two-thirds of American mosques, female worshippers pray behind a partition, or in balconies or rooms that are separate from the main congregation hall.

Some women say the separate spaces — sometimes filthy, often crowded with children — make it impossible to see and hard to hear the imam. The whole experience has led many women to stay home altogether, activists say.

Despite calls by CAIR and other major Muslim-American organizations to allow women access to the main prayer halls, or at least decent prayer spaces for women, few mosques seem to have reformed. It’s been a contentious issue within American Islam for several years, as disputes erupted inside — and sometimes outside — mosques in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Charlotte, N.C., Morgantown, W.V., and now Washington.

Thompson said she’s no rebel, and only decided to protest after calls and letters to the mosque’s director, Abdullah M. Khouj, went unanswered.

Khouj did not respond to a request for comment, but Fatima Goodwin, a mosque employee who also worships there, said before the protest that Thompson is acting alone. “Not a single woman that prays here has expressed disagreement with the partition,” said Goodwin. “On the contrary, all of the women that pray here want the partition because it gives us privacy.”

Indeed, female activists say some of their strongest resistance comes from women themselves, who say the separation protects them from male ogling or distraction. Pro-inclusion activists say those women should have access to separate space if they want it, but the choice should also be offered to women who want to be in the main hall.

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Some women say their second-class status isn’t confined to the mosque. The same mindset also allows or overlooks domestic violence and limits women’s access to education and jobs.

“As long as we segregate ourselves in the mosques, we will never be free in the world,” said Asra Nomani, a journalist who has tried, with mixed results, to improve conditions for women in her hometown mosque in Morgantown, W.V.

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Islam’s sacred text, the Quran, mentions nothing about partitions or separate female prayer spaces. But a hadith — one of the collected stories of the Prophet Muhammad that are a source of guidance — describes Muhammad organizing a communal prayer: “He put the men in the row closest to him, the children in a row behind the men, and the women in a row behind the children.”

Opponents say the lack of a mention within the Quran, and no reference to a barrier in the hadith, suggests that women should be praying in the main hall. During the Hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, men and women pray mixed. For centuries, they say, women prayed behind men without barriers until South Asian and Arab cultures sought to distinguish themselves from Western promiscuity.

“They think this somehow proves they’re more pious,” said Pamela Taylor, a board member of Muslims for Progressive Values, a grassroots group.

In the absence of reform from established mosques, some Muslims have left to form more egalitarian congregations. A smaller minority of U.S. Muslims have openly advocated for mixed-gender prayers, or even allowing women to lead prayers, as long as they are qualified.

While the walls are still up in the Washington mosque, Thompson said the event was a success because it showed there was support for taking them down, and that at least once, women prayed in the main hall.

“It was,” she said, “liberating.”