You can think what you like. I’ve heard pretty well every rationale for purdah you can imagine, and if someone has a new one I’d certainly listen to it with an open mind. If you have some evidence that my opinion is the product of ignorance, trot it out, otherwise you can damn well keep your assumptions about my intelligence to yourself.
And FTR, I have no problem with hijab, either. There are ways to dress fully modestly that do not require a woman to immure herself under a blanket.
I also think that it is rather blinkered to look at head-to-toe purdah as some sort of individual personal choice, without considering the status and treatment of women in societies that encourage or require it. Without exception, those societies relegate women to second-class citizenry, and to me the burqa / abaya /chador is a clear symbol of that second-class status.
I don’t consider ignorance to be related to intelligence, but your conflation of them certainly is suggestive.
I’m pointing out that just because you’ve “heard pretty well every rationale for purdah you can imagine” you haven’t told us whether you’ve actually spoken to the women who are making these choices. If you haven’t, your rather high-handed judgments are, in fact, being made out of ignorance.
There isn’t actually a word that stands as the opposite of “ignorance” the way “intelligence” is the opposite of “stupidity” – “informedness,” perhaps? So while I used intelligence advisedly in my last post, I certainly apologize if you found its use confusing. And I’d thank you to be more explicit as to just what you think my “conflation,” if conflation it was, is suggestive of.
You never asked, did you? You said “until you’ve had the chance to talk to these women” – making the assumption I never have – “your lack of respect is a product of ignorance” – “is,” present tense, nothing conditional about it. It seems more obvious that your assumption about my – what are we calling it? Informedness? – is a product of ignorance since you know fuck-all about whom I’ve spoken to and under what circumstances and could not be troubled to ask before becoming insulting.
Bullshit. I do not have to speak to every woman personally to understand the motivations for embracing purdah, just as I don’t have to speak to every person in a polygamist relationship to understand the justifications for polygamy, nor do I have to speak to every converted Catholic to understand the rationales for converting to Catholicism. If you want to know the basis for my opinion then just ask; if you think that my opinion is incorrect then tell me how, but to simply announce that I am ignorant in holding my opinion because it MUST arise from a lack of information is insulting, intellectually dishonest, and cowardly. Engage me if you want, but if your choice is to insult me, we can take it to the Pit.
Jodi, when I wrote, in regards to speaking to the women whose choices we are discussing, “If you haven’t…” you could simply have replied “I have.” But whatever, have you? What did you think of what they had to say? I’m not asking if you’ve spoken to all Muslim women as you seem to have inferred. But if you’ve spoken to a reasonable sample your reaction to their thoughts would enhance your case.
The OP asked if we thought he was being a judgmental prick. You didn’t offer any input on that question. Your entry into the thread was a statement of your own intense dislikes, effectively saying that whatever the OP’s prick status happens to be, you’re one too. I don’t mean that as an insult any more than the OP was trying to insult himself. Clearly this issue is a hot button for you and as I stated above it was for me too until I listened to the people involved.
The day spoken of in the OP (sun, official high of 91, probably a few degrees hotter in the city proper) may not sound all that bad to outsiders. But with that patented supersaturated humidity added to the intense subtropical sun - yes, that’s standard, brutal Houston summer weather.
When I lived in the area and did light chores outside in summer (like watering a few potted plants), I’d sweat up a storm (though wearing light clothing and being outside at 8 in the morning). Obviously it’s far worse in the middle of the day. I knew a recent immigrant who went walking in Houston on a summer day with his family near the Astrodome, and a cop stopped to see if they were alright (mad dogs, Englishmen and all that).
I hate to think what it must be like covered head to toe in black robes parading around in broad daylight in the sweatbox that is Houston between late May and October.
I’m sure if you talked to most women whose religions view them as potentially dangerous temptresses and subordinate to men, that they’d toe the party line and declare themselves satisfied. There’s sort of a Stockholm Syndrome operating there.
Toleration is laudable. Approval is not mandatory.
On the eastern Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia, summer days regularly reach 130F with
blinding humidity, so Houston is as close to home as they can find in the US! (No coincidence that ARAMCO was based there).
Not to mention “while pushing a stroller,” which in the case of the tandem stroller, I can tell you from experience is quite heavy.
Thanks for the affirmation regarding the weather here. 91 may not be* ultra* hot for Houston - it was 97 the week before, ISTR - but 91 is pretty freaking hot.
Or you could have asked, instead of assuming I haven’t.
Yes.
That with the exceptions of those who dressed as they did out of cultural conditioning, the reasons given for embracing purdah would not have convinced me to do so under similar circumstances.
I’m not making a particular case, but even if I were, I don’t need to resort to anecdotal evidence to support it. As I have already said, embracing purdah deprives a woman of individual identity, inhibits her voice and movement – sometimes dangerously so – almost always signals allegiance to a fundamentalist religious position (and I am no fan of fundametalism of any stripe) or a society that accords second-class citizenry to women. Do you have any information that these judgments are incorrect? Because that would certainly enhance YOUR case in favor of purdah.
Allow me to be more explicit. No, I don’t consider the OP’er to be a judgmental prick because – suprise! – I don’t actually consider myself a judgmental prick. (So few people do.) I trust that meets your criteria for “offering input on that question.”
I have no respect for those who intentionally disempower themselves. Why that would read to you as “being a hot button issue,” I have no idea. What IS a hot button issue for me, is being condescended to and accused of ignorance by someone who has failed to explicate their own opinions.
So let’s recitify that right now: Since you apparently have had the opportunity to “listen to the people” involved, kindly tell us who you spoke to as “involved” (a woman? how many women? from what cultures or countries?); what they said as rationales for purdah that changed your mind; what your opinion was before; and what it is now. That should give me enough information to judge whether your opinion is held justly or through ignorance. Unlike you, however, I will refrain from making that call until I have the information that would allow me to make it.
Saudi Arabia is one of the most oppressive countries in the entire world where women are concerned, practicing one of the most fundamentalist strains of Islam anywhere. Would you care to expound on the “number of reasons” that these unknown women declare a “strong preference for full covering” that is “not tradition or coercion”? See, I would be willing to assume that Saudi women embrace the abaya precisely because of tradition, but no – you have assured us that is NOT the reason, so I’m really interested to hear what those reasons might be. Unless you’d prefer to post another evasion before actaully defending your own position.
My position is about me - my judgment of Saudi women and how it was transformed by listening to what they had to say. I can relate to you the reasons they cited - things like comfort, convenience, flexibility, de-objectification (which may seem ironic to you) - but the only one that really matters is that they sincerely preferred it.
I’m not defending their position, I’m just saying they didn’t feel as oppressed as we think they should and that was a valuable revelation for me. Whatever external ethical framework one wants to construct around it won’t be complete unless their feelings are taken into account. We have a very bad habit of telling other people what’s good for them - sometimes that’s commendable but sometimes it’s misguided.
I know it’s futile because the opportunity I had to peek under the veil just isn’t available to most Westerners and until I actually heard and felt the words of the women I was indignant on behalf of I couldn’t appreciate the effect. It’s sad and frustrating to watch us be so reactive and judgmental. The OP, like many of the other posters, seems to understand this danger - it’s the very essence of the thread. I’m just saying yes, the situation is more complex than we make it out to be.
Jodi, I apologize for responding to you condescendingly, I know that doesn’t help.
Saudi women cannot drive, vote, or run a business. Without permission of a male, they cannot travel, hold a job, or obtain a divorce. They cannot go out in public without a male chaperone and without wearing an abaya. In most circumstances, they cannot talk to any male who is not closely related to them. Coming from an oppressive culture that treats them as second-class citizens, I would submit that they are not the greatest sources for why purdah is all that and a bag of chips. I already said that I acccept cultural conditioning as a rationale for finding something acceptable or even desireable; it is a very powerful force.
No woman wants to feel oppressed. I think a woman growing up in that society could genuinely feel she is NOT oppressed, if she accepts the teachings she was brought up with regarding the role and place of women. I don’t think that cancels out the double-standard that exists. I also think that rationales like “comfort, convenience, and flexibility” are not very persuasive when weighed against “loss of identity, loss of voice, loss of personal autonomy”.
I would never dream of telling another woman what was good for her. But there are some practices that IMO are objectively indefensible, and the double-standard of purdah is one of them. Female genital mutilation is another – a very much worse example, in fact. But “They want it done, they prefer it that way!” doesn’t carry much weight to me when women are being expected to act in ways that are manifestly not in their best interest – or are only in their best interest due to some societal failing that is not their fault (i.e., it is in a woman’s best interest to be completely covered so she does not become an object of lust, as if that’s her fault and not the man’s).
I honestly don’t think it is. Some women are raised in cultures or religions that demand they diminish themselves – erase themselves as individuals, really. I find that troubling, but I can understand it for those raised in that culture. For western women, I have much less understanding. I accept that some come to believe an ultra-conservative faith that they believe requires purdah, and I respect that as I do any other sincerely held belief, but then we run into the issue that I really distrust fundamentalism of any stripe and must dislike the burqa / abaya / chador as a symbol of that. But none of it is all that complicated.
Usually, but not always. Blue is (was?) a fashionable color. (Yes, even when covered from head to toe, women find ways to make fashions and fads out of it.)
Oh, jeez, I never went to the second page. This one literally made me gasp aloud. Ringwraiths, indeed.
Ah, if there was no mesh, then it was not a burqa. I think. You’re right, chador (that’s the long scarf that goes over the head, over the forehead, down the side of the face) and niqab (the scarf that clips to the chador just to the side of the eyes and covers the rest of the face) is most likely.
There’s also something called a ru-band, visible in some of those Flickr photos, which is like the face covering part of a burqa with the mesh, but worn over a chador. Burqa is one piece, ru-band and chador is two. I think. Again, I am not an expert, I’m just trying to fight my own ignorance and learn the proper terms.
But if this sort of dress is so practical and/or comfortable, why were the men and boys in khakis and short sleeves?
As I see it, the problem is the attitude that accompanies the very concept of the hijab/chador. Instead of simply “I choose to dress this way,” it’s really “I MUST dress this way…because an all-powerful God has decreed that proper women do so, and any woman who doesn’t dress the way I do is being immodest and displeasing God (and therefore can be treated with disrespect).” That’s both sexist and dangerous, in my opinion. It’s the reason there are entire countries and communities where millions of women (including non-Muslim women, e.g. archeologists digging in the Middle East) obviously can’t choose to wear what they want. Not without social stigma and harassment, or worse.
The difference, I think, is that there’s no (supposedly) inerrant decree from God insisting that you wear high heels at all times, regardless of terrain or weather conditions or the activity you’re currently engaged in. Perhaps there’s social pressure (though few of the women I know ever wear high heels). But you won’t have millions of people thinking that you’re displeasing God if you don’t do so.
My circle of friends, male and female, is a fairly outdoorsy bunch, hiking, cycling, rock climbing, running, doing field geology and biology, etc. It doesn’t take long to figure out that certain types of clothes are more practical and comfortable than others, in different situations. The idea that women are being “immodest” or “slutty” *when they’re wearing exactly the same clothes for exactly the same activity as their male friends and colleagues * is offensive, discriminatory and sexist. I see no reason to be tolerant of sexism. I understand the OP’s reaction.
