# Is there irony in feminist support for Muslim women? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 14, 2005, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008 "2005-08-14T22:10:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2005, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/21 "2005-08-15T17:32:32Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > You changed the subject, I say again, most Muslim women dress the way they want to dress. I believe I said earlier that there are Mulim women who like the hajib. For them it is fine. Does not lessen the oppressiveness for those who don’t. Also, how do you know most Muslim women dress the way they want to dress? From what you have posted about life in Saudi Arabia, most Muslim women only have a public voice thorugh their menfolk. > [@](#): > > (Now to move onto the new subjects you raised…) > The people who prevented the girls from leaving the school claimed to be members of the Committee. The Committee has denied that; not that I necessarily believe them. > > Horrible things happening in and near South Beach? From an Islamic point of view (not mine) let’s just start with shipping off old people to die in homes because their families refuse to care for them. We can then move onto the courts ordering the end of life-sustaining treatments for sick people. We could then comment on wide-spread drug use … yaddy yaddy. > > So if it is OK for us to tell them how to do things, I suppose you would let them tell you how to live your life? Now, look who’s changing the subject. What does any of this have to do with how people dress? The reason I cited it was to show how extreme the sanctions against “inappropriate” dress can be in some Muslim countries. ---
**Author:** ![davenportavenger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5f8ce5/32.png) [@davenportavenger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davenportavenger)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2005, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/22 "2005-08-15T17:58:14Z")
> [@CC](#): > > And the sexualization of women is something that is a “women’s issue,” and something that many women are against. Not all feminists are against the sexualization of women. In fact, the tide against anti-porn zealots has pretty much turned. The big thing now is respecting people’s choices, whether it’s a choice to act in porn or wear hajib or make yourself a sex object or burn your bra and grow out your pit hairs. It’s all cool. Of course, what is not cool is religious police. Women being forced into a certain choice under threat of death is most definitely anti-feminist, and that’s what the Muslim women-supporting feminists I know are trying to change. To give women the choice to wear whatever they want, whether it’s traditional garb or a sexualized American style of dress, without getting killed for it. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2005, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/23 "2005-08-15T18:39:39Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > You changed the subject, I say again, most Muslim women dress the way they want to dress. Cite? Would most women in Saudi Arabia – or any other Muslim country – really voluntarily don the hijab? Particularly if they had a real choice in the matter? ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2005, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/24 "2005-08-15T18:40:36Z")
> [@davenportavenger](#): > > The big thing now is respecting people’s choices… How modern they’ve become! ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2005, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/25 "2005-08-15T18:54:48Z")
> [@lavenderlemon](#): > > Would most women in Saudi Arabia – or any other Muslim country – really voluntarily don the hijab? Particularly if they had a real choice in the matter? Probably, because they were raised to believe that was the proper way to dress. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2005, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/26 "2005-08-15T21:07:06Z")
Can we all agree on the following facts? 1. Many Muslim women wear the burqa willingly. 2. At least some Muslim women wear the burqa but would prefer not to. 3. There have been some instances in which Muslim women who chose not to wear the burqa suffered intimdation or outright violence as a result of their choice. Can we agree on the following principles? 4) Muslim women who would like to wear the burqa should be allowed to wear the burqa, and feminists should support them in this choice. 5) Muslim women who would like to not wear the burqa should be allowed to not wear the burqa, and feminists should support them in this choice. 6) People who would like to intimidate Muslim women into wearing the burqa (or, for that matter, into not wearing the burqa) should be opposed by feminists. **CC** , you appear to have a shallow understanding of feminism. Most feminists do not believe that women should be desexed; on the contrary, most believe that women should be in control of their own sexuality, and should be allowed to make their own choices about their sexuality. As such, a feminist who supports a Muslim woman ought to support her, whether or not she chooses to wear a burqa. There is no contradiction or irony there. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2005, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/27 "2005-08-15T21:27:41Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > The consequences of not wearing the burqa (perfectly) have included injury and death at the hands of pretty much anyone. > > Minor fine v. death is a difference that I don’t feel hypocritical about. But are we restricting this debate to the small number of countries (or places) where the burqa s the norm, and even further to the very small subset of these countries were wearing it is enforced by the authorities? (actually, if we’re talking about the real burqa, with the “mask”, I’m not sure thee’s even one country where it’s mandated by the authorities since the fall of the talibans in Afghanistan). ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2005, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/28 "2005-08-15T21:42:02Z")
> [@CC](#): > > How modern they’ve become! Those are the kinds of things you miss when you’re not paying attention. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2005, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/29 "2005-08-16T01:03:09Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > But are we restricting this debate to the small number of countries (or places) where the burqa s the norm, and even further to the very small subset of these countries were wearing it is enforced by the authorities? Actually, I believe that this debate should be about Muslim women being allowed to dress as they wish everywhere in the world. I know that in your country, France, there have been laws passed restricting Muslim women’s freedom to wear a traditional dress (like the hijab) to ensure “laicity”, in public schools, for example, but I don’t think that’s the right way to go about this. Sure, people dress differently in California than in France than in Saudi Arabia, but I believe that we should give people in general (which includes Muslim women) the freedom to dress as they want, with few restrictions. I imagine that they will still mostly dress in a way that follows the general expectations of their culture, but they won’t be legally forced to do so. Maybe that some day this will also be the case in countries like Saudi Arabia. > [@](#): > > (actually, if we’re talking about the real burqa, with the “mask”, I’m not sure thee’s even one country where it’s mandated by the authorities since the fall of the talibans in Afghanistan). I believe that the word “burqa” may refer to several types of dress, but here I’ve mostly seen it used to refer to this kind of dress with mask that you’re talking about. Maybe someone more knowledgeable will come along. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2005, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/30 "2005-08-16T02:03:57Z")
> [@lavenderlemon](#): > > Cite? Would most women in Saudi Arabia – or any other Muslim country – really voluntarily don the hijab? Particularly if they had a real choice in the matter? Of course they would. I see women in hijab every day here on the streets of Oakland, where there certainly arn’t religious police hanging around. Just like I’ve seen Westerners walking around in jeans in India where everyone else is wearing saris and lunghis. Would it surprise you to know that there is an active fashion scene- just like our fashion scene- in the middle east? Would it to surprise you to learn that there are trends and innovations? There is a new type of veil that has been gaining interest lately, and of course the salwar-kameez is fast becoming the standard of dress for Muslims and non-Muslims in a good chunk of the world (there has been outcry in India because so many women are abandoning the sari for the extremely comfortable and practical salwar-kameez). ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2005, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/31 "2005-08-16T03:12:07Z")
> [@even sven](#): > > Of course they would. I see women in hijab every day here on the streets of Oakland, where there certainly arn’t religious police hanging around. Just like I’ve seen Westerners walking around in jeans in India where everyone else is wearing saris and lunghis. > > Would it surprise you to know that there is an active fashion scene- just like our fashion scene- in the middle east? Would it to surprise you to learn that there are trends and innovations? There is a new type of veil that has been gaining interest lately, and of course the salwar-kameez is fast becoming the standard of dress for Muslims and non-Muslims in a good chunk of the world (there has been outcry in India because so many women are abandoning the sari for the extremely comfortable and practical salwar-kameez). That’s not a cite. I see lots of Muslim women in New Jersey who’ve done very opposite by completely shucking off the hijab. I very often see women who wear only a headscarf and perhaps a pair of jeans to go with it. Would most women in say Iran wear the hijab if they didn’t have to? Are there studies showing support for the hijab? I agree with **Left Hand of Dorkness’s** statements about this matter. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2005, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/32 "2005-08-16T05:28:44Z")
> [@lavenderlemon](#): > > That’s not a cite. I see lots of Muslim women in New Jersey who’ve done very opposite by completely shucking off the hijab. I very often see women who wear only a headscarf and perhaps a pair of jeans to go with it. Yes, believe it or not, women dress differently from one another. Sometimes even women of the same faith in the same country. ---
**Author:** ![Giant\_Spongess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@Giant\_Spongess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giant_Spongess)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2005, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/33 "2005-08-16T06:36:52Z")
I would guess that the women who like to wear the hijab take part in the simple pleasure of wearing something that is proper and context-appropriate. I, for one, like wearing bras and pantyhose when I’m supposed to look professional, because it’s expected of me, I’m used to it, and it’s self-defeating to hate it. Does this make me a feminist? Does this make women who willingly wear the hijab feminists? Do I even care about feminism? Not really. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2005, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/34 "2005-08-16T09:24:08Z")
> [@lavenderlemon](#): > > Would most women in say Iran wear the hijab if they didn’t have to? Are there studies showing support for the hijab? No statistics, but it definitely has varied over time, depending on just which oppressive regime was enforcing which oppressive dress code. During the reign of the Pahlavi dynasty, the wearing of religious garb by women was banned, creating a significant and very damaging backlash against the regime. Some quotes: \*More problematic was Reza Shah’s unique absolutist approach to changing women’s dress which, following a trip to Turkey, he saw as a hallmark of national modernization. After preliminary steps in 1935, in 1936 women were ordered to unveil and dress in western-style clothing. Some women saw this as the equivalent of going out naked and refused to leave their homes, as gendarmes sometimes tore chadors from women on the streets. According to Houchang Chehabi: 'The forced unveling of Iranian women…was, among all of Reza Shah’s modernization policies, the one that contributed most to his unpopularity among ordinary Iranians. Between January 1936 and the monarch’s abdication in 1941, police and gendarmie used physical force to enforce the ban, thus violating the innermost private sphere of close to half the population… The practice of limited coeducation for prepubescent children in traditional maktabs was discontinued after girls were forced to go to school unveiled…While educational opportunities improved for women…many girls in observant families were deprived of education, as their parents took them out of school…Reza Shah’s efforts to give both women and men uniform dress codes in line with Western fashions…while meant to unify the nation by eliminating visible class, status, and regional distinctions, in fact deepened another cleavage in Iranian society, i.e., that between westernizers…and the rest of society, which resented the intrusion in their private lives.’\* Later under his son religious garb became the rallying symbol of opposition to the Shah for many young female college students. So: _In the cultural climate of the 1970’s, those opposed to the Shah’s regime increasingly saw as bad everything the regime said was good. Thus, as noted, we find the ironic phenomenon of some women university students from the mid-1970’s on readopting Muslim modes of dress as a means of stressing their identity with Islam, seen as morally and politically superior to the ways of the regime, and/or stressing their political opposition to the regime,whether or not they were believers._ And of course as noted above these royal “reforms” had never really impacted the non-upper and professional middle-classes, such that a large part of Iranian society, especially the pious lower middle-class and the non-urban population had never taken to the new codes at all: _Although women students played and play an important role in political demonstrations and actvities, even more numerous in the demonstrations of 1978 were chadored bazaari women, who came out usually in seperate ranks to participate in the mourning processions, where they had always been, but where their presense took on a new political meaning. As the threat of violence grew, women often bravely marched at the head of processions; participants recognized that this put the police and regime in a difficult position._ The above quotes courtesy of Nikki Keddie’s excellent Modern Iran: _Roots and Results of Revolution_ ( 2003, Yale University ). Of course the current theocracy is the autocratic bizarro version of the Shah’s autocratic regime in matters of dress. In the current climate I imagine imposed religious attire is considerably less popular, probably pretty strongly against amongst the urban intelligentsia. I would expect it still holds a real appeal amongst the more traditionally pious however, of which more than a few remain in Iran. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2005, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/35 "2005-08-16T09:56:17Z")
(Agreed to all of Daniel’s propositions.) CC assuming that feminism were still at the stage that it saw all female sexualization as oppressive, your argument would still be littered with problems. My biggest issue is that the Burqa doesn’t just blot out sexuality. If that’s all it did the feminists of that time might have liked it ok. But what it really does is blot out the person altogether. It erases their identity and turns them into walking ghosts. To my mind (and of course, to each their own) it just reinforces the notion that a woman is nothng more than sexual object - and one who should be ashamed to show herself in public at that - and she can have no other identity. ---
**Author:** ![auRa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@auRa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auRa)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2005, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/36 "2005-08-16T11:46:18Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#): > > Yes, believe it or not, women dress differently from one another. Sometimes even women of the same faith in the same country. There’s quite a good example of this to be seen in Finland. In the early late 1980’s and early 1990’s, Somalian refugees started to arrive in Finland. This was, for many Finns, the first time they had ever had to interact with a person of another race or another religion. Much ado was made over the Somalian women wearing hijabs. Islam was seen as a strange, foreign religion which suppressed women and forced them into covering themselves. What’s more, some of the Somalian women, when interviewed, claimed that the hijab was, indeed, something the Koran ordered, and that they were simply being good Muslims by wearing it. This understandably pissed some of the Tatars, who have been living in Finland for about 150 years, since the late 1800’s. Most of them are Muslim, some are quite observant: no alcohol, no pork, prayers five times a day. Yet overwhelmingly few Tatar women wear any kind of religious head covering. Members of the Tatar community felt that they were suddenly being told that they were not good Muslims, simply because of their choice of wear. Things like how much a woman has to cover herself are very much more cultural than they are religious. The women from Somalia grew up in a culture where there was not even the slightest doubt that they would wear some form of religious head covering from the onset of puberty. It has even been stated on a few occasions that some Somalian women who, in Somalia, had not dressed in a full-length hijab, started wearing one after arriving in Finland because it tied them more closely in with their ethnic group in a foreign and strange culture. The Tatar women, on the other hand, grew up in a culture where less emphasis was placed on religious dress. Today, you can see young people of Somalian descent who have been born in Finland or have come here at an early age. They have gone to school with Finns, who are a very secular bunch in general, and have been exposed to Finnish society for most of their lives. I’ve been substituting at a local middle school every now and then for three years, and I have noticed that about half of the Somalian girls wear a thicker head covering that goes all around their face as well, while the other half wears a headscarf more as a fashion accessory, tied behind the ears. None of them wear a full-length hijab. Still, they consider themselves good Muslims, because they adhere to other tenets of their religion. Some of the Somalian girls have told me that they have had serious rows with their parents on the subject of the hijab; their mothers cannot fathom that their daughters would consider wearing a less covering version than the full-length gown, while the daughters are dismayed that the mothers are unwilling to let their daughters conform more to Finnish society. ---
**Author:** ![auRa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@auRa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auRa)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2005, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/37 "2005-08-16T11:54:03Z")
> [@auRa](#): > > There’s quite a good example of this to be seen in Finland. > > In the early late 1980’s and early 1990’s, Somalian refugees started to arrive in Finland. This was, for many Finns, the first time they had ever had to interact with a person of another race or another religion. Much ado was made over the Somalian women wearing hijabs. Islam was seen as a strange, foreign religion which suppressed women and forced them into covering themselves. What’s more, some of the Somalian women, when interviewed, claimed that the hijab was, indeed, something the Koran ordered, and that they were simply being good Muslims by wearing it. Crap, I forgot to emphasize the fact that the wearing of a full-length covering is not ordered by the Koran, but is rather a cultural facet passed down in a patriarchal society. Many of the Somalian women did not know how to read or write when they came to Finland. Religious information was based on what their fathers, brothers, husbands and imams said, rather than being based on studying scripture. (Side note: I know that “Scripture” usually refers to the Bible. But can the word “scripture” be used to refer to the religious texts of any religion?) ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2005, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/38 "2005-08-16T12:39:03Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > Of course most women here dress as they want to dress. They dress as they were taught to dress by their mothers. Anyone have evidence to the contra? Are there not legal and religious restrictions in Saudi, such as no opposition parties and women not being allowed to drive? Does that mean to you that no women want to drive? > [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > Is anyone proposing that the Religious Police in London or New York would beat a woman without a full gown? No? Odd I see lots of women dressed in the local style in those places. We don’t have religious police in London, or anywhere in England. There is a law against public nudity (except in permitted areas). When Erika Roe stripped off at a major sporting event covered by TV, the police simply politely covered her up and kept smiling while they did it. She wasn’t beaten, stoned or arrested. Instead she got offers of work: “Erica (24) bared her 40inch chest on the pitch during an England v Australia rugby match. Erica a Bookshop assistant was reported to have made £8000 from TV appearances.” [http://www.streaking.co.uk/relatednewsericaroespecial.htm](http://www.streaking.co.uk/relatednewsericaroespecial.htm) ---
**Author:** ![barracuda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@barracuda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barracuda)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2005, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/39 "2005-08-16T12:59:43Z")
I find this issue fascinating, as I have often debated the wearing of garments with my (Christian fundamentalist) SIL. I think that clothing should only/always be at the option of the wearer. My understanding of Judaic law (which covers Jewish, Christian, and Muslim teachings, I think) is that a woman needs to cover herself to prevent ‘other’ males from attacking her sexually. Why are the males given the option by their religion to violate a female who is ‘inapropriately clothed’? Why in a situation of rape is the woman blamed? I know this is not exactly germane to the burka question, but it seems to be the underlying logic - a woman uncovered is a woman unprotected and ripe to be exploited. Cuda ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2005, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008/40 "2005-08-16T13:55:49Z")
At some point the behavior of people in other countries is none of our business. May I propose that this line is drawn at least at dress codes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-irony-in-feminist-support-for-muslim-women/317008.md?page=3)