Is there irony in feminist support for Muslim women?

[Steve_MB]

@severus

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.

Actually, the main motivation was to break down coercion to wear burqas. Conceptually, it’s much like banning recognizable gang “colors” to break the hold of gangs.

Whether or not this is the right way to approach either problem is, of course, another question.

[cowgirl]

@CC

Well, thank you. I believe you have made my point that a person under wraps has no visible sexuality, beyond signifying female.

Oh no, no siree. I don’t think anyone has made that point. It’s my understanding that where women are veiled, different things are sexualized. Ankles. Wrists. Glimpses of forbidden flesh when a covering is accidentally lifted. Maybe Paul in Saudi can clarify.

Also, CC, you are speaking of “women’s issues” as a single, monolithic bloc, as if all “feminists” agreed with each other. It is not a contradiction or an irony for people to have different ideas about “women’s issues.”

As usual Lefty has said what I was going to say, but better.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@cowgirl

As usual Lefty has said what I was going to say, but better.

Aw, shucks–thanks!
Daniel

[glee]

@Paul in Saudi

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.

This seems a funny time to make this point. Are you avoiding giving an answer to my recent post?

[LavenderBlue]

@Tamerlane

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

Thank you for answering my question in an informed rather than snide manner.

[LavenderBlue]

@Paul in Saudi

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.

When there are people in jail because they’ve violated said dress codes it most certainly is everyone’s business. As any feminist will tell you, oppression of women is still oppression even when perceived as trivial or unimportant.

[Paul_in_Qatar]

So the ideal solution would be to impose your dress code on them? Why? Are you the Hall Monitor?

Women in jail in Saudi for violating the dress code? Well I suppose it could be true. Cite?

[Evil_Captor]

@Paul in Saudi

So the ideal solution would be to impose your dress code on them? Why? Are you the Hall Monitor?

Women in jail in Saudi for violating the dress code? Well I suppose it could be true. Cite?

IIRC, the religious police carry clubs with which they hit you if you are dressed inappropriately. Not jail per se.

[glee]

@Paul in Saudi

Women in jail in Saudi for violating the dress code? Well I suppose it could be true. Cite?

“By western standards Saudi women face severe discrimination in many aspects of their lives, including the family, education, employment, and the justice system. Religious police enforce a modesty code of dress, sometimes even asking American Armed Services women to cover their heads.”

"Foreigners are forced to conform to Muslim practices in public, an example being on October 11, 2004, just before Ramadan, the Saudi Arabian Interior Ministry requested that all non-Muslims currently in Saudi Arabia refrain from eating, drinking or smoking in public. “Authorities will take deterrent measures such as terminating work contracts of, and deporting, violators”

Human rights in Saudi Arabia

"Every day the religious police (the muttawa,” the enforcers”) roam the streets and roads of Saudi Arabia enforcing dress codes and sex segregation and other moral laws, and making sure people pray at the mandated times in the mandated ways. Those who refuse to obey are often beaten on the street and/or taken to jail. "

"Women in Saudi Arabia must cover themselves from head to toe with a black cloak in public. They are not allowed to drive and cannot go out in public unaccompanied by a male family member.

Women are arrested, imprisoned, tortured and executed for transgressing strict Islamic rules."

http://home1.gte.net/vze2fbkv/id30.html

[uglybeech]

@Paul in Saudi

So the ideal solution would be to impose your dress code on them? Why? Are you the Hall Monitor?

We’ve all agreed that nobody would impose their dress code on anyone. (Let’s not argue Daniel’s points all over again. We all agree). But having an opinion about the hijab is perfectly ok. And frankly it’s very hard to swallow the idea that it’s somehow meant to liberate women in a country where they have fewer rights than anywhere else on the planet.

[uglybeech]

except maybe Afghanistan. (Burqa-land!)

[Miller]

@uglybeech

Burqa-land!

World’s Crappiest Themepark.

[Paul_in_Qatar]

I have never seen a religious policeman with a club. None of my friends here have ever seen a religious policeman with a club. I have been here ten years.

Yes, the Ramadan fast is mandatory here. Yes, public displays of Other Religions is forbidden here. Yes people dress differently here. That is why they have their own country.

I really ought to pop over to the Saudi Arabia article on the Wiki and straighten them out.

[Evil_Captor]

@Paul in Saudi

I have never seen a religious policeman with a club. None of my friends here have ever seen a religious policeman with a club. I have been here ten years.

Yes, the Ramadan fast is mandatory here. Yes, public displays of Other Religions is forbidden here. Yes people dress differently here. That is why they have their own country.

I really ought to pop over to the Saudi Arabia article on the Wiki and straighten them out.

I have that info from an online report by a Western woman who stayed in Saudi for a time and reports being attacked by a religious policeman with a stick or a club of some sort. Coulda been lying, I suppose.

[Paul_in_Qatar]

Maybe, or the story was twisted in the retelling. Do you have a cite? Going to the original source might be helpful here.

In any case, the religious policemen do not have uniforms and so any bully-boy who objects to any darn thing can claim to be one. Certainly Saudi Arabia has more than its ration of idiots, but too often exaggeration pushes out the truth.

[Hypnagogic_Jerk]

@Steve MB

Actually, the main motivation was to break down coercion to wear burqas. Conceptually, it’s much like banning recognizable gang “colors” to break the hold of gangs.

Whether or not this is the right way to approach either problem is, of course, another question.

I see. I still don’t think it’s the right thing to do. Anyway, it would be naïve to believe that forbidding the wearing of religious symbols will stop religious coercion. It will continue in other ways.

I’m also not sure that banning articles that are known as gang symbols is the right thing, either. First, it won’t stop people from joining gangs (they’ll just wear more discrete symbols, or none at all), and second, anything can become a gang symbol.

[uglybeech]

@Paul in Saudi

Women in jail in Saudi for violating the dress code? Well I suppose it could be true. Cite?

From the U.S. State Department Human Rights Report on Saudi Arabia 2004 (released 2/05)

The Mutawwa’in have the authority to detain persons for no more than 24 hours for violations of the strict standards of proper dress and behavior; however, at times, they exceeded this limit before delivering detainees to the police…During the year, in the more conservative Riyadh district, reports continued of Mutawwa’in accosting, abusing, arresting, and detaining persons alleged to have violated dress and behavior standards…Mutawwa’in detained women of many nationalities for actions such as…appearing with their heads uncovered in shopping malls**,…Many such prisoners were held for days, sometimes weeks, without officials notifying their families or, in the case of foreigners, their embassies.**

On the other hand, no specific mention of clubs. But you cannot tell me that the hijab is not being imposed on women.

[Paul_in_Qatar]

Thank you for the excellent cite. I always feel rude when I ask for one.

Certainly some women are forced to wear the hijab. Still, we have to admit the vast majority of women in this country are not forced to do so.

I would (at the danger of making a stretched analogy) point out that at least some European women are forced to wear clothing in public places, despite their wish to go nude. I think this is a good parallel. If you violate society’s moral code to a certain degree, you may go to jail.

Of course we are discussing where exactly to draw that line. I would propose that this is the business of Saudi society to decide.

[Miller]

@Paul in Saudi

Of course we are discussing where exactly to draw that line. I would propose that this is the business of Saudi society to decide.

Certainly, but that does not preclude anyone else from having an opinion on whatever their decision happens to be.

[uglybeech]

@Paul in Saudi

Certainly some women are forced to wear the hijab. Still, we have to admit the vast majority of women in this country are not forced to do so.

Do you see many women not wearing the hijab? I’m assuming that it’s enforced to some degree everywhere, so in essence every woman has to wear one or risk dention/harrassment. You’d know better though if some women are free not to wear the hijab.

I would (at the danger of making a stretched analogy) point out that at least some European women are forced to wear clothing in public places, despite their wish to go nude. I think this is a good parallel. If you violate society’s moral code to a certain degree, you may go to jail.

It’s not a bad analogy, and if it were just the hijab or burqa alone it might be credible, but in both Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia forcing women to cover their entire body including their face is part of a larger system of repression, segregation and degradation of women.

Of course we are discussing where exactly to draw that line. I would propose that this is the business of Saudi society to decide.

Not at all. It’s a human rights issue. Which means it should draw international condemnation.

I’m not oblivious to how offensive it feels to have one’s own country criticized on human rights. It makes one feel as if outsiders regard you as a bunch of backwater neanderthals. But when it’s deserved, it has to be done. The U.S. has received (and deserved) international condemnation for human rights abuses in Iraq and Guantanamo as well as the death penalty (especially for the execution of minors, etc.) Just as it should have in the pre-civil rights era, and just as South Africa deserved during Apartheid.

I’m not proposing that the hijab be singled out as a human rights abuse, but as part of a whole spectrum of repressive laws and degradations inflicted on women which need to be condemned in toto.