My series about my adventures in a Saudi burka generated a lot of fascinating comments by Huffposters. Yesterday I replied to those who asked, If a woman chooses to veil herself, shouldn't we respect that as her individual choice? Today I'll take on those who insist the West is more sexually oppressive towards women than those Islamic societies in which the burka is enforced. (Readers who are catching up can click here to see a video of my experience, which appears in Canada's National Post. Click here to read all four parts of my series.)
Is Western Culture More Sexually Oppressive Than The Burka?
Many feminist readers expressed solidarity with their burka-clad sisters: While not necessarily "agreeing" with laws that"force" women to swaddle themselves in black wool, they sympathized with a woman's desire to do so "by choice," given the oppression Western women are subject to walking around unswaddled:
"[S]uggesting that western women are in some way more liberated and free because of how they dress is a little off the mark," wrote screenname Hoopoe, speaking for the majority with this view. "Freeing women from what the author calls 'oppressive' attire in the west, and particularly the U.S., has imposed a whole new set of expectations upon women to conform to the standards of attractiveness designated by the culture. the word 'attractive' is important -- after all, who are women 'attracting' with their appearance if not men? have no illusions: our 'choices' are still largely dictated by the will of men.
"in the extreme, these standards lead to eating disorders, plastic surgery, a massive cosmetics industry, and a whole array of magazines to push the new 'must have' fashions of the season, etc..."
"it may make some people feel better to tell themselves they are more cultured, more free, and more respected because they can choose to wear a skimpy top to show off their new breast implants and the abs it took six months of torture in the gym to develop, but this is one woman who doesn't buy it. the way i see it, women get a pretty raw deal everywhere..."
And screenname pa104inf wrote: "America is rife with violence and suffering and the women here need to stand up and take responsibility for allowing themselves to be degraded, objectified and reduced to a sexual object."
My reply: Oh, to be objectified and reduced to a sexual object! Kidding. KIDDING. (That was my middle-aged ego speaking...)
Seriously, let me begin by saying that as a mother of three -- including a teenage girl -- I am constantly made aware of the pressures in the culture that encourage my daughters to look and behave like skanks. Further, there is no way of keeping away these pressures, short of blacking out the windows, disconnecting the television and computers -- as well as plugging up every other crevice into which they may seep. I think few Americans (outside of Maxim-reading teenage boys) would disagree that our pop culture could be toned down a bit without infringing on free speech. In this view, feminists and Evangelicals are not so far apart: feminists believe almighty men are to blame for objectifying women; Evangelicals, the godless. But both sides would like to see fewer tattooed cleavages of partying celebrities affronting them when they buy milk.
As a parent, I know I have to do my best to limit my daughters' (and son's) exposure to these pressures; I also have to take responsibility for the example I set them, and the rules that I make. But at some point -- as teenagers are constantly at pains to point out -- we have to acknowledge our children as individuals who will need to develop their own resistance to cultural infections. We can give them antibiotics -- but they are the ones who have to take them. That's how citizens of free and democratic societies are launched.
So as often as I sincerely wish to throw a blanket over my teenage daughter before she goes out, I know I can't do this (although I can cluck, like a churchwoman, "Aren't you going to be cold in that, dear?"). I'm sure Mr. Muhammed Parvez felt the same sort of frustration with his 16-year-old daughter, Aqsa, before he decided the solution was to strangle her to death. In the otherwise modern, democratic suburb of Toronto in which the Parvezes live, Aqsa, according to her girlfriends, "was having trouble at home because she did not conform to the family's religious beliefs and refused to wear a traditional Islamic head scarf, or hijab.
"'She wanted to go different ways than her family wanted to go, and she wanted to make her own path, but he (her father) wouldn't let her,' one of her classmates told the CBC.
"'She loved clothes' another of her friends, Dominiquia Holmes-Thompson, told the Toronto Star. 'She just wanted to show her beauty... She just wanted to dress like us, just like a normal person.'
"According to her friends, Aqsa had worn the hijab at school last year, but rebelled in recent months."
And the girl wasn't even being told to wear a burka! So why did Mr. Parvez believe murder was the appropriate punishment for teenage rebellion? Because according to the version of Islam to which Mr. Parvez subscribes, his daughter -- like his wife -- is his personal property. As such, he has the right to punish her how he pleases (or, as he might put it, how "Allah" thinks she should be punished). When such a daughter finally decides to "stand up and take responsibility for herself," she doesn't get grounded, she gets killed.
There are differences between "pressures" -- which individuals can choose to resist -- and "oppression" -- which individuals have no power to resist. Those who defend the burka place themselves intellectually on the side of those who would ban all books because some might contain dangerous ideas or smut; ban the Internet because it carries pornography as well as information; ban the sight of women because even the slightest show of flesh could tempt a man, and we can't rely on individuals to regulate themselves.
Let me ask those who defend the burka on the grounds it "liberates" women from sexual pressures: If it led to more respect for women, why do those who wear it live in societies where they are among the worst treated in the world? And why, for all our boob jobs and celebrity tattoos, do American women receive among the most male respect in the world?
Two last words from HuffPosters:
From screename Ceneric: "This is yet another not-so-complicated issue. The veil is used to maintain the woman as property. It's there so other guys cannot look at her. It's not voluntary, if they don't wear it, they will get raped or killed, etc. They should be outlawed. Sadaam was definitely right on this issue, he had the coverings burned in the street. He was trying to drag his society into the 20th century until we intervened." [Editor's note: Maybe more like the 18th century...]
From screenname Cavedog: "I think it's interesting to compare this the social oppression of women through advertising in the U.S. - but they're not really much alike in terms of consequences for disobeying the norm.
"In the U.S., nobody gets stoned or strangled for not wearing the most fashionable clothing, or for being heavier than average.... In western culture, there's pressure to conform but if you don't, the consequences are fairly small and you can always find people who sympathize with you. But (and let me be very careful about this) in *some* strains of Islamic culture, there's pressure to conform and a pretty dire consequence if you don't -- and your compatriots will suffer those same consequences, so they might not be there to sympathize."
Tomorrow: Just because veiling is culturally different from our customs, why should we feel threatened by it?
Follow Danielle Crittenden on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dcrittenden1
Islam does not require a woman to wear a burqa or similar dress modes, you've only got to have a look at women on the hadj(pilgimage to Mecca) where it is required that they not be veiled - they do wear the hijab though.
I see these girls walking to school with their Irish-, Italian-, and Latin-American classmates. Like the other girls, they wear jeans, T-shirts, Nikes—but with a burqa. You can almost see them becoming assimilated Americans before your eyes--the burqa looks like a vestigial trace of something once vital but now irrelevant, the classic panda's thumb.
That's how it is in Brooklyn, that's how it's always been here: The first-generation parents warily clinging to the ways of their fathers, while the second generation is seduced by America, embraces it, and then wholeheartedly succumbs.
In 10 or 20 years the Muslim kids I see from my window will be living next door to you in Ohio or Florida or Arizona or wherever you're reading this. They'll be driving their kids to soccer practice, noodging their husbands to mow the lawn, and complaining that with 900 channels on TV there's still nothing good on. And you'd never suspect that these Levi-clad American moms were once burqa-wearing schoolgirls whose parents felt helplessly, hopelessly like strangers in a strange land.
Brooklyn's greatest export has always been Americans, and we're shipping out new models all the time.
In the GDR there was no need to sell your body, because of the job-security. One sign for that is the nudity-culture, which was very popular, which is of course an indicator that people don't use their body or see it as an object for which a price is to be paid. This all lead to two strange results: 1. even though the gdr had (and rightfully so) a bad press, women were very fastly aware of what being a woman in a capitalist society means and didn't like that.
2. The sex (the men agreed) was better!
So the discussion should in my opinion not be narrowed down to what kind of oppression is more nasty(in this category the islamic model of womanhood wins) but what to do about oppression in general, for less sexism and better sex!
One (if not the) ingredient for liberation is always economical independence. But that means for most women (and men) not to be anomically confronted with market forces, but to have job-security. It means not only to have the right to get babies and work, but also the possibility to do that in a dignified way.
One cannot change cultural attitudes overnight and one cannot unoppress someone who doesn't believe the oppression you are concerned about is an issue. It is no real news that women are oppressed in most non-Western countries around the world and that they are oppressed differently than those in Western countries. But, until we are willing to pull the plank from our own eye and until we are willing to be respectful of cultures other than our own, rather than picking and choosing what we will respect and what we will not then we are worse than those who do not walk the hypocrites path.
Anyhow, this is a clear-cut case of domestic abuse that will result most likely in a 2nd degree murder charge and I guess can be considered a crime of passion. I see absolutely all Canadian Muslims and Muslim institutions condemning this act for what it is a tragic crime, so I fail to see how this act can be attributed to the lot of Canadian Muslim society or their symbols.
Furthermore, I don't think even Mrs. Crittenden is naive or ignorant enough to imagine that domestic violence is not a pressing and recurring problem in non-Muslim Canadian society as much as it is in this case. As far as I am concerned, it makes no difference when a man inflects violence upon his family b/c he is in a zealous rage or in an intoxicated rage. In fact, I think its fair to say in absolute terms the latter is still more of a problem here than the former...
I was a student with plenty of time, I used
to engage in those esoteric and philosphical
topics about this and that. The conclusion is
the following: Ultimately without point of
reference, usually religion. Anything goes
and everybody can sing his own song. Here are
few examples. Homosexuality, sexual
revolution, alcohol is OK but drugs are not.
In fact with no guidance and reference earth
is no more than a large playground where
humanity is experiencing itself and who is
to say that this or that is wrong. It is said
in one of the religious books that we will
be so busy living until we hit the ground.
I guess when we hit the ground then we will
know what was right and what was wrong and
if there is a god or not.
It is unbelievable to me that most of the
people do not spend a fraction of their
lives wondering about where from it all
started. Now as to the veil, one needs to
read more about islam to understand the whys
and also understand the effects of culture
on the form of the veil or the clothing.
For those who want to know, the net is an
ocean of information where you can find the
answers if you are a seeker. But if you are
blind I am afraid there is no cure for
you. A few words to the wise. Be your own
coach, keep things in perspective and have
a 360 vision. Your field of vision is past
present and your inner eye.
Many women who wear the burka or hijab come from families that honour and respect them, but they are totally dependant on the males of their families to be granted this respect. Females unlucky enough to be married to children of abusive, controlling males have severely circumscribed lives and no viable options.
Incidents like the murder of Aqsa Parvez should cause all North American and Western European women to refuse to wear the hijab because of what it stands for, and it should disappear from Western society as surely as the surname Hitler has disappeared.
Being "attractive" is assumed to only appeal to males. Has no one ever dressed up to please their mother? Herself? [At all-girls' high school, I experienced extreme pressure to impress the other girls - if you showed up a single day in the school year without makeup, you could be forever labelled a "les" and ostrasized.] And is it not a sign of clinical depression when someone stops caring about their hygeine and dress?
Finally, veiling is based on the idea that it is women's burden to prevent bad behavior by men [And I notice that when male bad behavior occurs in cultures where veiling is common it is often women who are punished for the infraction.] When I wear a miniskirt in public, I know that the men I will encounter will behave themselves.
People live up or down to the expectations they encounter. Veiling assumes men can't control themselves, miniskirts assume women are safe in the company of men.
And yes the comparison between the pressures on women in our society and the oppression of women in fundamentalist Islamic society is so far off it is almost laughable
I don't mean to say that our culture is easy on women, the statistics of eating disorders, suicide and depression are evidence of just how hard it is, but they do have rights here.
However, the idea of making the Burka, no matter how much we disdain it illegal, is just another kind of oppression.
Give women equal rights. Punish men who abuse them. End the legal domination of women in the muslim world.
(A very tall order indeed)
Then, if women choose to wear a burkah, more power to them.
1. She can't even use the proper terms for her subjects.
2. Her family is complicit in the rollback of women's rights in Iraq: Since our invasion it has become unsafe for any woman to NOT wear the burkah she so despises.
If you talk to most Islamic women you would know that they hate how the Burka has become a political tool. No one cares about the women herself only her clothes. She becomes an objectified symbol not a person and are we not trying to get away from objectification? We “freed” Kuwait from Hussein but no one cares that the women aren’t even allowed to drive there but hey, they are our friends. People like to whine about countries we're politically opposed too like Iraq/Iran but what about Burkas in Turkey, India, or Malaysia? . This is how we help justify wars. If we really want to help women persuade our politicians to push for equality laws using the UN, trade, and political pressure on all countries.
now, if we could only evolve to a european acceptance of sexuality within social frameworks.
Picture this:
a beautiful beach...westernish tourists running around almost naked playing volley ball and splashing happily in the water. On the beach there is a woman in a burkha sitting alone facing the water.Her husband,sporting knee lenghth trunks and nothing else wades out into the salty Dead Sea .The woman sees me watching her and our eyes lock until I look away.Its all I could see of her..her eyes.
Picture me with my Muslim friends ,trying to understand what that Saudi woman must be feeling.I sit in the scrawny shade of a palm with a female friend while the males run to go swimming.I could go in too..clothed if I chose..(Im an American female in the company of Muslim friends)since it WAS 100 degrees in the shade.
My friend asks me whats wrong.I glance quickly in the direction of the woman in the burkha and my friend silently understands why im unsettled.What did say? She looked carefully at me and said,"do NOT complicate things".And then as if she felt she had been tainted somehow,she turned from me and began praying to Allah.Or maybe,it was simply her way of telling me she is ok with her life.
I wish I had profound things to add to this experience.But what was painful for me to see,was just how it is for so many.I didnt learn much from this experience except that the world is a very strange place.And that it can be a very lonely place too.
Really? How many gay men have been murdered in this country for 'not conforming'? And before you spew "It's not government sanctioned here!", ask the victims families if that changes anything.
Their religion/society has issues, so does ours. Which is worse? A subjective call at best. So, if you want to do the whole "We're #1" republican lemming dance, would you mind doing it somewhere else?.