The controversy surrounding whether or not women ought to wear the traditional head scarf (niquab) continues to rage in Islam-centered countries, particularly Egypt. In it, feminist scholars are attempting to reconcile a strict interpretation of what consitutes patriarchal oppression with a practice that surprisingly has been an effective and necessary means of self-defense for Muslim women.
A supreme irony has come to light, namely that the head scarf has a protective function for women, one that discourages sexual harrassment from men by providing an obvious and highly visible barrier against unwelcome behavior. The headscarf unsubtly and resolutely broadcasts "hands off" and men know in no uncertain terms to not take liberties. That this practice was originally set in place by the patriarchy for its own ends and forced upon women as a result has been superceded by the reality of what it provides; namely that in countries where unwelcome sexual advances and breaching of boundaries by men against women are common--practices which would not be tolerated in Western cultures. The niquab, regardless of its designed function, has proven surprisingly effective.
My question is whether a similar scenario exists for us. Are there patriarchal standards and practices forced upon women in our culture that end up inadvertantly being a means of protection? If so, should we reclaim them for our own ends or criticize them for being part and parcel of an ignoble history of subjugation? When we have sought to find every means of understanding violence against women, how to address it at its root, and above all how to advance successful strategies to keep women safe, is adopting a standard of dress or other means of protection like the head scarf in our best interest or against what we advocate?
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is adopting a standard of dress or other means of protection like the head scarf in our best interest or against what we advocate?
I think we do have a form of the headscarf protection in place, or at least the illusion of it with the prevailing attitude that if a woman went out dressed a certain way she was clearly asking for it. The truth is, harassers and rapists will go after the modest "good girls" and scantily clad "sluts" alike, and the only difference will be in how they are perceived afterwards if they look for justice.
I should not be expected to dress a certain way to keep myself from being raped. Lets put the responsibility on the rapist instead of the potential victim and try to prevent rape by enforcing rape laws and safety measures such as well lit campuses with emergency call boxes and changing those attitudes regarding rape that place the responsibility on the woman. If it has to come down to the freedom for me to make choices regarding my attire or other actions or the possibility of increased safety I am going to choose not to sacrifice my freedom.
I agree completely. What I should have added (and my girlfriend explained this to me after I wrote it) is that the head scarf was designed to protect women originally, though it was quickly absorbed into the laws of theocratic countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia as a means of control. In other words, the original intent, which was well-intentioned but unintentionally condescending, became a means of oppression.
I hope that we will continue to put the responsibility on the rapist without falling prey to the temptation of enacting laws and regulations which restrict womens' freedoms, even if enacted out of good intentions.
Did you write the post? Remember your screenname and account name are different, so if you want people to know who you are you should identify yourself in the OP.
If there were an analogue to this in Western society, it would have been back in the day, especially at times like the Victorian era, when everyone was expected to be covered by layers upon layers of clothes. But you'd be wrong to believe harassment and such didn't occur then, or even that it was rare. Social strictures against such treatment are going to be considerably more effective in reducing abuse than demands from society to cover up.
Well said. And I hope we can continue to make progress in that area.
My question is whether a similar scenario exists for us. Are there patriarchal standards and practices forced upon women in our culture that end up inadvertantly being a means of protection?
Many a time I have seen a woman be quite verbally abusive to someone in public (sometimes a bar), a man she did not even know, becuase she knew that the guy could not really do anything.
A dude might have gotten knocked the fuck out.
Also, there was a post/comment a while back (a year ago) wherein a woman basically bragged that she dumped some spaghetti sauce on some guy she thought was boorish. And all the commentators agree that she was kickass.
And of course, the guy didn't do anything, because it would have been unacceptable to respond the the commentators violence even with a proportional level of violence (Alfredo sauce?).
Me mum is a nurse that use to work ER. She has told me that there were a couple of big hulking dudes through the years that have come in because their wives have beat the shit out of them, frying pans and all that. And because they are so big they know if they left one bruise on her to restrain her they go to jail and they loose their children.
Of course, most times women get the short end of the stick when it comes to violence... but there are those that know how to use the system.
Indeed. What *about* the menz?
You could have construed the whole damn post as asking "what about the menz?"
Why jump my shit and not the OP?
Steven has a point: there are social mores that protect women, like "guys never hit girls" - but these are only subject to social policing in public places (usually). Women are overwhelmingly the victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, showing how little application these things have.
There are situations when women can act out physically/verbally violently (esp. in public) and not be similarly attacked because of our culture. Think about the idea of woman slapping a man who says something disrespectful. A lot of people would say that some things warrant that response, but if the situation was reversed - a man being viciously insulted or something - and he slaps the woman, our entire understanding of the issue changes.
Does this balance out the facts of domestic violence and sexual assault being directed against women? No. But if we progress to true equality, we may see a world where women are slapped by or get into brawls with men in certain situations.
So, to redirect this side-thread more to the question as originally posed:
If so, should we reclaim them for our own ends or criticize them for being part and parcel of an ignoble history of subjugation?
The argument seems to be that reclaiming these "protections" is too simplistic a method. Any such gendered mechanism has knock on affects that reinforce kyriarchy in other ways. This is a good argument, the fact that sexism can be seen through the utilisation of the strictures indicates just how prevalent and ingrained sexism actually is.
It may well be that (now) mandated dress codes for Muslim women were originally chosen by women as a defence mechanism, but to me that just indicates how deeply mired in sexism the society was already. I draw a parallel with the story on the pink taxis operating in Mexico from a few days ago. At the moment women may well be choosing the pink taxis to feel safer, but if the cause of need for them goes unchecked what will the results be? I would extrapolate a progression to a taboo against riding in anything but a pink taxi. Followed by mandating women must ride in pink taxis for their own safety, and then not riding in one as a valid excuse to perpetrate guilt-free sexism.
So, I think all of these gendered practices, taboos and mandates need to be broken down. However, how to do that in a safe way - how to structure repealing sexism - is a more difficult problem? So the protections need to go first to alter the attitudes, do the attitudes need to go before the protections, can they go simultaneously, is there a more nuanced approach?
Should be 'Do the protections[...]'
Comments on the substance of the article pending but first of all, it's impossible to take this article seriously when it fails Islamic terminology 101.
Niqab is NOT a headscarf. It is a full face veil leaving a slit for the eyes: http://static.open.salon.com/files/003618-three-piece-niqab.jpg
Hijab is a headscarf: http://muslimahblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/hijab11-285x291.jpg
A burka covers everything: http://static.open.salon.com/files/003618-three-piece-niqab.jpg
When many Muslimahs refer to 'veiling' they mean the practice of covering their HAIR not their face. There is a HUGE difference; covering your face hides your identity, covering your hair is not much different than in Victorian times when no respectable lady went out without a hat.
For any Feministers wanting an Arab/Islamic/Middle Eastern (not all quite the same thing) culture 101, I suggest Allegra Stratton's "Muhajababes" for a Western take on Middle Eastern youth culture, and "Girls of Riyadh" by Rajaa Alsanea, a Saudi girl's true life account of the dating/marital struggles of a young group of girls in the Kingdom.
Inherent in the idea that a garment can protect us from harassment by men (because it shows we're a good girl, doesn't 'incite lust') is the corollary that women not wearing it deserve to be treated badly. It is thus no protection in the end for any woman.
That it's more acceptable for a woman to slap a man who says something disrespectful than the reverse doesn't give her any real protection either. Part of the reason it is allowed is that it's assumed she's too weak to do him any real harm.
There are some aspects of sexism that initially present themselves as benevolent. They're not.
Good points.
The thing that also has me wondering about the "don't hit a girl" doctrine is if it's also a way to "protect" boys and men from a potential loss to a female, which in our society can be a fate worse than an actual injury. We know that violence is often two-way and therefore it stands to reason that a considerable number of women can and will present somewhat of a formidable challenge to a man. Not always, but often enough.
I thought about this because my partner was complaining of muscle fatigue. And I offered to arm wrestle him to see if he really was indeed feeling weak. And he initially refused on the grounds that I just might win. I repeat. He refused. In the privacy of our home. Really??? I get it, I get it. No but, Really?
Also I think the analogy of a woman slapping a man in public is not so much about getting physical as it is to humiliate and to disrespect the man. Yes it is violent. Yes it is taking advantage of the fact that men have been conditioned to not hit back. However, I feel that a better analogy to this is when men do things like throw water on women's clothing (usually in public outdoors venues to make a scene) to make her outfit transparent and mess her all up---they're not trying to physically injure her usually, rather it's about disrespect and humiliation.
One way of looking at the doctrine of "boys don't hit girls" is that it expresses a territorial/possessive cultural remnant that assumes women are protected and owned by men. Thus, a man doesn't hit *another man's* woman, but he can hit his own wife or daughter to "bring her in line" because she is "his responsibility." Thus, a man won't hit a strange woman in public because he is expected to take up the grievance with her male guardian.
Just speculation on my part, though. Though I agree that the problem with assuming a scarf provides some measure of protection is that it easily becomes a *requirement* for all "respectable" women.
I think this comment is based upon a false premise - it's based on the assumption that a headscarf of any description (whether just covering the head or a full-body covering) makes it less likely that a woman will suffer sexual harassment. This has been proven to not be the case at all, as this study from Egypt shows:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7514567.stm
This is a summary of what they found:
"Participants in the survey were shown pictures of women wearing different kinds of dress - from the mini skirt to the niqab (full face veil) and asked which were more likely to be harassed.
More than 60% - including female respondents - suggested the scantily clad woman was most at risk. But in reality the study concluded the majority of the victims of harassment were modestly dressed women wearing Islamic headscarves."
This is in Egypt, where there has been a huge revival in the headscarf but simultaneously there has been a huge increase in sexual harassment. Here are some figures from the report to illustrate:
"Sexual Harassment in Egypt:
Experienced by 98% of foreign women visitors
Experienced by 83% of Egyptian women
62% of Egyptian men admitted harassing women
53% of Egyptian men blame women for 'bringing it on'
Source: Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights"
I can't think of anything at all that that has been forced on us by the patriarchy that in any way protects me - even if you consider self-defense lessons or the practice going everywhere in packs it's still in order to counteract something that's been brought on us by men, and still is. The headscarf is a good example of this - women are advised to wear it to protect against unwanted advances but instead it results in this sort of attitude (again from the article):
"Some said they harassed a woman simply because they were bored. One who abused a woman wearing the niqab said she must be beautiful, or hiding something."
So I would say with almost 100% surety that adopting a certain standard of dress does zero to protect you. It's like the old rape argument, that it only happens to women who dress a certain way or are very beautiful - we know for a fact that's not the case, it's attitudes held about women by men generally that make them more likely to be attacked.
We do have that here. It used to be in the form of a long sleeved floor length dress and bonnet. Now it's in the form of a bra and shirt that covers nipples. It may not be as much as anything that Muslim women may wear, but it's essentially got the same principle behind it.
Right the promised substance comment. I am disappointed the article has not been amended per the factual inaccuracies I pointed out above.
Anyway, to get to things that are subjects for debate and not just the author being flat wrong, I have read several sources that say the burka and variants, at their inception, were only worn by upper-class women, princesses, wives of sheikhs etc. They filtered down because they are aspirational. They are a way of saying 'my husband is so important that I don't have to do manual labor, hence I shall physically disable myself in this manner so as to make it impractical'. In Arab culture only manual workers (ie peasants), slave girls and prostitutes were uncovered, so to be uncovered did not mean you were a loose woman so much as it meant you were a pleb. It's like Chinese foot-binding or a housewife (in an age of fridges and detergents) - only a really successful, rich man can have an economically inactive wife and the burka or similar is a sign of this.
That's not all it is, and not many Arab women necessarily see it that way now - many speak of an act of prayer and don't even think about how it affects men, they talk of how it makes THEM feel with relation to God - but that's how many sources say it started. In that sense one can see how the positive associations became so strong. All that cloth may feel a bit like a prison but it's way more freedom than slaving away in the fields all day every day, from the day you can walk to the day you die.
And gadgetgal is right, the correlation between level of covering and level of sexual harassment is always found to be either negligible or negative - ie either it happens the same amount or more. And of course societies where covering is socially or legally mandated are even more hostile to victims of harassment/assault/rape so the volume of it going on, relative to that reported, is probably even higher than in more liberal societies. Plus many women in more conservative societies accept a lower status and hence believe their father, brother, husband etc have the right to beat them for immodesty, for shaming the family or for any disobedience, and that it is not possible for a husband to rape his wife. Hence their definition of abuse or harassment in a street setting is probably also vastly different to what your average Feminister means by it.
"It's like Chinese foot-binding or a housewife (in an age of fridges and detergents) - only a really successful, rich man can have an economically inactive wife"
This is unrelated to the substance of the OP, but I have to take issue with this statement. There are plenty of women (and some men) who are not part of the paid workforce and whose families are of middle and lower income.
And an individual who is not receiving an income for their work caring for a home, dependent children, or other dependent adults is "economically inactive" only in the sense that no money is changing hands due to their work. They do have an economic effect, however, in that no one ELSE is getting paid for the work they are doing (teachers, daycare providers, home health aids, cleaning service, etc.)
As someone who at one point did not work outside of the home because my potential income would not cover daycare costs, I can assure you that my work both had value and had nothing to do with being a status symbol for wealthy man.
Negligible or POSITIVE sorry. As in the more covered up women get the more harassment happens. D'oh.
Wearing hijabs or or other head covering is that is culturally normative in many Muslim communities. Think of it this way... Most women in America wear shirts. There are however some cultures where women go barechested, and it's not a big deal. How would you feel if someone from one of those cultures came and told you the women of America are being oppressed by their blouses and we should all start wearing bikini tops or nothing at all? I'm guessing a lot of women would feel uncomfortable with that.
Of course women who don't fit into these sociatal norms should not be sexually harassed, raped, or otherwise persecuted. It seems however that sexual harassment and general lack of respect for women as people is very common regardless of what women have on their head, which is the real issue.
I think women should be able to walk around topless. It's oppressive to say women need shirts but men only need shirts sometimes.