Friend of the blog Joe Patrice, who’s now writing at Above the Law, sent in this item about a Muslim woman taking the bar exam who got hassled because she was wearing a headscarf.
I’m no expert on Hijab but the politics of this are interesting. The Ann Coulters of the world see this as another opportunity to sell books based on Christian tribalism, since a big segment of the rump of the Republican party is not offended by the possibility that the headscarf is an icon of oppression–they’re just upset that it’s not their brand of oppression that’s being enforced. (And it’s worth noting that the Christianist form of oppression is a more strict version than mainstream Muslim beliefs in some areas.)
If the headscarf signifies oppression of women (and I’m not saying it does, since I don’t know enough about what it signifies in American Muslim communities), the one sure way to get rid of it is to tolerate it and let it go unremarked. Unless Rihanna or Taylor Swift start wearing a chador, a couple of generations of good old American assimilation will move it into the realm of new immigrants or true believers, just like the other religious symbology of earlier immigrants.
(Images are from this reddit thread. Skater girls are from this album “Humans of Tehran“.)
NickT
This reminds me of the nonsense over Rachael Ray’s supposedly terrorist scarf back in the day. How long until Malkin goes off the deep end on this non-issue as well? If the woman wants to wear a head-scarf to take her exams, she should be free to do so, without being attacked for it.
sparrow
I don’t see how it can NOT be about oppression of women. I get so disgusted when I see women wrapped up like mummies (especially in Houston, where you see them wearing black from head to toe and only a sheer eye slit and it’s a 100 degrees out), while their men wear normal, COMFORTABLE western clothing. Fucking hypocrites. And then they make their 6 year old daughters do it too. What the hell? What is wrong with your culture where a 6 year old could possible be taken as a sexual object that needs to be covered up? I don’t care if that is intolerant, I am intolerant of bullish*t towards women.
debbie
I can’t find the link, but I remember reading a WSJ article by a Turkish businesswoman who objected to the hijab, chaldor, etc. because they were thought to protect men from their own “baser” instincts. Can’t get more patriarchal than that.
Shakezula
I wonder if the exam included questions about the 1st Am.
Springfield, Mass. isn’t exactly underrepresented when it comes to people outside of the white Christian spectrum so if the proctor tried to claim head scarves were this new never before seen scary thing, I call bullshit.
c u n d gulag
Our Christian Fundamentalists hate to even think that some other religion’s fundamentalists may start to invade their turf.
They want THEIR intolerance and bigotry, and not someone else’s – thank you very much!
Jaybird
If your focus is on “culture”, then you might be tempted to see it as “this culture versus that culture” and, of course, you probably can’t really say that that culture is worse than this one. Heck, as you point out, (And it’s worth noting that the Christianist form of oppression is a more strict version than mainstream Muslim beliefs in some areas.)
Which is, of course, not to be read as a criticism of either culture because, of course, how can you judge another culture without sounding like a backwards hick who doesn’t know anything outside of his own little cloistered world? (Not that there’s anything wrong with backwards hick culture, mind!)
If, however, your focus is on the individual, then you might be tempted to see it as “an individual instance of the larger trend of women in that culture being browbeaten by men in that culture” in which case you might say “it sucks that individuals are treated like that and hiding behind ‘culture’ is yet another cop-out.”
jonas
Anyone who grew up in a southern European immigrant community as little as a generation or two ago can remember older women wearing scarves, especially in church. It was a (mild) form of Christian veiling. What do you think a nun’s habit is? Those of us living in rural Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio are used to seeing bonnet-sporting Amish and Mennonite women all the time. Mistermix is right — wingers who get their panties in a twist over this would probably be perfectly happy seeing women and girls veiled if they could somehow make it a symbol of Christian tribalism.
Tone in DC
Didn’t know that Khamanei and the mullahs allowed shredding in the streets of Teheran. Maybe the X Games can recruit from the Middle East.
aimai
A hijab is not a chador is not a burkah. And women’s reasons for choosing to wear the hijab are also quite distinct from a society’s decision to force a woman into a burkah. Some women describe enjoying the hijab because it
1) symbolizes faith
2) reminds them of the divine while they go about an everyday routine
3) can serve as a space for privacy and reflection during prayer itself
4) de-emphasizes sexuality in a highly sexualized world.
5) is a form of decoration and aesthetically pleasing.
cmorenc
I thought the headscarf for women per se was about inhibiting the sexual attractiveness of women to men in public, which *could* potentially tend to decrease viewing women as sex objects as opposed to people. However, it’s all the *other* trappings of the more fundamentalist versions of Islam which work strongly counter to this and give the head-covering of women a strong sexually demeaning implication.
So, verdict is mixed, depending on flavor of Islamic custom under consideration.
mistermix
@aimai: Eh, I don’t think it’s as categorical as you make it out to be. The Iranians I know hated chador, headscarf, burkah, all of it, but I realize that it’s highly dependent on the practice in a given community. There’s probably some community where what you’re saying is true, but I’m not going to celebrate the practice of covering up women for some religious end. It’s almost always about male domination.
(BTW, in this post I’m using Hijab in the generic sense of clothing expressing modesty.)
Cassidy
Head scarves and full body coverings are two different things. Even secular women will wear the headscarf. People should learn more about these things. Perhaps we should eradicate all squirrels because people can’t be bothered to learn.
sparrow
@aimai: And men don’t wear them because…? Look, I get that some women choose to wear headscarfs quite freely and it really isn’t someone making them. But that doesn’t make it a different symbol than it is. The origin of the veil and requirements for covering down to the wrists and ankles (yes, in Christian societies too) has its roots in thinking of women as property, which you didn’t want to risk getting damaged by the “baser instincts” of the local male population.
That said, I wear relatively conservative clothing at work because I don’t want to emphasize my “sexiness” as a woman either. People can draw that line in different places, up to and including a head scarf, which I don’t really have a problem with. And I think it is stupid to try to pass laws against them or force people to take them off. I will just consider it a positive development if it happens on its own, and I hope for that outcome.
flukebucket
@aimai:
Thank you. I looked it up.
Cassidy
It’s fucking hot in the desert. Covering your head is good practice even without the religious bullshit.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Depends on the community.
If it’s JUST the headscarf, it very likely has nothing to do with “protecting men from their baser instincts” but is, rather, a cultural cousin to the yarmulke, worn for the same reason: to show respect for God.
The full chador is an entirely different matter.
aimai
@mistermix: Well, I’m not using Hijab in a “generic sense” and I’m not discussing women who are forced into veiling by the introduction of a repressive theocracy. I didn’t “make anything out” in a categorical fashion–but I did point out that a hijab is not a fucking burkah is not a fucking chador. They are completely different things and hold different positions in every community depending on overall political and social constraints. A woman can be as liberated in a hijab as she is without one and many dynamic and empowered muslim women will tell you so.
I am not a muslim woman but I know plenty of them. I am completely opposed to christian and islamic patirarchalism and theocracy in general but women are entitled to choose islam as a faith, you know, and to choose the way they express their faith through dress as much as anyone else.
The Moar You Know
@sparrow: It’s not oppression. The idea is that women are so disgusting to the God that created them that they should cover themselves to prevent Almighty God from having a fit of pearl-clutching and taking to His Holy Fainting Couch from the horror of it all.
What woman would object to being told that she is a horror so foul she must be covered at all times, removed from the sight of God himself?
ETA: the French do it right. Take off all your bullshit religious markers or stay at home. Nobody wants to deal with your invisible sky daddy bullshit.
flukebucket
Maybe it is just me but I have always been an eye man. This kind of thing rattles my baser instincts as much as a Penthouse centerfold and maybe more.
Belafon
The university I went to a few years ago included a number of Islamic women, a large number from Morocco. On my way into class one day, one had her cell phone wedged inside her hijab, allowing her to talk hands free.
I still get a kick out of that image.
Amir Khalid
I’ve never known myself quite what to make of the burqa. I see a deep self-contradiction in such an ostentatious display of modesty.
@sparrow:
You might find helpful this Wikipedia article on the general concept of modesty in Islam for woman and men. To generalise: modesty is a virtue. What constitutes modest clothing is subject not only to (the quite limited) guidance from Scripture and the Hadith, but also to cultural norms in any given time and place. The latter, particularly in many Muslim societies, are often needlessly strict. But Muslim wowsers, like their Christian counterparts, like to make the rules needlessly strict just because.
aimai
@flukebucket: Yeah, no. That is not how those categories are commonly defined among more or less assimilated Muslim communities. A Hijab is generally no more than a scarf. In many communities it is a scarf that is thrown over the head only in certain situations and the rest of the time worn around the neck. The kind of truly scary Chador and Burkah things you are showing in that picture are associated with extremely repressive Saudi and Afghan style Islam and that shit has spread largely because of Saudi wealth. If it weren’t for oil money the worst excesses of an extremely sexually repressive and iconoclastic/regressive aesthetic (Wahabi’ism) would not be at all symbolic of islam.
mistermix
@aimai:
Hijab means a lot of things other than a headscarf.
Yatsuno
@aimai: Almost every Muslim woman I have known called their decision to wear hijab one of their most personal decisions. For some of them it’s a defiance of Western norms that makes them feel more empowered in public. Plus the creativity of the colours and patterns even in full covering (I saw a woman the other day in full chador with a lovely hand embroiered edge) is fascinating. Some do not have a choice, but those that do make the choice to embrace it wholeheartedly.
Marc
In some places women are not free to choose whether to cover themselves or not. This was one reason why France put in their anti-veiling law: there was a strong feminist case that young women in some areas were attacked or harassed if not veiled. This is an analog to Attaturk banning the fez for men – sometimes the only way to overturn a deeply seated cultural convention is to prohibit it.
If you can’t even see someone elses face – a full chaldor – then you’re violating other cultural and safety norms. Not all cultural traditions (suttee, for example) deserve respect, and in many communities oppressed people aren’t free to decide whether they follow them.
Amir Khalid
@The Moar You Know:
The French do it wrong. It should be for the Muslim Frenchwoman herself, and no one else, to decide what is modest and appropriate dress in any context. Her husband/father should have no right to compel her to cover herself in any particular “Islamic” way; the French government should have no right to interfere in her religious freedom by forbidding it.
Elizabelle
Law school students, women and men, could go a long way towards stopping this nonsense if they all showed up with a scarf or head-covering to take their exams.
Turns out to be apocryphal, sadly, but there was a legend that all Danes wore a gold star, in solidarity with the Jews, during WW2. Including King Christian X.
Snopes assures the gold star story is not true, but that Denmark did protect almost all of its Jewish population.
I love seeing the Tehran skater girls.
Belafon
@Marc: Yes, but for the moment, let’s limit the discussion to the focus of this post. It’s not American culture that harassing women that wear these religious items, it’s right wing Christians who are jealous that they can’t force everyone to wear a cross on their shoulders.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@The Moar You Know:
I’ve certainly heard similar things from Baptists.
I’ve been waiting to hear the screams about the French not allowing yarmulke to be worn in public.
RobertDSC-iPhone 4
Color me backwards, but I find hijab wear extremely attractive.
That said, the picture in the post is really neat, in a non-sexual way.
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
No, the French are doing it wrong. They chose the law they did because it interferes with minority religious practices but not majority ones. It’s religious discrimination pretending to be secularism.
schrodinger's cat
Why are all these “modesty” promoting strictures imposed only on women, no matter the religion? Why are women’s bodies a political arena? Just leave me alone. Kthnx.
Matt
Umm….
I guess people don’t realize that orthodox jewish women also wear a head scarf (although some wear a wig instead)…
schrodinger's cat
@The Moar You Know: French law against head scarves makes them as intolerant as the mullahs who want women to cover up like a shroud. Its not their choice to make.
scav
@Belafon: They’re certainly not going after the bebonneted or beshawled or beheadcovering Amish or Menonnite or Ethiopian Orthodox Christians I’ve seen. They do seem to adore enforcing strict government laws on what is or isn’t allowed in or on top of various body parts and calling it for women’s protection and feminism when convenient. Funny how women’s freedom seems to match entirely their preconceptions (and don’t you go making other decisions you wimminz! We define what your free choices are!)
Roger Moore
@Marc:
It’s a BS argument. If they wanted to stand up for the rights of women to do as they choose, they should have arrested men for breaking their existing laws against harassment. Instead, they chose a much more intrusive law that also prevents voluntary religious practice among a religious minority. It’s religious discrimination hiding behind claims of protecting a minority group, and it’s obnoxious.
schrodinger's cat
I sometimes read a blog written by woman who is a conservative catholic, to give you an idea how crazy she is, suffice to say that she finds the Republican party too progressive. Anyway one topic that she and her readers obsess most about is “modesty”. I would say this a feature of all orthodox religious groups not just Muslims.
ETA: Reading this particular blog is like entering the rabbit hole like Alice. It is so crazy that I initially thought it was a spoof.
Bmaccnm
@schrodinger’s cat: In my experience, devout Muslim men also have dress rules- heads are covered, sleeves are long, clothing is loose.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: Yarmulkes. I am not Jewish but I find that I need to bobby pin a little beanie to my head at Jewish weddings and funerals. Also, I have taken bar exams in two states. Each time, I saw a bunch of people where yarmulkes. No one hassled them.
No one should be forced to wear a hajib or a yarmulke but, if the individual chooses to do so, why should anyone else give a fuck?
mistermix
@Matt: I’m aware of it – I see them walking to temple in the orthodox section of town when I drive by there on Saturdays on the way to the market.
The point on assimilation is that the vast majority of Jews in this town do not wear any headgear during their day-to-day activities, just as I’ll bet you most Muslims (women or men) won’t wear any headgear after they’ve been in the country for a generation or two.
scav
@Roger Moore: Could just as easily talk about the legal imposition of “western” dress norms upon minority groups. Instantly denigrating any spiritual significance it might have to the wearer and insisting it must have the meaning of female subordination and none other is likewise a imposition of norms and a swipe at that individual having any say in the matter (“Shut up and be liberated”) and belittling the religion involved as well.
ruviana
I’m on Aimai and Amir’s side here. I have a friend who’s Pakistani and notes (like Amir said) that the Koran asks for modesty by both men and women and if you look at men in Islamic countries they certainly aren’t in cut-offs and wife-beaters. It’s true that Islam, like its fellow Abrahamic religions, seems to get tangled up about women, but modest dress is supposed to be followed by both men and women. My fri4end, by the way, is driven crazy by Muslim women who veil for “feminist” reasons and since she’s looking at it from a very different perspective than I ever could I tend to take her point.
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
They aren’t. Every religion I know of that requires women to dress modestly has a similar requirement that men dress modestly. They may have stricter restrictions on what women wear, but not always, and they certainly don’t let men wear whatever they feel like. Look at the clothes that Iranian, Saudi, Orthodox Jewish, or FLDS men wear and tell me that they aren’t adhering to a fairly strict code of modesty.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Amir Khalid: Bingo. But unlike those snotty Frogs, we’re all about tolerance here.
/snark (except, perhaps, for the “snotty” part
Burnspbesq
Bar examiners have a legitimate interest in ensuring that the person taking the exam is actually the person who is applying for admission to the bar. A woman who shows up to take the exam in a niqab or burqa can reasonably be asked to prove that she is who she claims to be. I’m open to suggestion as to how that can be done other than by use of photo ID.
Elizabelle
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
And I believe that it was Roman Catholic church father Saint Augustine who wrote that a woman is like a temple built over a sewer?
St. A, of the “give me chastity and continence, but not yet.” (I liked that about the guy.)
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes I agree with your sentiment. However I have found through personal experience that the rules about what women can wear/should wear are much more onerous than they are for men.
When I go to India, my appearance elicits a microscopic scrutiny, every thing from my weight to my hair to what I am wearing is commented upon, while peeps leave the hubcat alone. Also too, most of the commenting is done by other women.
Yatsuno
Mixie, your fix didn’t work.
@scav: The law has nothing to do with liberation of women. It’s pure French chauvinism. The tension between Islam and France goes back at least as far as the occupation of Algeria but really came to a head when France went to the Middle East for cheap labour. Then the ingrates had the nerve to shun superiour French culture and keep their faith and their customs. Add in an economic slump and you get laws like this.
schrodinger's cat
@Roger Moore: When I see men covered from head to toe in black during the height of summer, I will agree with you. Men may have some restrictions, but they are nowhere as strict as the rules for women.
mapaghimagsik
@Omnes Omnibus: this.
Sometimes head scarves are a great accessory, especially when it’s hair gone mad.
Funny how banning something gives it new life, too.
Elizabelle
@schrodinger’s cat:
We have a winner.
A lot of backward social norms are enforced by women, who had them enforced on them. You see it a lot.
Which is not letting men off the hook. Just pointing out the complicated nature of social norms that should be dead, but are not.
Chris
@Amir Khalid:
This. And I’m French.
I’m not a huge fan of the implications of women covering up (especially when it’s as radical as the full body, Saudi style cover, though that’s pretty rare). But then, I’m not a fan of women going into a church where the priest is going to quote the Bible and say “wives, submit to your husbands,” either. The only thing the government can do is guarantee an environment in which the women in question are free to leave that culture behind, not practice it, etc, if they so choose. If they don’t so choose, that’s not up to me, or the feds.
(And I, too, have met women who wear headscarves for their own choice and for all kinds of reasons – heck, my Iraqi friend from undergrad was the only girl in her family who wore one, and she wasn’t even doing it out of religious conservatism, just a cultural statement, her version of a “Kiss me I’m Irish” shirt).
Chris
@Roger Moore:
Yeah, I love how their “compromise” was to write “we are banning ostentatious religious symbols, not all religious symbols.” So, if you wear a crucifix around your neck, you can just tuck it in your shirt if someone’s being a hardass. But a hijab? Narp.
PurpleGirl
@aimai: As to item #5: I see a lot of Muslim women who wear different kinds of head scarves; single layer, double scarves, triangles tied in different ways, hood styles, beaded, sequined, patterned fabric, plain colors. And some women who wear just a rectangle of fabric in the style of Benazir Bhutto. Many, many different kinds for many different reasons. The religion may call for modesty but each community/culture/tribe expresses it in its own way.
scav
@Yatsuno: no real argument there (on the frog side) (although when I was there, the targets du jour were the Portuguese they’d brought in as labor while the Germans concentrated on the Turks for similar reasons). The liberation of women rationale is more used as a bludgeon in this side of le pond. Sorry I was confusing by not being more clear it was a general statement.
Omnes Omnibus
@Burnspbesq: A head scarf would not create an ID issue; a veil could.
Splitting Image
We had four women at the last place that I worked who wore the full niqab. For most of the time that they were there, they all wore exclusively black. Except for the fact that one of them was significantly taller than the others, it was tricky telling them apart.
The thing is, there is a crucial difference between choosing to wear hijab or niqab of your own accord and having a Higher Authority make the decision for you. There are hundreds of women in Toronto who cover their faces, and you can’t claim to know why any of them do it unless you go up and ask them. As mentioned above, it is a very personal decision for a lot of them and there is more than one reason why they do it.
I agree. Anywhere it is not a cultural norm, wearing a niqab or a burqa screams “Look at Me!” One of the most committed Muslims that I have known over the years was a woman that I met back in university who didn’t even wear a hijab. In her case, I think that part of her concept of modesty was fitting in to local norms so as not to draw attention to herself. On the other hand, I think that some women who veil in these parts are doing it out of a reaction to Islamophobia than out of a desire to be modest. It’s more of a “we’re here, we’re queer” sort of statement.
As for whether the niqab symbolizes oppression, similar arguments have been made about high heels, makeup, and any number of other things Western women have worn over the years. Sumptuary laws have never been the answer. In practice, all that they have done is encourage the godbotherers and pantysniffers to come out of the woodwork and volunteer to make sure that women are not wearing any of the offending articles of clothing.
Part of the problem is that some Muslim-majority countries have long-standing traditions of harassing women in public, and the argument over veiling is partly about whether the practice is a result of this or a cause of it. I don’t know if veiling actually does any good as far as protecting the wearer is concerned, but the solution is to discourage Muslim men from being jerks, not criticizing Muslim women for what they wear. And obviously, this shouldn’t be limited to Muslims. What I’ve noticed over the years is that the people most prone to cricitizing Muslim women for wearing too much clothing are the same people criticizing other women for wearing too little. Getting rid of the “She was asking to be raped. Look at what she was wearing” mindset is to my way of thinking far more important than ensuring that Muslim women are showing a sufficient amount of skin.
schrodinger's cat
@Splitting Image I have a friend whose mother started wearing a head scarf much later in life, she turned to religion for solace after her husband’s sudden death, but neither my friend or her sister wear a scarf.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@schrodinger’s cat: That’s true among US subcultures as well.
I assume you’re young enough to have never had your shoe color subjected to scrutiny?
I’ve done interesting contortions trying to check the number of inches my skirt was below my knee.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cassidy:
I’d eliminate the people who can’t bother to learn. There are fewer of them, and they’re actually guilty of something, unlike the squirrels.
Honus
@jonas: Forget southern european immigrant community. Mainstream catholics required women to cover their heads in church until the late 1970s. I was there, I saw it.
Rafer Janders
@Bmaccnm:
Head covering is not mandated for men under Muslim law.
Honus
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: If it didn’t touch the ground when you knelt to say your rosary, it was too short.
schrodinger's cat
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Why would shoe color be “immodest”? I am curious as to what you are referring to.
Villago Delenda Est
@Honus:
I call shenanigans. No Catholic would ever do that Jewish/Muslim covering of heads thing. It’s utterly immoral, and a sign of devotion to the wrong flavor of God.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Honus: Kneeling is for Satanists*! As are candles!
*Or Papists, which amounted to the same thing to them
More seriously, those were secular norms in my subculture. No white shoes between Labor Day and Memorial Day, shoes (if not white) could only be so many shades off from the skirt (and that only allowed because it was bloody hard to find shoes for dyeing to match), the proper skirt length varied from season to season and year to year, as did the proper sleeve length. No pants, ever.
Went along with required lapel and tie widths, proper shades of brown for the shoes and belts, cuff or no cuff, etc. for the men.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat:
Red “fuck me” pumps…”immodest”.
Black “fuck me” pumps… moral and sane.
Also, any streetwalker costume Sarah Palin wears is automatically modest and appropriate.
ruemara
Y’all are full of it, if you’re all angry at hijab, chador or burka wearing. It’s just not about you. It’s what these women choose to wear. Hijab is done in many different ways all over the world and there are many proud muslima who want to wear hijab, just as Amir has said, in an “out and proud” way. I have the pleasure of friendship with a very progressive young lady who is quite observant in her short shorts and high heels as she is when she goes to religious functions wearing longsleeved dresses and hijab. I know converts who feel very strongly about wearing a hijab and modest dress at all times. You might as well be discussing my mum, who attended many a church where we both had to cover our heads, or some of my school friends in high school who only wore dresses because jeans were anathema to their particular brand of Christianity. What about my NYU classmate who was orthodox and had to wear a wig after first year because she finally fulfilled her arranged marriage? Is she being oppressed because she has a belief? She felt it was fine for her. If the issue is this sort of religious fundamentalism being forced on people (see the deaths of male youth in the ME for affecting “emo” punk fashions) then why should attacking people for choice in religious observance be ok? Plus, what the hell is it to supposedly free Americans how people practice their faith? When will we free quiverfull women from the hell of gingham prints, little house on the prarie dresses and no fucking style in their hair? Ugly long skirts on lubavitchers-why, that’s not assimulation. Fuck, free black women from some of those godawful massive ass hats and fricking stockings. The only condemnation should be for the idiots who gave her a hard time as she was at the bar. You don’t get to tell people how to conduct their faith, you have the basic law of the land and if it’s not illegal, it’s not your business.
schrodinger's cat
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: How can one survive without wearing pants in the New England or Mid Western winter?
srv
And I’m sure some aspects of Sharia Law are quite reasonable.
Pretty soon your liberal tolerances will be everywhere. Even asians are getting into it – this is becoming a thing in some California cities and beaches.
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
This is by no means limited to women. It applies to anyone who was on the wrong end of a social custom once and now has the chance to enforce it. You see it all the time with hazing rituals, for example; people who were loudest in complaining when they were being hazed are often the worst when it’s their turn to do the hazing. They had to put up with it back in their day, so they don’t see why today’s youngsters should be exempt. It’s ridiculous and backward, but you often see it put in those exact terms.
Joey Maloney
@schrodinger’s cat: When I see men covered from head to toe in black during the height of summer, I will agree with you.
I see this every day of the week. In Tel Aviv. In August. With the temperature pushing 100. And don’t forget the shteimels – yes, that’s real fur, and a lot of it.
The women, at least, get to wear skirts so they’re somewhat ventilated.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@schrodinger’s cat: Simple. If you didn’t conform to the current definition of “proper attire”, you were “going about dressed like a streetwalker”.
@Villago Delenda Est: It’s one of the few “requirements” that’s actually in the New Testament.
schrodinger's cat
@Joey Maloney: OK you win. BTW I have never understood the religious.
ETA: Also too, the Sikhs, the restrictions on men’s attire are more numerous and cumbersome.
Roger Moore
@srv:
Yeah, you see those all the time here in the 626. It seems to be a Chinese thing rather than a generally Asian thing; at least all of the women I’ve seen wearing them are Chinese and not from other parts of Asia. Parasols are a big thing around here, too.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@schrodinger’s cat: I’ve been told repeatedly that hose keep you plenty warm enough, usually when I wanted to at least wear an ankle length skirt to hide long johns.
Cassidy
@Villago Delenda Est: Shhh, I suggested something similar a couple of days ago and am an asshole for it.
Roger Moore
One point that I’ll make is that I’ve found that women are much more inclined to break dress codes than men are. I’m the safety officer at my work, which means that I’m in charge of enforcing our unisex, completely for safety dress code. Everyone is required to have their legs and feet completely covered to protect from spilled chemicals. I have probably ten to twenty times as much trouble dealing with women breaking those rules than men. There are occasionally men who want to wear shorts or sandals with socks, but they’ll usually give in after you’ve talked to them once or twice. Some women I’ve been working with, and challenging for breaking the dress code, for a decade or more still try to wear knee-length skirts and sandals in the lab. And it can’t be a single cultural thing, since this is at least as much a problem among Chinese women as among American and European ones.
sparrow
@Roger Moore: That may be the official line, but it isn’t what is followed from my experience, from Houston to Istanbul and points in between. There are a few men who may follow these rules, but what they wear is typically still more comfortable than what the women get to wear.
Ferdzy
s@srv:
Wow! I could totally go for one of those sunvisors. Of course, my mother is currently struggling with her nth bout of skin cancer, and my grandmother didn’t have much of a face left by the time she died. I do worry about keeping the sun off my face.
I think it’s hilarious – in a fuck you kind of way – that the author of that piece seems to think that his “right” to see women’s faces trumps their right to avoid skin cancer. Yeah, that’s liberation for you. Not.
Rafer Janders
@ruemara:
Umm, yes.
Ruckus
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
In high school we had a “dress code”. And it was much stricter for the girls than the boys. Including what they had to wear under their dresses/skirts. And of course if a girl got pregnant she was kicked out of school. Nothing was ever said to the boy that impregnated her.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
This may have been addressed upthread (posting between classes), but you know how not to oppress a woman? Let her make her own damned decisions about what to wear or not to wear! Of all the paternalistic b.s.
Omnes Omnibus
@Rafer Janders: What about the social norms that require me to wear a suit and tie to work on most occasions?
MikeJ
@Roger Moore:
You never, ever see umbrellas in Seattle during the nine months of rain. It’s very common to see parasols during the summer.
(and why won’t FYWP remember my nom de blog and phony email address? Cookies enabled (at least from here) and even ecmascript again, at least for here))
srv
@MikeJ: WP has emo sensibilities.
Rafer Janders
@Omnes Omnibus:
What about them?
rk
@ruemara:
A lot of Muslim women (if not most) are wearing Hijab not because it is a free choice. Many are subject to community pressure. Women did not simply come up with the idea of covering themselves up from head to toe. It was forced upon them by male dominated religions. Just because a few of them now choose to do so by their own free will, it is not a sign of freedom. In fact they make it worse for women who want to stop wearing it as now muslim conservatives can point to western muslim women and say that “even freedom loving muslim women choose to wear the Hijab”. When you happily collude with your oppressors you are just making life harder for the still oppressed. The burka is also a very convenient garment for wife beaters and abusers to hide their actions from the rest of the world. I’m with the French on this one. Female “modesty” is just a BS word, bandied about by conservatives to push their misogynistic ideals.
Omnes Omnibus
@Rafer Janders: Are those oppressive? A choice to be a member of a particular community is a choice to more or less abide by that community’s rules. If the person is making a voluntary choice, I don’t see the oppression. if the person is not given a true choice, it is oppressive. I don’t have to have the job I have. One can choose not to remain Amish. One doesn’t get fined or arrested for failing to wear a yarmulke.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Ruckus: Oh, our school dress code was a lot looser. And pregnant girls no longer disappeared by the time I was in high school. Though they did disappear from my church.
I had the advantage of being an outsider to all this, though it didn’t feel like an advantage at the time. For a long time, I was the only girl who actually played at home in shorts and pants. My mother raised holy hell over the dress code not allowing pants when I was in the first grade, not even when we went outside for recess, and got it changed.
beltane
@sparrow:
I’d love to know where this is not the case. American women who care about their appearance and want to be perceived of as “successful”, must submit to a grueling hair-care, fitness and makeup regime as well as wearing clothing that is far less comfortable and far more sexualized than that of their male counterparts (when was the last time you saw a male professional wearing pantyhose and high heels and exposing some leg?). It’s just as bad when it comes to children’s clothing where boys are allowed to be children while girls are encouraged to be hot little pieces of eye candy.
Societies have come up with all kinds of ways to demean and objectify women, and our society is hardly immune from this tendency.
Joel
There are a lot of things to be concerned about when it comes to conservative Islamic culture. The hijab ranks far down that list. By the way, that one on the left is kick-ass.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@beltane:
This. All that I mentioned earlier about shoe color and skirt length? This is its descendant. Except now that we’ve added blazers and suits to the mix, we now have to keep track of the proper size and placement of shoulder pads and lapels and are we wearing cravats or dickeys this year and what’s the appropriate style of lace for the cravat/dickey and if you wear last season’s skirt it’s too short and you look like a streetwalker and….
A la lanterne
My understanding is that in a lot of places traditional dress, including headscarves and veils, was on its way out until the mid-century and made a strong return in large part as a potent anti-colonial symbol so its hardly a simple issue.
Further, minority and marginalized groups have always been pressured to conform and blend in by changing their dress, hair, language or accent, and even their names. Sometimes just by unwritten rules (black hairstyles being coded as inherently “unprofessional”) sometimes by law (forbidding the teaching of native languages) but it’s generally a bad idea and fifty years later we shake our heads at how terrible it was that we tried to force this behaviour.
But the mainstream always insists that they should do it “for their own good” because this time its different, and we’re so much more enlightened than our ancestors.
Marc
There is a difference between a head scarf and hiding your face completely. Banning the latter is part of being in modern society, full stop – hiding your identity is the domain of criminals and greatly complicates public safety.
A la lanterne
Also, too. Yes hardcore Catholics used to be very, very into head coverings. It faded in the last generation or so and now seems to be a special ocassion kind of thing;
http://blog.adw.org/2010/05/should-women-cover-their-heads-in-church/
The Red Pen
@Villago Delenda Est:
Except that in 1-Cor-11, is says:
Here is an extended analysis of this requirement. It’s by a someone with a PhD from the execrable Dallas Theological Seminary, but it gets its facts straight; it’s good background.
The Red Pen
@sparrow:
OK, then. Conversation over.
Roger Moore
@Joel:
There’s a lot of things to be concerned about in any conservative culture. The only reason people are hung up on conservative Islam is because it’s new to us. We’re under a lot bigger threat from our own conservative religious groups- and from non-religious conservative groups, for that matter- because they’re more thoroughly integrated into our political system.
Joey Maloney
@schrodinger’s cat: That’s what you get for being Wrong On The Internet.
On the other hand, I’ve never heard of an 8-year-old boy being spit on by a grown man because he was dressed like a whore. So there’s that.
Omnes Omnibus
@sparrow: As several commenters have noted, there is a difference between a simple headscarf and full body and face covering. I have seen quite a few women around the university here in Madison wearing short skirts, heels, and a headscarf. I am guessing that they are making a personal choice; who am I to tell them they are wrong?
The Red Pen
@Joey Maloney:
And I’ve never heard of a 2-year-old girl being accosted in public for “dressing like a fag.” Conservative assholes are assholes.
StringOnAStick
All this makes me glad that I basically wear pajamas (scrubs) to work (as a dental hygienist), and then you wear a lab coat over that (in most offices – OSHA requires it but not all offices comply). That doesn’t change the fact that I had a pervy old dude as a patient recently who spent the entire appointment trying to talk me into taking off the lab coat so he could get a better look. I should have known when the receptionist fled from the front desk to avoid his usual “greeting hug” – how very Filner of him.
I get Amir’s “Look at me, look at me, see how modest I am!” point. I knew a middle class American who converted to Islam who said that her co-religionists here in the US thought that women who wore the hijab were people who thought far too highly and arrogantly of their personal beauty, and saw it as a completely false modesty. This was prior to 9-11 though, and now the connotations are more fraught, plus in times of economic/political stress every religion tends to become more conservative and require more conservative behavior from its adherents. What may have been “I’m too sexy for your eyes” affectation in 1995 can now be very much a response to what a more conservative woman might see as our hypersexualized culture. As usual, your, and everyone else’s, mileage may vary.
sparrow
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, I have seen something similar, and while it bothers me I would never comment on it or vote for laws to ban it. I guess my opinion is along the lines of the person above who pointed out that they are basically colluding with the oppressing males who came up with the requirement to cover up in the first place.
And I guess I could just say that my “respect” for any religious nonsense is pretty superficial. Humans need to grow out of this shit at some point.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
This, one hundred percent.
The Red Pen
@sparrow:
They’ve had a few thousand years to “grow out” of this. Certainly longer than you’ll have to grow out of your need to impose your value system on other people.
Interrobang
@Joey Maloney: Yeah, anybody who thinks the Haredi Jewish somehow get off easy is nuts. Even the most moderate men wear black hats with their black suits all the time outdoors, and they’ve usually got on two or three layers under their white shirts (undershirt and tallit katan). The women get off relatively easy, in that even though they have to wear thick stockings and long skirts, one layer of shirt in the summer is enough.
I personally don’t care what a person chooses to wear. I don’t like the idea of women being forced to wear something or other, but I don’t think legislating it works, either, because there’s basically no way of legislating that sort of thing that doesn’t wind up actively discriminating against someone.
Also, due to a hobby of mine, I’ve also spent a lot of time wearing what amounts to a headscarf, and it’s seriously no big thing. If you fasten it so you’re not constantly having to adjust it, it doesn’t get in the way, and, if you wear a light-coloured veil over dark hair (mine’s black), it’s way cooler than you might think.
Since I tend to dress “modestly” myself but not for religious reasons — if you see me in a skirt, you’d probably think I was an unmarried Modern Orthodox Jewish woman, and in pants I still cover up quite a bit (I read “secular conservative” in Israel)…am I oppressing myself to get away from sunburn, wardrobe malfunctions, and douchebaggy comments? (I can live without all of the above, thanks.)
schrodinger's cat
@The Red Pen: According to the cat ladies of Get off My Internets that story may be cooked up.
shortstop
@debbie: I once attended a university forum at which a very bright, academically accomplished young woman argued rather smugly that she was freer and more feminist than her uncovered counterparts because her headscarf protected her from being viewed as a sexual object by men. Someone asked why this version of freedom and feminism was dependent on her daily public wear rather than on men changing their thinking and behavior. She was flummoxed.
sparrow
@The Red Pen: I’m not imposing anything if it doesn’t affect me personally. If you want to believe in an invisible sky god, and wear stupid shit to prove it, go right ahead.
shortstop
@Yatsuno: Plus, those durn Mohammedans keep saying “le weekend” and “le blue jeans,” making heads at the Academie EXPLODE.
The Red Pen
@schrodinger’s cat: I have to agree with the first (current) comment: “…part of me hopes it’s fake just because I don’t want to believe jerks like that exist in real life?”
After reading that, I think I’ll file this in the “fake, but accurate” file. I see this a lot on Wingnut blogs. Some wingnut has a belief that they feel is so thoroughly supported by reality, that they can fabricate an anecdote. Even though what they’re saying isn’t factually true, it represents an event or situation which is undoubtedly true somewhere in the world.
In this case, the story was believable because I’ve seen stuff like that happen. That lady is a royal douche if, as is suggested, she fabricated it because somewhere there are kids being confronted like this for real (with more realistic outcomes).
The Red Pen
@sparrow:
You are obviously seething with anger. The fact that you are incapable of treating a large segment of society with dignity even though they’ve done nothing wrong pretty much blows the whole predicate that this doesn’t affect you personally. I don’t think it could affect you any more personally.
Here’s a pro-tip: other people changing behavior that inflicts nothing more than a fashion statement on your eyeballs is not going to fix whatever is making you so full of rage.
sparrow
@The Red Pen: What are you talking about? I expressed, rather carelessly I admit, my opinion that most of religion is hogwash (hardly an unheard of opinion). I’m not oppressing you or telling you what to do. I would not vote for people or laws that want to tell you what to wear. I would never go up to someone and tell them to quit wearing a scarf. Clear?
Roger Moore
@sparrow:
I don’t see that as a reason not to help them. One of the worst parts of religious and cultural repression is that it can be systematic enough that victims are forced to become complicit in their own oppression. Noting that victims are colluding with their oppressors is giving tacit approval to this.
That said, I think we have a responsibility to use the least intrusive means available to try to stop religious and cultural repression. Wherever possible, we need to do so by enforcing existing laws that protect autonomy and personal expression. New laws designed to prevent cultural practices we dislike are much more likely to wind up enforcing the norms of the dominant culture rather than protecting the vulnerable members of the cultural minority that they’re ostensibly designed to protect.
The Red Pen
@sparrow:
This:
…is not “careless,” it’s passive aggressive.
I don’t really know what psychological plumbing is preventing you from turning that into an explicitly controlling tendency (nor do I care) but you might want to look into it.
sparrow
@Roger Moore: We are definitely in agreement regarding tactics to stop repression. Although my ‘colluding’ comment was referring to rk’s comment @88, which was talking more about women freely adopting the scarf as a statement while ignoring what it means for people for whom it is NOT a choice.
swbarnes2
@StringOnAStick:
But it’s the conservative women who is accepting a culture which says that she, and half the human species, are nothing but wombs and sex outlets, whose minds and feelings are at best inconveniences to the fulfillment of those functions. There’s the hypersexualized culture, not the one that says that women ought to be treated like real people, and not interchangeable vaginas and uteri.
Umm Naadirah
@sparrow:
I don’t see how it can NOT be about oppression of men. I get so disgusted when I see men stiff as soldiers in chainmail (especially in Houston, where you see them wearing business suits and a noose around their neck while it’s 100 degrees out), while their women wear normal, COMFORTABLE Islamic clothing that not only protects them from the sun but also has a nice open weave, allowing the air to blow in and cool them down. F****** hypocrites. And then they make their 6 year old sons do it too, wearing suits with nooses as well. What the hell? What is wrong with your culture where a 6 year old could possible be taken as a weak object that needs to be covered up with clothes that proclaim power? I don’t care if that is intolerant, I am intolerant of bullish*t towards men.
Peter
Muslim women have the right to wear whatever they like, but let’s not pretend that when they choose to wear these religiously ‘modest’ clothes that they do so without any pressure from their families and communities. Even if there is never any overt pressure applied to them in the form of harrassment or bullying for not wearing it, there is still pressure to conform to the cultural standard.
And yes, the same can be said about any of our choices of presentation. Our choices are never as free as we think they are. As such, we can and should examine what cultural practices mean for the culture as a whole without speaking to the choices individual people make within that cultural framework.
And what the cultural practice of religious, gender-dependent standards of modesty says about the culture that houses them stinks on ice, whether that culture is conservative Muslim, conservative Christian, or otherwise.