burqua, hijab : the strawman of "choice"

[tocqueville]

specially in the case of the burqua but even in the hijab case. The claim comes from religious fundamentalists playing on Western liberal values. And of course our good liberals gobbled it whole.

In reality (which is corroborated by facts) if you ask most women in Muslim countries where they can somewhat speak freely or dare to do so - and of course women with a recent immigration background, they say that of course they don't want to wear it. But have to when not living in Europe or the Western world. And the first thing they did when they came here, was to throw it away, or for those from the seventies immigration wave to Europe, their daughters never wore it. The backlash came in teh nineties with the raise of Islamic fundamentalism.

So the "choice" story is only the story of a few (the ones you use to see on TV) who are on a religious trip or want to show that for whatever provocative reasons they don't want to integrate. Those women come mostly from bourgeois families and are not representative. They are not many, it's a false claim. In France the percentage of actively religious Muslims is 15% out of 5 millions. The number of fundies (salafists) is 0.6%. A Turkish survey found that only 11% of women there wear a hijab for religious/political reasons, the rest is wearing it for traditional ones, with a big part of elderly women.

So the defense the "choice" of head covering for women with Muslim background is only intellectual masturbation from bleeding heart-liberals, which of course miss the complete forest of women throughout the world who are forced to do it, roughly 500 millions.

and to the question what do you do with the abused woman forced to wear it etc... simple answer, you put the husband in jail.

this is a war between Enlightement and Middle-Ages barbary

are you with us or against us ?

[get the red out]

1. "intellectual masturbation from bleeding heart-liberals"

"So the defense the "choice" of head covering for women with Muslim background is only intellectual masturbation from bleeding heart-liberals, which of course miss the complete forest of women throughout the world who are forced to do it, roughly 500 millions."

That may be the single best paragraph I have ever read on DU or any liberal message board anywhere. Everything you wrote is simply priceless. I am sure our resident misogynysts will be along soon to attack you and say narrow-minded things that begin with the catch phrases "what right do we have....." or "we bombed Muslim people...." and "So do we just forget about freedom of religion...." but you just laid out the truth, and I am so tired of liberals justifying women's human rights abuses throughout the world with the strawman of "choice". And no, this isn't infantalizing these women more than even their opressive males who would punish them for speaking out of line either, that's another argument I have seen used to continue to support the abuse of women.

I have seen people use that strawman of "choice" to support obvious abuses of women here in the US by certain so-called "Christian" communities as well.

Thank you! If I could rec the OP a thousand times I would.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Qur'an states that both men and women should dress modestly

so as not to attract attention. I've pointed out to women here in the US who wear hijab that their dressing this way is actually against the teaching, as they are attracting attention to themselves. In one case, it made her change to wearing Western clothes. Of course no one should ever be forced to wear non-essential clothing. And the so-called "Islamic fundamentalism" that calls for suppression of women is not Islam at all, but a falling back to the anti-woman, patriarchal notions that pre-date Islam, where it was okay to kill female infants, to steal dowries from women and put them out on the street, etc, etc.

[Romulox]

13. I was cycling day before last. About 85F, 75% humidity. Saw a family walking the path...

"both men and women should dress modestly"

Husband and son were in short sleeves and shorts. Wife was covered in a black burqa (couldn't she at least wear a light color?), from head to toe, and was struggling to keep up with hubby about 3 or 4 yards behind.

That incongruity surely caught my attention!

[roguevalley]

30. I wear a hijab in the winter up here because it stays cold like last

winter below zero for more than a month. I do it to not freeze to death and for no other reason. I like them. They rule in the cold. Full chador? Not so much, though I like longer length in some things.

[imdjh]

3. religion vs nationality

I think that many Americans, liberal and conservative, try to frame the cultural incompatibilities of Muslim immigrant culture in the fairness and tolerance of Western society which has traditionally worked, but in the context of a core compatibility. Things like the burqua and sharia are not in the range of core compatibility. Because this travels under the banner of religion rather than nationality, we find the peculiar situation of liberal westerners defending the tolerance of, if not the practice itself of oppressing women.

For a moment, imagine a black African of certain African cultures moving with his family to an American black community and treating his wife as a possession, a servant, and a subject. How long would that last before a neighboring black woman offers to "set him right" if he slaps his wife again? Of course, I am imagining this scenario, but it isn't hard to imagine. But let the same man move to a white urban enclave, wrap his wife in a burqua and the neighbors will think this is not only charming but evidence of their own superiority for living in such a culturally diverse neighborhood. At worst, they would "mind my own business" as long as Fatima isn't black and blue, but if she's wrapped in fabric how exactly would we know if she's black and blue or even if she's the same woman he moved there with?

Yes, we "tolerate" the Amish and their backward ways, including some backward ways of treating women. Yes, we think they are quaint despite the occasional report of abuse. The Amish speak English, live in towns where they are known, and have some level of community supervision as well as a tradition of allowing their members to leave the community. Yes, there are consequences to leaving, but to date Honor Killing doesn't appear to be one of them. The Amish submit to the law, and do not imagine or insist that they are above answering to the local laws.

[Tansy_Gold]

4. Is it safe to say YESSSSSSS here?

Tansy Gold, brushing off a few charred feathers.

[Odin2005]

5. These women have no "choice" unless they wear it they risk being beaten, raped, or even murdered...

...by their peers.

[xchrom]

6. i have to recommend this. nt

[Orsino]

7. It isn't quite that simple.

Precisely because it is a cultural tradition, many women would want to wear these things, and would actively resent laws aimed at stamping out their traditions.

Opposing medieval barbarism in the way you propose will appear, in the eyes of many, to be just a different type of bigotry and oppression. It may, in the long run, lead to enlightenment and more equality, but let's not pretend that anyone who opposes it must be a barbarian or a masturbatory liberal. There is a trade-off here, and legislators ought to be aware of it.

[dorkulon]

8. "In reality (which is corroborated by facts)" -- LOL that's ironclad

QED

:spray:

[mogster]

9. A 'war' on clothing and 'with us or against us'?

I think not ;-)

[leftynyc]

10. Very well put and written

Please be prepared to be called xenophobic, a muslim hater, intolerant and a few other things.

Kicked and rec'd.

[izzybeans]

11. Ummm...this isn't true.

Ask an American-Muslim women if she is forced to where the Hijab and she'll smash this little theory to bits.

[Gwendolyn]

12. Was he talking about hijab? No.

He was talking about the dehumanizing slave shroud that completely covers a woman from head to toe, including her face.

[izzybeans]

14. read it again.

"specially in the case of the burqua but even in the hijab case"

I'll grant some big truth to the burqa, but it has also been a revolutionary symbol under special circumstances, as was the case in the Algerian revolution when burqa clad women were important to the leadership of the movement.

[Gwendolyn]

24. Scusa. But it's pretty clear that the substance of the OP is about the burqa.

And also that you're trying to steer the discussion towards hijab.

[izzybeans]

25. The title of the OP indicates otherwise.

I'm not trying to steer the discussion in any way other than to point out that the gross generalization made in the OP is false about the Hijab. So what? Should we allow ethnocentrism to stand when it appears? No.

And here the OP is not talking about a burqa which is more than a "head covering":

"So the defense the "choice" of head covering for women with Muslim background is only intellectual masturbation from bleeding heart-liberals, which of course miss the complete forest of women throughout the world who are forced to do it, roughly 500 millions."


I understand the debate on this issue. However, I didn't realize what is a non-controversial statement about the Hijab would create such a controversy here on DU.

I'll back out of this thread. Besides I was called a troll by one poster for merely having an opinion. So I defended myself here. I'm done.

[anigbrowl]

26. I'd say it takes about equal aim at both

See, for example, the paragraph about Turkey. I don't fully agree with the OPs arguments because the two Muslim women I know personally (who are not meant to be representative of Muslim women in general) wear hijab some of the time and pants other part of the time, and are not particularly religious.

I don't buy most of the OP's points, which I think are rooted in Islamophobia. I'm an atheist myself but I don't think tolerance only extends to the point where it's easy or convenient. Laws that attempt to ban certain kinds of clothing and so forth often turn out to have unexpected ramifications.

[Gwendolyn]

34. You are correct and I wrong. It does say hijab. I missed it. n/t

[Romulox]

15. Many Muslim American women in my community are recent immigrants who speak little English

You don't speak for these women! :hi:

[izzybeans]

17. and you do?

I see. And their status as immigrants makes them incapable of speaking for themselves? is that what you are saying?

[Romulox]

18. Nope. But I am not implying that I know their motivations--YOU are: "this isn't true".

:hi:

"And their status as immigrants makes them incapable of speaking for themselves? is that what you are saying?"

edit (to answer your edit): No, their status as recent immigrants (and refugees) who are financially dependent, often separated from families, and who frequently speak no English (did you miss this part?) make them more vulnerable than most populations.

[izzybeans]

20. I wrote "ask them", you presumed to speak for immigrants and implied

you were more suited to speak in their place because they spoke a different language.

it's a simple task, just to ask. And I'm pretty comfortable with making an educated guess as to the answer.

Either way the OP's intent is to stir up a hornets nest on this. We are speaking of two different things. This is the MO of the op.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Coventina]

16. Proud to recommend.

I don't believe for one minute that wearing the burqa is a "choice."

If it weren't about the oppression of women, the men would be wearing them as well. Pure and simple.

[Teaser]

19. I'm against you.

Not because I necessarily disagree with you.

I just don't like you.

[KittyWampus]

21. that was somehow a very funny response. Especially in its brevity.

[Romulox]

23. Things tend to funny because they're true. Whether or not the poster was attempting to lampoon

certain DUers, he/she succeeded!

[aikoaiko]

27. I don't know if I understand your point, but i think I agree

The issue is not about the burka per se, but women being forced through violence or involuntary confinement to wear it by their husbands or family. The answer, as I see it in your post, is to put the husband in jail if he forces (beats, confines, other violence) to get the woman to wear a burka (or any other item for that matter).

[HarvardMed]

28. It's simply part of their religion - nt

[EFerrari]

32. Human sacrifice was once also part of religion but we got over it.

:)

[Hannah Bell]

29. jewish burka

http://www.forward.com/articles/12558/

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/independent/2008/02/the-jewish-burq.html

[mogster]

31. Don't broadbrush women as victims, enable them instead as individuals

I understand you mean well, but this is just not right.
You see, people don't identify themselves in such broad groups as 'Muslim women', but as the single unique individuals they in reality are. I bet you do too. If you break it down, it will be along the family, the friendly, the local society, the local religious, the national, then the global interreligious, axis. You victimize many million women into one big handy group, as oppressed people with no identity but as being 'veiled'. By doing so, you take away all the other things they are and all the other things they do--veiled or not--which is a great deal, if you know something about this.
Only if you are able to see the individuals, and the strenght and integrity they posess, will you be able to help them to be free.

Rape and abuse in relationships isn't exclusively a Muslim problem, but also a problem in our own gilded enligthened societies of free women, you know. It's a MAN problem, not a religious problem or a regional problem relating to local culture. And it's a cultural problem in the 'western culture' mostly due to a large consumption of alcohol. But you'd never go tearing the beers out of western women's hands to save them, would you? Or jail a man for buying a girl a drink? :D

Don't fall into the trap that most people do when confronted with this complex question presented as a simple choice between with us or against us.
1. You exaggregate the worth of your own culture, it becomes something it isn't. Please, gimme a break. Don't come 'Enlightenment' me after eight years of Bush. Or Blair, Sarkozy, Berlusconi or any other shady politician from the rich assortment of gold diggers we've enjoyed for the last decade or so. Truth is, we're not that fantastic, and most people are not enlightened at all, but prefers gameshows on TV.
2. You make your own culture more cohesive than it is and picks out only the juicy parts that favors your cause, while the truth is much more savage. Women are, western culturally, raped, beaten, harrassed and abused every day, but they would never fit the simple picture where the western woman needs to be free and unspoiled, else we would have nothing to compare against. I sometimes wonder where this need for cultural purity comes from. Neo-nazis, serial killers, death sects - it's not like we lack problems to mellow out the picture of ourselves as culturally superior and refined.
3. You vilify the 'enemy' more than is deserved. And you don't respect the women you are out to free, you say it yourself? They are middle-ages barbarians along with their men-folks except for the few, supposedly free and enlightened women that actually takes a choice to cover themselves - but you're suggesting that we look away from those? They don't know their own good, the Muslim women. The veil or hijab are all they are, behind that cover they are nothing but assumed misery; non persons without a life, without an existence. They need to be all alike, victimized and anonymized, because else the picture wouldn't add up.

I watched the French feminists with interest when they made pressure for banning veils (or religious symbols) in schools, because I thought it was obvious for them too to see the women that demonstrated _against_ the ban as on par with the goal of womens lib. After all it was women demonstrating together for a cause relating to women, even though the goal was not what they wanted. When you feel the power of sisterhood I suppose that changes you enough to feel a little more free. But watching the state of things in my own country have convinced me that feminism has changed, because the right wing blaring trumpets has taken over the drive in any area related to immigration, and they don't really want womens lib, they're total egos just wanting to make a living out of the situation. People, young girls, who have been in contact with these people feel violated, they feel invaded and they feel their integrity as human beings are being treated like shit, because the goal is not them, but the public interest it can provide for the party and the cause. The real people, the people with skills who could really do something good for these women, are pushed to the background and made irrelevant in the cold hunt for state cash and right wing talking points. Imagine Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin running a state sponsored human rights organisation, and you have the picture. They would declare a war too, you know. They attribute to all the points mentioned above, it's all black or white. They would set hard measures into motion to achieve the goal, with high media factor. Three veils and you're out ;-)

OK, this turned into quite a salvo, but in the background the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is drumming, don't forget that.
Here's a picture of a veiled woman, from Iran during the Iraq - Iran war, picture is from 1981:

Is she unfree? You can tell her options are slim; stay and die from Saddam Husseins invasion, by chemical weapons sponsored by 'the west' or throw that ugly veil away, grab a coffee latte and live the 'western' lifestyle to the max. One million of her fellow men and women died before the war was over, and her veil didn't mean the whole world to us then. App. 450.000 Iraqis also died during that war, many of them women and children. Then in 1991 more Iraqis died because of the Gulf war. That was before 12 years of sanctions killed another million or so, we just don't know. Then the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation has removed another million lives from this planet, or what do we know how costly the war and after effects will be, it will take decades before we do.

And now the war on the Cloth is declared, the final battle between Enlightenment and Middle-Ages barbary. Not surprisingly, it's about what women wear.

[EFerrari]

33. Exactly, women are patriarchy's billboard.

And, I still favor a ban on burkas. Not because "my" culture is enlightened but because they are bad for women. I'm trying to think of a comparison and all I come up with is foot-binding.