8 ms·

I often feel the same way when I here these sorts of arguments. But I think you're off the mark. Extolling the virtues of full body cover for women is quite li

by netcan 18y ago

I often feel the same way when I here these sorts of arguments. But I think you're off the mark. Extolling the virtues of full body cover for women is quite like saying that working cotton fields is really good for blacks, what with all that fresh air and exercise. You didn't get the majority of blacks to stand up & say that they feel cotton fields are liberating & dignified. That is a major difference. In fact, women in places where hijab is discouraged actively defend it. You can't respond with the cliché brainwash argument either. Culture is always brainwash. I think it's important to step back & draw the distinction between religious conservatives demanding that the sun orbits the earth and some other completely arbitrary cultural things. Think about dress codes (especially for women) wherever you happen to be: Dress in at least this much fabric. Cover up at least these areas. You can do this. But it's inappropriate at the office, if you want to be taken seriously. Some rules are relaxed in some places, like the minimum fabric requirement at the beach. Some, like 'cover these areas are enforced by law. I'm not saying that I agree with Saudi conventions or law. I am saying we need to be careful of what we are criticising. A lot of cultural norms are always arbitrary.

blurry 18y ago
Ugh. Proponents of status quo always invoke tradition and use some attractively pastoral but highly marginal examples to paint a white-washed picture that's quite far from reality. In reality, it's not about the clothes. Muslim men base forcing women to cover up on "hard" facts of exactly the "sun orbits the earth" variety. If you did not think western, you would know that these men think of women as being both naturally disabled (mentally and physically) and inferior in the eyes of Allah (intellectually and morally). This goes far beyond mere decorum and is not at all comparable to office wear vs. bikinis. Case in point, a few years back I spent a month at an all-women resort in one of the more liberal muslim countries. Once, I happened to swim in front of a local man. To say that he was stunned would be an understatement. His eyes bugged out, he lost his breath, and when he finally managed to speak, he was stuttering. Turns out he quite literally thought that women are physically unable to swim. It was as though he witnessed pigs fly. What I am saying is, it's easy to take the cultural relativism position until you consider where it leads. As just one example, this is what happens in Saudi Arabia today during rape hearings. A man's testimony is considered fact unless proven otherwise, similar to Western law. A woman's testimony however is considered a presumption, based on these "facts" as loosely quoted from actual Saudi law: women are emotional and as such incapable of sound judgement, women do not participate in public life and as such incapable of understanding what they merely observe, women are forgetful and as such their words are unreliable, and finally, men are by God's will superior and therefore dominate women by default. So what do you think happens to rape victims when you frame it in those "cultural" terms? By the way, if you think you know where I am going with this, you are wrong - rape victims get sent to jail for the crime of being in the company of a male non-relative in the first place. When you get down to actual lives of actual people, it's not quite as conveniently multi-culti anymore, is it? So let's not be careful of what we are criticizing. When a tradition is practiced by a whole people, it's cultural norm. When it's forced on a minority that's unable to defend itself - even if said minority has been slowly beaten or acculturated into docile agreement - it's perfectly ok to say it's asinine and just plain wrong.
- netcan 18y ago
  BS. I am not defending culture. But you are inserting narrative. Exactly the way these 'men' are. The reality is that it is not 'Muslim men forcing women to cover up.' It is society forcing women to cover up. Culture. The reality is that culture is almost always coercive & has many irrational elements. Dress codes particularly so. The fact that they base it on supposed hard facts is irrelevant. People always think they have hard facts backing up their irrational convictions. Covering women is a fact of virtually all societies. Including the US or wherever you're from. As I said in the original. I do not agree with the conventions of Saudi. I don't like them. There are many cases of women being disadvantaged to the point where they have no hope of a satisfying life. That needs to be opposed. But when opposing there is a danger of considering all opposition equal. Taking anecdotes like yours as seriously indicative of any liberal Muslim country is like getting behind Khomeini because you oppose the Shah State.
  - astrid 18y ago
    Blurry is all BS, but there is another obvious reason : anybody who really travels knows that TV is ubiquitous in the Arab world, and they mainly watch Western programs. Moreover, there are a lot more occidentalized anchor women on Arab TV (like Aljazeera) than you might think, who don't wear anything at all. Tradition is not to be confused with dumb ignorance.
    - netcan 18y ago
      Your right. On the message as a whole. Middles Eastern countries are not generally very culturally isolated.
- wheels 18y ago
  I call BS too. I've been to the Middle East several times. Uhm, "Women can swim!?" is about like one of those stories Europeans like to tell about Americans not knowing if Europeans have refrigerators. I'm also assuming you're referring to the Middle East from the tone, but let's not forget that the countries with the largest Muslim populations are Indonesia and the countries of the Indian subcontinent. The views of women within various Islamic cultures varies widely and in some cases are quite disturbing, but the four countries with the largest Muslim populations (Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh) have all had female presidents / prime ministers. There are other odd data points like women's suffrage having reached Iran a decade before Switzerland (1963 vs. 1973).
trominos 18y ago
> "You can't respond with the cliché brainwash argument either. Culture is always brainwash." Your logic is bad. I more-or-less agree that "culture is always brainwash." The logical follow-up is not, "Let's therefore accept all cultures that don't immediately, viscerally violate our sense of right and wrong"; it's, "Wow, culture is fundamentally really messed up! But I don't want to live in a society that eliminates it completely. How much messed-up-ness am I willing to endure to get the benefits of culture -- namely, consistency in what I'm expected to deal with every day, social stability, a sense of unity with my neighbors and countrymen, a sense of heritage, and various intangibles?" > "I am saying we need to be careful of what we are criticising. A lot of cultural norms are always arbitrary." So criticize all of them! The problem here is that you're working off the premise that our own cultural norms are somehow above critique, which is simply untrue. However, I think that, even on close inspection, many of our culture's norms do more good than harm. I honestly think that most Americans would be (marginally) unhappier if it became culturally acceptable in America to walk naked in public (even if we let a generation pass so that there's no cultural shock) -- whereas I'm quite certain that at least a majority of people living in societies that force women to cover themselves and act subservient would be happier if their communities' cultural norms allowed women to act like women of first-world democracies. That's what distinguishes our cultural norms from theirs. And if any of our norms fail the shit test of "does it make life better?," for God's sake let's throw it out.
- netcan 18y ago
  > I more-or-less agree that "culture is always brainwash." The logical follow-up is not, "Let's therefore accept all cultures that don't immediately, viscerally violate our sense of right and wrong"; it's, "Wow, culture is fundamentally really messed up! What I am saying is the following: A common argument that comes up is usually. (a) Woman are forced to wear hijab. It is demeaning & cruel & oppresses women. (b) I choose to wear it. I find it dignified & liberating. (a) You are brainwashed. All I am saying that (a) does not have a convincing argument. It is not (if you read up the thread) comparable to US rural slavery because they people being oppressed (if they are) by their own culture. Brainwashed is no argument at all in this case because it is applicable to any element of culture & can be used to argue virtually any point (you are brainwashed not to wear hijab, pray, respect your husband, etc). Accepting that argument in principle necessitates accepting an argument giving equal weight to the counter-argument. > So criticize all of them! The problem here is that you're working off the premise that our own cultural norms are somehow above critique, which is simply untrue. I am certainly not doing that. I am saying watch what you argue. "Islamic/Arabic cultures are oppressive" is a popular argument to make these days. Many of the aspects of these societies, practices, traditions & laws are indeed oppressive. Many of these countries are military dictatorships or monarchies. A lot of the arguments are indeed correct & needed. But (and this is a big but) we cannot let this degrade (we have, but lets pretend) into an area where anything is admissible. Look at the defence that the argument in this thread got. The argument was almost "Muslims think women can't swim." And if we look at the context, it was in response to an article that said a woman found it interesting & (within her context) useful to wear these garments. "It smells like a defence of veils.""She mentions veils without enough of a groan" "Well i knew a muslim & he beat hist wife with a baloon" HN is supposed to be a quarter of a step ahead of the pack. But this is a soft version of Bin Laden like clerics telling stories of Americans sodomising each-other in the streets. Dress codes are sometimes highly symbolic. But if this is your reason for addressing them, don't you think you should let symbolic concepts be pursued within the context of their own cultures? Otherwise they are an element of culture that gets left alone because it does not much harm or good. It is pretty arbitrary, it is not in itself important & it exists everywhere.
DaniFong 18y ago
The critical issue is not whether there exist people existing willingly in a state of oppression, but whether there exist people wanting to get out of it.

by netcan 18y ago

blurry 18y ago

Ugh. Proponents of status quo always invoke tradition and use some attractively pastoral but highly marginal examples to paint a white-washed picture that's quite far from reality. In reality, it's not about the clothes. Muslim men base forcing women to cover up on "hard" facts of exactly the "sun orbits the earth" variety. If you did not think western, you would know that these men think of women as being both naturally disabled (mentally and physically) and inferior in the eyes of Allah (intellectually and morally). This goes far beyond mere decorum and is not at all comparable to office wear vs. bikinis. Case in point, a few years back I spent a month at an all-women resort in one of the more liberal muslim countries. Once, I happened to swim in front of a local man. To say that he was stunned would be an understatement. His eyes bugged out, he lost his breath, and when he finally managed to speak, he was stuttering. Turns out he quite literally thought that women are physically unable to swim. It was as though he witnessed pigs fly. What I am saying is, it's easy to take the cultural relativism position until you consider where it leads. As just one example, this is what happens in Saudi Arabia today during rape hearings. A man's testimony is considered fact unless proven otherwise, similar to Western law. A woman's testimony however is considered a presumption, based on these "facts" as loosely quoted from actual Saudi law: women are emotional and as such incapable of sound judgement, women do not participate in public life and as such incapable of understanding what they merely observe, women are forgetful and as such their words are unreliable, and finally, men are by God's will superior and therefore dominate women by default. So what do you think happens to rape victims when you frame it in those "cultural" terms? By the way, if you think you know where I am going with this, you are wrong - rape victims get sent to jail for the crime of being in the company of a male non-relative in the first place. When you get down to actual lives of actual people, it's not quite as conveniently multi-culti anymore, is it? So let's not be careful of what we are criticizing. When a tradition is practiced by a whole people, it's cultural norm. When it's forced on a minority that's unable to defend itself - even if said minority has been slowly beaten or acculturated into docile agreement - it's perfectly ok to say it's asinine and just plain wrong.

netcan 18y ago
BS. I am not defending culture. But you are inserting narrative. Exactly the way these 'men' are. The reality is that it is not 'Muslim men forcing women to cover up.' It is society forcing women to cover up. Culture. The reality is that culture is almost always coercive & has many irrational elements. Dress codes particularly so. The fact that they base it on supposed hard facts is irrelevant. People always think they have hard facts backing up their irrational convictions. Covering women is a fact of virtually all societies. Including the US or wherever you're from. As I said in the original. I do not agree with the conventions of Saudi. I don't like them. There are many cases of women being disadvantaged to the point where they have no hope of a satisfying life. That needs to be opposed. But when opposing there is a danger of considering all opposition equal. Taking anecdotes like yours as seriously indicative of any liberal Muslim country is like getting behind Khomeini because you oppose the Shah State.
- astrid 18y ago
  Blurry is all BS, but there is another obvious reason : anybody who really travels knows that TV is ubiquitous in the Arab world, and they mainly watch Western programs. Moreover, there are a lot more occidentalized anchor women on Arab TV (like Aljazeera) than you might think, who don't wear anything at all. Tradition is not to be confused with dumb ignorance.
  - netcan 18y ago
    Your right. On the message as a whole. Middles Eastern countries are not generally very culturally isolated.
wheels 18y ago
I call BS too. I've been to the Middle East several times. Uhm, "Women can swim!?" is about like one of those stories Europeans like to tell about Americans not knowing if Europeans have refrigerators. I'm also assuming you're referring to the Middle East from the tone, but let's not forget that the countries with the largest Muslim populations are Indonesia and the countries of the Indian subcontinent. The views of women within various Islamic cultures varies widely and in some cases are quite disturbing, but the four countries with the largest Muslim populations (Indonesia, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh) have all had female presidents / prime ministers. There are other odd data points like women's suffrage having reached Iran a decade before Switzerland (1963 vs. 1973).

trominos 18y ago

> "You can't respond with the cliché brainwash argument either. Culture is always brainwash." Your logic is bad. I more-or-less agree that "culture is always brainwash." The logical follow-up is not, "Let's therefore accept all cultures that don't immediately, viscerally violate our sense of right and wrong"; it's, "Wow, culture is fundamentally really messed up! But I don't want to live in a society that eliminates it completely. How much messed-up-ness am I willing to endure to get the benefits of culture -- namely, consistency in what I'm expected to deal with every day, social stability, a sense of unity with my neighbors and countrymen, a sense of heritage, and various intangibles?" > "I am saying we need to be careful of what we are criticising. A lot of cultural norms are always arbitrary." So criticize all of them! The problem here is that you're working off the premise that our own cultural norms are somehow above critique, which is simply untrue. However, I think that, even on close inspection, many of our culture's norms do more good than harm. I honestly think that most Americans would be (marginally) unhappier if it became culturally acceptable in America to walk naked in public (even if we let a generation pass so that there's no cultural shock) -- whereas I'm quite certain that at least a majority of people living in societies that force women to cover themselves and act subservient would be happier if their communities' cultural norms allowed women to act like women of first-world democracies. That's what distinguishes our cultural norms from theirs. And if any of our norms fail the shit test of "does it make life better?," for God's sake let's throw it out.

netcan 18y ago
> I more-or-less agree that "culture is always brainwash." The logical follow-up is not, "Let's therefore accept all cultures that don't immediately, viscerally violate our sense of right and wrong"; it's, "Wow, culture is fundamentally really messed up! What I am saying is the following: A common argument that comes up is usually. (a) Woman are forced to wear hijab. It is demeaning & cruel & oppresses women. (b) I choose to wear it. I find it dignified & liberating. (a) You are brainwashed. All I am saying that (a) does not have a convincing argument. It is not (if you read up the thread) comparable to US rural slavery because they people being oppressed (if they are) by their own culture. Brainwashed is no argument at all in this case because it is applicable to any element of culture & can be used to argue virtually any point (you are brainwashed not to wear hijab, pray, respect your husband, etc). Accepting that argument in principle necessitates accepting an argument giving equal weight to the counter-argument. > So criticize all of them! The problem here is that you're working off the premise that our own cultural norms are somehow above critique, which is simply untrue. I am certainly not doing that. I am saying watch what you argue. "Islamic/Arabic cultures are oppressive" is a popular argument to make these days. Many of the aspects of these societies, practices, traditions & laws are indeed oppressive. Many of these countries are military dictatorships or monarchies. A lot of the arguments are indeed correct & needed. But (and this is a big but) we cannot let this degrade (we have, but lets pretend) into an area where anything is admissible. Look at the defence that the argument in this thread got. The argument was almost "Muslims think women can't swim." And if we look at the context, it was in response to an article that said a woman found it interesting & (within her context) useful to wear these garments. "It smells like a defence of veils.""She mentions veils without enough of a groan" "Well i knew a muslim & he beat hist wife with a baloon" HN is supposed to be a quarter of a step ahead of the pack. But this is a soft version of Bin Laden like clerics telling stories of Americans sodomising each-other in the streets. Dress codes are sometimes highly symbolic. But if this is your reason for addressing them, don't you think you should let symbolic concepts be pursued within the context of their own cultures? Otherwise they are an element of culture that gets left alone because it does not much harm or good. It is pretty arbitrary, it is not in itself important & it exists everywhere.

DaniFong 18y ago

The critical issue is not whether there exist people existing willingly in a state of oppression, but whether there exist people wanting to get out of it.