4 ms·

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 qui

by 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).
- Retric 18y ago
  You get all kinds. The united states is a vary technologically advanced mostly christian society. Yet, if you look at the Anabaptist Christian denomination and think that's how most Americans live your kidding yourself. We might call them Amish, but the 227,000 Anabaptist Christian's hold fairly mainstream beliefs for the most part are are a fairly large slice of the American experience. Talking about Islamic culture while ignoring the huge divide in our own country is missing something. We have our splinter groups and so do they. Once you start talking about 100+ million people you will get poets and serial killers, teachers, and racists. But we can lump them into one group and say they are good, or evil, or whatever because they are far away and we just don't know the true story. PS: Think about a Gay man living in the deep south in 1950 now how well do you need to know them to have any idea how far the public / private divide runs with them. Now move that into a society where denouncing your faith can get you killed.
  - netcan 18y ago
    Your missing the main point. The comment being responded to is BS. 'Even modorate muslims actually believe that womean sink.' That's pure BS. You might encounter it in end cases, isolated, uneducated, poor or ultra-religious sectors but on the whole it's BS. It is just like Europeans (& others) citing Americans that think the world is flat or don't notice when you swap Russia & N. Korea on a map. "Even American geologists think the world is 5000 years old." All these upmods haven't been delivered because the level of insight or quality of argument. It's because attacks of this kind are easy wins in 2009. It was a (probably made-up) anecdote: Even moderate muslims thinking that woman can't swim. Just like I've said multiple times already, culture isn't sacred. Just because it's cultural doesn't mean something should be tolerated. But giving infinite rope to any 'muslim women are oppressed' line is garbage. All up, dress codes are down the list of worries.

by blurry 18y ago

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).

Retric 18y ago
You get all kinds. The united states is a vary technologically advanced mostly christian society. Yet, if you look at the Anabaptist Christian denomination and think that's how most Americans live your kidding yourself. We might call them Amish, but the 227,000 Anabaptist Christian's hold fairly mainstream beliefs for the most part are are a fairly large slice of the American experience. Talking about Islamic culture while ignoring the huge divide in our own country is missing something. We have our splinter groups and so do they. Once you start talking about 100+ million people you will get poets and serial killers, teachers, and racists. But we can lump them into one group and say they are good, or evil, or whatever because they are far away and we just don't know the true story. PS: Think about a Gay man living in the deep south in 1950 now how well do you need to know them to have any idea how far the public / private divide runs with them. Now move that into a society where denouncing your faith can get you killed.
- netcan 18y ago
  Your missing the main point. The comment being responded to is BS. 'Even modorate muslims actually believe that womean sink.' That's pure BS. You might encounter it in end cases, isolated, uneducated, poor or ultra-religious sectors but on the whole it's BS. It is just like Europeans (& others) citing Americans that think the world is flat or don't notice when you swap Russia & N. Korea on a map. "Even American geologists think the world is 5000 years old." All these upmods haven't been delivered because the level of insight or quality of argument. It's because attacks of this kind are easy wins in 2009. It was a (probably made-up) anecdote: Even moderate muslims thinking that woman can't swim. Just like I've said multiple times already, culture isn't sacred. Just because it's cultural doesn't mean something should be tolerated. But giving infinite rope to any 'muslim women are oppressed' line is garbage. All up, dress codes are down the list of worries.