Shall I compare thee to a brownie with walnuts?
Mona Eltahawy made a compelling point in a discussion of the burqa ban:
What really strikes me is that a lot of people say that they support a woman’s right to choose to wear a burqa because it’s her natural right. But I often tell them that what they’re doing is supporting an ideology that does not believe in a woman’s right to do anything. We’re talking about women who cannot travel alone, cannot drive, cannot even go into a hospital without a man with them. And yet there is basically one right that we are fighting for these women to have, and that is the right to cover their faces. To tell you the truth, I’m really outraged that people get into these huge fights and say that as a feminist you must support a women’s right to do this, because it’s basically the only kind of “right” that this ideology wants to give women. Otherwise they get nothing.
Well yes. That’s not a slam-dunk argument for state bans on wearing it, but it is at least part of the picture, which critics of the ban tend not to dwell on.
I have met Muslim women who have a very elaborate explanation for why they wear the burqa — they say that women are candy or diamond rings or precious stones who have to be hidden away in order to appreciate their worth. And I’m appalled! We should talk about this because if we’re really going to discuss this as feminists, is that something a feminist should be defending? That a woman is a piece of candy?
………..A bowl of ice cream?
For some reason, this reminds me of Forrest Gump: “A niqab is like a box of chocolates — you never know what you might get…”
I very much enjoyed learning Mona Eltahawy’s perspective, because it’s something I hadn’t previously considered, especially this:
So restricting freedom of expression could involve removing oppression as a choice. Very interesting.
This point is made by Karimma Bennoune in her discussion of the French law on religious symbols in public schools, and one that gets lost in the discussions about proposed bans or other less severe restrictions. Like OB says, it’s not a slam dunk in favor of a ban, but it does help break out of the mental box that privileges religion in these debates. It’s not a simple matter of “rights to religious expression,” as the faithful would limit it to, in debates of this sort (I’m thinking also of so-called “conscience” opt-outs for pharmacists who don’t want to to their jobs and dispense birth control). As a result of the religious privilege framing, perspectives like Elthawy’s tend to get disappeared – but good for her for writing and speaking up about it to give a fuller picture.
Well, we know a man is not a piece of fruit…
OB, you’re right that those are really bad arguments against a ban. To me the good arguments revolve around the gap between burqas being bad, and them being so bad they need to be banned.
Unfortunately I see two situations as being more probable: the wives of fundamentalist Muslim men being forbidden to go out at all, and burqa/niqab/whatever wearers going out dressed in the garment anyway as a political statement, getting arrested, and turning the whole thing into even more of a rallying point than it is now. Oh, and then taking their cases to the European Court of Human Rights and getting the legislation ruled unlawful anyway (which I’m willing to bet cold hard cash is going to happen).
Also… I get Eltahawy’s point, I really do; but I think she’s a bit off the mark when she says,
No one is ‘fighting’ for women’s legal right to ‘travel alone, … drive, … go into a hospital without a man with them’ because they <i>already have those rights under law</i> and no one is proposing a law to change that. And this is necessarily a debate about what should or should not be governed by law, not what is morally or ethically acceptable or not – somewhat as with hate speech laws.
“we’re suppressing your freedom to give you freedom”
How sweetly Orwellian. And poisonous.
Freedom simply is. And it’s not up to the government to decide why people make choices, and to decide to correct their thinking. It’s the very same kind of mentality that enables legal attacks on consenting adults involved in D & B sexuality (as a close friend of mine can attest)
Someone cynically described law as a way of using force to keep people from doing what you don’t like… this appears to be a clear case of that.
[the figure 2000 wearers was mentioned…. how is that even a major problem that rises to the level of intrusive government actions?]
Not a slam dunk is agreed, but a do feel it has pretty significant merit. I’ll admit to not being too familiar with many feminists opposing the ban, however, to those that do would they extend the same arguments on freedom to pornography, prostitution and even female circumcision? The issue is the so-called freedom is completely imaginary in this and those cases. Why is it easy to ignore principles and argument for the sake of a bit of cloth when it represents the same fundamental issue.
[facetious] That’s why the whole burqa ban is essential. While we weren’t watching fundamentalist Islam has moved into our consumer society. This isn’t replacing the ArmaLite for the ballot box, it’s replacing ArmaLite for Apple products.
Think about it, Apple produces all these gorgeous products but we can’t take them out in public without a cover or “protector”, our iPods, iPones, iPads all have to be covered. Heck they even make it so the cover/burqa is necessary to make the thing work now. You don’t want others to look at it, touch it, come near it. You’ll defend it with your life, but it’ll never be seen in public “naked”.
It’s brainwashing us to treat our most precious things as jealously guarded, covered posessions and they did it while we weren’t watching. The ban slaps is there to nip this takeover in the bud.
Either that or it proves Steve Jobs actually is God. [/facetious]
Perhaps it is worthwhile, here, looking at other cases where religious groups have been allowed to express themselves freely by oppressing some of their number, and ask whether the example of concealing dress for women is comparable. Or is there a wider concern here?
Certainly, speaking of the burqa as an opressive garment is not a slam dunk argument for banning it, but it is surely not an entirely unreasonable thought. For example, take the limitations on the education of children that are permitted to Amish groups. It was apparently thought inappropriate to use the heavy hand of the law to require Amish children to continue their education through high school. This, somehow, feels wrong. Or, to take another case, the ACLU came to the defence of the ‘primitive Mormons’ who continue to practice polygamy. But should the law not be concerned about the ‘choice’ of young girls to marry old men in these communities, especially since younger men are excluded from those communities to give sexual possession of young girls to old men? Does religion always trump freedoms that are taken for granted by the rest of society? And should the law not intervene?
I don’t know the answer to these questions, but they bear thinking about very seriously. Russell will no doubt have some answers, since he has given these matters some fairly serious thought. Presumably, what we need to know is to what degree the wearing of the burqa is a matter of free choice, and what the wearing of the burqa means for the women concerned, and how this plays out in the relationship between Muslims and the wider society. Getting truly objective results to such questions will doubtless be very difficult. Does forming small (and sometimes not so small) isolated groups, bound together by traditional values which are enforced with threats of violence or worse (and from the few cases of honour killings that we know where women have refused to belong to men and do what they were told, this is not an unreasonable fear) unreasonably restrict the freedom of the women concerned, and does it make for strained relationships within society, so that larger groups of people following these customs, would constitute a danger to the larger society? Or is the dispute about the burqa simply code for deeper and more worrying concerns?
Concern about the burqa may be just a symbol of what may be a deeper problem. If Muslim communities were simply isolated cases of a refusal to integrate for religious reasons, then perhaps the dangers would not be so serious, though the oppression would still be of concern, as it is, I think, in the Amish and Mormon examples. But Muslim communities embedded in Western countries are parts of a global religion which, in many of its expressions, is theocratic and oppressively cruel. To what degree is the life of Western Islam continuous with the priorities of, say, Islam as practiced in the countries of the OIC? And how does that affect how Muslims in democratic countries relate to the wider societies? Are there, as some allege, much deeper currents of control and cultural subversion in process? And how do these currents affect our normal assumptions about liberal freedoms. Is freedom something that, as Jay says, simply is? Or are there very different dynamics at work here?
I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but they seem to me important to be asked. I suspect, anyway, that problems of relationship between Muslims and the larger society in democratic countries are hiding behind concern about the burqa, and these wider issues are in serious need of being addressed. This is not, I suspect, only about burqas. And Mill’s On Liberty may not be the only benchmark that we need in dealing with new threats to freedom.
Eric,
Excellent post.
It appears to me that this is really the motivator. If these were a small group of people like the Mormons were, there would be concern but it would probably not provoke so much widespread fear and anger. But 1 billion or so Muslims in the world does make one pause…
That being said, the US seems to have integrated every influx of ideology, religion, and culture fairly well over the long term without losing our foundational values of liberty, rule of law, and secular governance. I have no opinion on the burqa ban except to say that I don’t think it would stand a chance in the US currently. I, like many of us, have a visceral reaction to telling people what to do in their personal lives without very clear reasons.
QFT. Too many on the side of the ban are ignoring this in attacking people who are either on the fence or opposing the ban. The debate is about what lies under the government’s remit, and I would oppose the government banning women from driving or traveling alone even more than I would banning the burqa/niqab. But the government has not banned such behavior, so it’s at best a red herring when talking about how people oppose the burqa/niqab ban without fighting for their rights to drive or move freely. They already have those rights under the law.
No women do not already have those rights, at least not everywhere. Indeed it is because women are not only forced to wear a burqa in a number of countries but are also not allowed to drive, have access to education and employment restricted, are denied the right to vote and suffer severely restricted property rights amongst others forms of discrimination that we are having a debate about the wearing of burqas in the first place. There is a very real case that can be made that dress is but one form of oppression of women practised in a number of countries, and that just as liberals reject the others forms of oppression they should also reject oppression in the form of a dress code.
We see denying women these rights as a form of oppression. In a liberal democracy such oppression should not, quite rightly, be tolerated. The question then arises, are women wearing the burqa in liberal democracies the subjects of oppression from within their communities ? Are they wearing the burqa of their own free choice ? If they are not does that amount to a form of oppression that warrants state intervention ? Would such intervention help ? There are not straightforward answers to these questions but it is not at all unreasonable to ask them.
Please explain how this is relevant to what is acceptable in American (or since you’re from across the pond, British) law? Israelis are subject to mandatory conscription, which is profoundly illiberal…does this mean we ban the yarmulke? Our laws should be based on our own principles, not changed as a reaction to show how “tough on Islam” we are.
I thought we were talking about France, actually, since that’s where the burqa ban has just been approved. But if you want to ban the burqa in Saudi Arabia you have my full support:)
Paul, Nussbaum is talking about proposed bans in European countries – specifically France and I believe Spain. No ban is proposed here, so US law is somewhat beside the point.
Paul,
Well first you could try reading my original comment. I had thought I had made it clear there.
In a number of Islamic countries women are denied certain rights like the ones I have listed. These are considered by liberals to be a form of oppression. Another form of oppression is requiring women to wear burqas. Suddenly though in the West women being forced to wear burqas is not seen as a form of oppression but as religious freedom. If women in the west do not wear the burqa out of genuine choice then stating that banning the burqa is not supporting their freedom at all but acquiescing in their oppression.
Try asking yourself if women in the west wear the burqa out of a genuine wish to do so, or do they do so as the result of pressures from within the families and communities. Unless you can be totally certain they do of their own free will then at the very least it is not wrong to ask if the burqa is being used as a form of oppression and whether it is desirable to ban it in public.
We do know that in certain communities women are not always given the choices they are entitled to by law. Forced marriages is an obvious example. We also know a number of Islamic feminists have stated that wearing the burqa is often the result of pressure within families and society and not a genuine choice on the part of women. If that it indeed the case in the west you are not so much arguing for freedom but conniving to oppress those women. At the very least the issue needs more research to find out how willing women are to wear the burqa, and jumping up and down shouting it is about freedom is not helping.
Being a bit less flippant:
The desire to prevent the oppression of women forced by family, community, or convention to live by the misogynistic and obscene rules of an antiquated and highly politicized faith is both real and laudible, Christ knows. I sympathize with the priority that motivates Eltahawy’s defence of the burqa ban – but I do not think it is a good enough argument.
That’s partly simply because I don’t think the ban will have the effect she desires (as I posted above). It’s partly because I think it’s attacking a proxy meaure for the disease, not the disease itself. It’s partly because it’s explicitly singling out a religion (to me, no special treatment for religion is a watchword that cuts both ways); and there are other reasons.
But it’s also because I think there’s a risk that it’s infantilizing (maybe a bad choice of word). If the rights of women are being trampled, we need to make sure that (a) we make sure women know about their rights under the law; (b) we provide solid legal recourse for women whose rights are trampled; (c) we enforce the lawes as they stand, and (d) we do not make or allow lazy exceptions on grounds of religion, culture, ortherness etc.
The fact is that the worst offenses against Muslim women in European countries are permitted to occur despite existing civil laws, not because there is a need for more laws. And a number of things feed into that… Obviously one of the least forgiveable is the leeway granted to people performing abominable acts in the name of religion and culture. There’s also the major problem (in immigrant communities) of women’s ignorance of their legal rights. There’s the problem of Muslim women themselves feeling unable or unwilling to seek help. A tak dal…
All of these need and more need to be addressed, but the burqa ban (in this respect) feels like an attempt to force Muslim women to be modern and enlightened, and that’s why I think it’s a mistake to see it as a feminist thing. And even if I’m wrong about that – which I may well be – I still think the other bits of the machine (a-d above, etc) need fixing before any dicking about with clothing bans.
Ophelia, I am not sure if you are responding to my first or second comment.
If my first: do women really lack the legal right to drive or travel unescorted in Spain or France? If they do not, my comment is just as relevant.
If my second: I was responding to Matt Penfold, not the original article. If this is seen as off topic or inappropriate, I apologize. However, I do not see what relevance Matt Penfold bringing up women lacking rights in certain Arabic (and possibly African?) countries has to what we consider acceptable law in our own countries.
Perhaps some people think this. I do not. The state forcing women to not wear burqas is a form of oppression of religious freedom. Nobody sane is arguing for Muslims to be allowed to force women to wear burqas. The issue is whether it is acceptable for the government to ban the article of clothing, whether or not it is consensual. Many people opposing the ban would be fine with strict penalties for forcing such attire. I will argue that a blanket ban is contrary to religious freedom, but it’s a strawman to say liberals are arguing that ” women being forced to wear burqas is…religious freedom
Wow, you can really lump all women into one group like that and still expect a comprehensible answer? I do not doubt that some do not wear it out of genuine choice, any less than I doubt that some do. Why are we permitted to ban those that choose to? I do not have issue with a ban if we restrict it to those we do not recognize as fully cognizant of their choices (similar to stat. rape laws), but to tell a grown woman who chooses to wear a burqa/niqab freely (they do exist) that she is not permitted is something I consider inappropriate for the government to do (I am less absolutist when it comes to private premises, although I do have misgivings there as mentioned on another of the threads here).
I know people who were forced to wear a ring signaling purity before marriage. Do we ban purity vows and chastity balls? They are without doubt the result of pressures from within families and communities (as evidenced by the high pregnancy rate even among participants).
No, I am arguing that the government does not have the liberty to prevent religious practice in a victimless crime situation. I am fine with strict laws for forcing religious (or merely cultural) practices against one’s will. All your complaints about what we are “arguing for” are the latter, which we are most definitely not arguing for. If a woman wishes to wear the burqa/niqab, it is profoundly illiberal for the government to declare it is not allowed.
And if 20% are fully willing? 10%? 5%? At what point are we willing to allow the government to tell people what clothing they are allowed to wear, or what cultural practices they are permitted to partake? The problem is the coercion, not the clothing itself. Are things magically better if you simply drive said coercion underground, as long as people don’t have to look at it? I suppose that would be keeping with modern democracy.
Paul, your first comment cited “the government” and your second talked of what is acceptable in US and UK law. I was responding to that.
Rights in other places are relevant to the wider discussion, and the discussion is wider than 1) the US and UK and 2) a particular proposed law in France or Spain. I’m interested in more than just: a ban: yes or no?
You would have a valid point if, and only if, women choose freely to wear the burqa. If they are pressured into doing so by their family and community then you do not. There is no point in having rights if you are unable to exercise them. You clearly see a difference between what the state requires, and what happens in practice due to societal pressure. I do not. If societal pressures keep a group from exercising a right then the state should have the right to intervene. I know people who were forced to wear a ring signaling purity before marriage. Do we ban purity vows and chastity balls? They are without doubt the result of pressures from within families and communities (as evidenced by the high pregnancy rate even among participants).
Victimless ? Since there a genuine claims from within the Islamic populations of a number of European countries that women are forced to wear a burqa against their will it is not at all clear victimless is the appropriate term to use. Unless you think forcing woman to wear a burqa us acceptable.
I clearly am not getting through to you. What OB, I and others are arguing is that is problem is not as simple as you want to make it. Your argument is just that the state has no rights to intervene. We are arguing that if it can be shown women are the subject of oppression then it is right to at least consider if the state should intervene. We do not dismiss the idea out of hand on the grounds it impinges on freedoms. I am not getting the impression from what you have said that you are that worried about such oppression.
Were there a group of Blacks who felt that their religion decreed they be slaves to a white master, would that desire then be blandly discussed as a mere issue of human rights, or would some people instead contend that those blacks had been subjected to intense manipulation and brainwashing so as to believe their stations in life was that of an inferior, and that consequently there should be no question WHATSOEVER of ‘awarding’ them the legal status of slave?
If some women are decietfully manipulated from day one by their ‘religion’, their communities and their families to believe they’re inferior, and that their bodies are shameful and should be completely covered, should we then buy into that deceitful and sinister manipulation and legitimise it by accommodating it under the guise of religious freedom?
The burkha is not at all about rights and religious freedoms. It is instead a ruse wheeled out by sinister and manipulative islamists attempting to promote their particular brand of clerical fascism through the use of western laws and rights, rights and laws that were originally intended to reign in the more abusive and repressive aspects of Christian theology.
Anyone, any group, any ideology or any religion that posits an inferior status for human beings based on gender, race or any other criteria should be criticised, ridiculed, lampooned and trashed at EVERY opportunity, and we should do so because such distinctions are false and unfounded, repulsive and MORALLY REPREHENSIBLE.
I have made this explicit more than once now. The currently proposed (or simply discussed, for places where there is discussion but no pending legislation) bans would make it a crime for a woman who freely chooses to wear a burqa to do so. This is a victimless crime. I have clearly drawn a separation between free choice and coercion, and clearly stated that there should be grounds for legal remedies in the cases of coercion (that is, “forcing woman [sic] to wear a burqa”). I am all for banning forced use of the burqa/niqab. That is not being seriously discussed, that I’ve seen. The discussion is on a complete ban. If you’re going to continue to joust at strawmen, I have nothing more to say to you.
If your position is that there does not exist a woman that chooses freely to wear a burqa, you’re going to need to demonstrate such. If that is not your position, you need to argue why a government should be allowed to stop any such woman from doing so.
At the risk of sounding inconsistent with my earlier posts, do you plan on enacting laws against wearing long sleeves and bonnets for the Amish? Your position, while no doubt earnestly held, is simply infeasible, as there are plenty of such people, groups, ideologies and religions.
No no – that’s not right. The proposed bans don’t specify women who freely choose to wear the burqa.
That’s my point, in a way. The only ones I have seen ban wearing the burqa in public. This would affect “freely choosing” women the same as women coerced (in essence, taking away said choice). The crime is the same either way. This was the case when I looked into the French law some time back, and if the debate has moved on and is allowing free exercise then most of my complaints are moot.
Oh, sorry for the repost. I didn’t see the first one, for some odd reason, even though OB was clearly responding to it. I’m rather embarrassed.
That’s ok, I’ll just slice out the duplicate part.
I suppose it is possible that the burqa is a trojan horse to brainwash the west into fascism (it seems a bit roundabout and doesn’t have a clear method by which to instill fascism, though). At the same time, could you justify how this is any different from a Catholic Nun’s habit? It serves much the same purpose (modesty and submission before the lord) as the burqa, and is part of one’s chosen religious practice. Women are coerced by family or clergy into wearing them. Why should nuns remain free to wear their habit, while prohibiting the burqa? I sense a lot of selective outrage, here. What’s fine for the snake that’s been in our yard for centuries is a grave outrage when it comes from a different source.
I do not in any way mean to impugn our hostess (or should I stick to host and consider it gender neutral? I do not ask to be facetious) or even necessarily commenters here (although Shifter did set off some unpleasant bells). But it does set off all kinds of warning bells in the current atmosphere, when a minority religious or cultural practice is being outlawed while ignoring more mainstream practices that serve much the same purpose as is being complained about. I mean, I’d bet there is at least an order of magnitude more Catholic nuns in most western countries than there are Muslim women wearing the burqa/niqab. There are plenty of churches that teach that women do not have a voice in Church matters. There are sects that require modest dress. Yet when Muslim practices have effects that do similar, trying to make women disappear from public life and be otherwise treated as male property, that’s when people start talking about laws to curb religious/cultural practices (and the discussion stays confined to said Muslim practices). I do not draw equivalence between religions and sects, but the fact that the focus stays completely on Muslims is very telling. Many commenters and aid groups mean well and argue on behalf of the women, but media and government framing really comes across more as anti-Muslim than pro-women. It’s a shame.
burqa/niqab/whatever wearers going out dressed in the garment anyway as a political statement, getting arrested, and turning the whole thing into even more of a rallying point
As I recall, there was some reason to believe that the teacher here who took to an employment tribunal a case about wanting to teach with her face covered, took the job in order to force the case to be heard, but that was not certain. It could have been wild speculation, knowing the bastion of truth that is the British press…
But everybody seemed to agree that she attended the job interview at which men were present with her face unobstructed, got the job helping kids–oldest ones were eleven I think, at it was a Church of England “faith school”–learn English, then came to work with only her eyes showing and refused to bare her face. The school thought that the children needed to see her mouth as she spoke English, that this was part of her job. She was let go–after ages on full-paid leave, months and months, which sounds rather nice–and eventually lost her case for discrimination on the basis of religion.
So *if* her purpose was to force the issue into some kind of judicial hearing, it seems to have backfired.
Actually, it occurs to me that people here probably hashed out the nuances of that case at the time, but I’ve typed it all in now so I’m going to leave it!
Paul – the focus does not completely stay on Muslims here. Nuns are not a perfect analogy, for a lot of reasons, and in any case you have to look only a few days back to find posts on Vatican misogyny, so you’re just wrong about the focus here.
Is there not existing legislation that covers coersion in some way anyway? There’s certainly protection from abuse and physical punishment – and iirc France has specific legislation covering psychological abuse of a spouse. What I’m asking, obviously, is whether there is not already (theoretical) legal recourse (in Europe, sp. France) for a woman forced to wear the burqa against her will? Would need to be enforced of course (which would require her knowing about it and seeking help) and would require a police force/prosecution service etc. with the integrity not to just roll over and say ‘cultral innit’… but wouldn’t use of such laws suffice?
No, not really. This is why so many Muslim women welcomed the ban on hijab in schools in France.
Please don’t get me wrong, I was not criticizing you or your coverage of events. You are fair when calling out different religious, and with discussing women’s issues. I really haven’t yet found a topic where I felt you were being unfair or unreasonably biased. I did not mean to be reading an agenda into your words (aside from helping push for a more civilized world, perhaps). However, did say in an interview that you were pleased with Sarkozy saying “The burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience” because “it’s true”. At what point is that line crossed, and why don’t other oppressive religious garments that we’re more accustomed to seeing qualify?
When I referred to a focus on Muslims, I was referring to the calls for legislation to curb certain religious/cultural practices, not a generalized focus on B&W (that would just be silly). I recognize the Nun analogy isn’t perfect, but there are plenty of oppressive religious practices that affect women (as you’re well aware, of course, which is why I tried to stick with a couple easy to follow examples instead of trying to delve deeply into the subject). Yet the only ones that are under discussion for outlawing are the Muslim ones? There isn’t even any sort of comprehensive attempt to prevent misogynistic religious practices. Before people were wearing burqas in the west, the discussion wasn’t even on the table. Why does it get laws and media attention now? As I said, it’s great that commentators/bloggers and women’s aid groups are working to forward women’s rights, and I do not doubt their sincerity. I’m just disgusted that this law is what results. The French government is simply kicking an ethnic minority, more than they are actually helping women. If they wanted to help Muslim women, they would offer them help in leaving abusive or coercive relationships. Or they would make coercion to wear the burqa illegal, instead of punishing the act itself *. Banning the burqa just means that any that are part of sufficiently fundamentalist households won’t even be able to leave the house to seek help, on top of infringing on the freedoms of those who legitimately choose of their own free will to wear it.
@outeast
I would assume so, but I have not specifically researched laws. My responses obviously assume that such is not in place.
* This is what truly baffles me. I would expect women to see banning the burqa as opposed to punishing coercive use to be victim blaming. Being assaulted isn’t a crime, assault is. Making being assaulted a crime just means that a victim can’t go to the police. In much the same way, making wearing the burqa illegal in public simply means that those coerced to wear it will now be coerced to stay inside, in closed communities. Not allowed to become educated. Not allowed to meet people outside of their fundie group. Those who chose to wear it may do the same, or may stop. But you will have done very little to help the actual victims of coercion, and any act that will fix that is what should be done in place of the burqa ban anyway.
This is a great question in theory, but it also seems profoundly naive regarding the kinds of indoctrination involved.
Naive? No, I don’t think so – or no more so than someone who believes that banning the burqa will have any meaningful impact in alleviating oppression, anyway. I’m not talking about those indocrinated to believe in the burqa, or too afraid of social disapproval to do anything about it, or too committed to family cohesion to want to go to the wall over it – but about women who want to refuse the burqa but who are forced to do so against their conscious will. It’s like the difference between getting married because you feel you ought to or because the stigma of being a single mother is too strong and actual forced marriage.
I’m sorry to set my post out like this, but I found it helpful to make a summary of some of the points raised in this discussion, along with some of the ones that naturally arose in my own mind. See what you think. I’ve picked out only the points that seem to me to be the most important.
1. The covering of the face is the key: it is that which effectively removes a woman from society and from consideration as a person. It is like saying that she is set apart and cannot be addressed or even smiled at without some breach of etiquette. There is even the concern that to do so (if one is a man) might endanger a woman’s life. As smiling is natural (and probably instinctive) it would be necessary to learn many new behaviours if one has to interact in public with a concealed muslim woman, and apart from the problem of making innocent mistakes (which might even prove fatal) it is difficult to see why muslims (or anyone) should be allowed to demand any such thing.
2. The fact that a burqa states very clearly that a woman is not a person is objectionable.
(a) A woman ought not to be undefined as a person on the grounds of some alien cultural principle, because it is a necessary principle of a moral society that a woman is a person.
(b) It does not seem coherent to claim the right to choose not to be a person.
3. Should we ban the coercion, rather than the burqa itself? This looks like a thoroughly reasonable question, but I think it is mistaken (see 7, 8, 9), and there is a practical difficulty. A woman may have recourse to law in principle, but she may feel so threatened in fact that she dare not use it. Even if she succeeds, the law cannot prevent some family member from eventually murdering her or (worse) someone close to her. Making the burqa illegal is likely to prove a more effective protection to a woman in such a predicament because she cannot be held responsible for not wearing it.
4. If a man imprisons his wife at home because she is prohibited from wearing a burqa or any full-face-covering in public this would confirm the fact that a woman is being oppressed, that she is property and is unable to act of her own free will. A ban would make it clear that such a situation is unacceptable in a civilised society. It is necessary for a liberal and democratic society to make such statements (see 9).
5. It is likely to prove impractical for men living in the West to imprison all their womenfolk, even if they are not caught and imprisoned long before they give up trying. Taking the kids to school, shopping, complaints at home…not to mention the neighbours and school-teachers who might start worrying about what has happened to so-and-so and take their concerns to the police. There will undoubtedly be resistance of this sort to begin with, but it is difficult to see how it could be widely maintained beyond the first generation.
6. Taking away the right of a woman to cover her face in public may be oppressive, but it is a very minor form of oppression when compared with the evil it seeks to address. It may be that we have to choose between evils. But should a citizen have such a right in the first place (see below)?
7. A woman may choose to remain apart from society but she cannot abnegate her responsibilities as a citizen. From the point of view of the culture in which the garment originated, the burqa is a statement that a woman has no such responsibilities.
8. If women are to be defined as citizens, they must have responsibilities as citizens, which must include being able to be identified. It is a reasonable demand that any citizen has the right to see whom they are dealing with.
9. The more liberal a society is, the more it should be intolerant of behaviour which undermines the accepted norms of social interaction. This is not a paradox, because all values have to be defended. To defend our values is to defend ourselves.
My objection to the burqa ban isn’t that ‘religious freedom’ trumps the law, it’s that the right to *wear what you want* trumps the law.
I’d defend the right of western women to wear t-shirts that said ‘All men are rapists – yet I am still less worthy than a man’ (which is essentially what a burqa says).
I detest the burqa. It offends me deeply – but it’s just not the state’s business.
The real issue is the perceived coercion rather than the issues of dominance and submission.
In San Francisco, for instance, you can visit the Folsom Street Fair and see both men and women walking about wearing harnesses and other kink-wear, being lead by dog leashes. It is an example, we assume, of voluntary submission. Should we ban it? Is it the same as a burqa? That is the issue for me. How do we distinguish voluntary submissive dress and from culturally and religiously enforced, coercive submissive dress. Can we?
In the context of Folsom Street Fair we can see the collars and dog leashes as a symbol of voluntary sexual submission and play. Men or women may be seen being lead by men or women. However, outside of the context, such play would not appear the same. A normally dressed couple in a super market with a man leading a woman by a dog leash might seem much less palatable and more genuinely oppressive rather than playful and voluntary. Even more so in a business or government office, or in a church or religious compound.
To me, except for a costume party, the context a burqa is seen in always seems oppressive. I never see the implied voluntary submissiveness. That could be my own perception problem. Or it could be that burqas really are entirely misogynistic and oppressive in almost every context.
What to do? I think a ban on face covering might be appropriate. We already have such bans. But, there are problems. Should that ban apply to protests, like Scient*l*gy protests, where the religious are known for tracking down protesters and harassing them? Should it apply to cold areas and ski-resorts, where scarfs, face masks and balaclavas are practical and necessary for many? Should it apply to dust and germ masks? I don’t know, and I don’t know if a face covering ban is practical or possible or constitutional or desirable.
I think that to lump all face-coverings together is a mistake, and also something of a red herring. It is generally accepted that there are many circumstances in which face-coverings are appropriate. In all such circumstances it is reasonable to ask a person to remove their face-covering should it become necessary (and, in the case of safety-wear, possible), and unreasonable for a person to refuse to comply.
This puts the face-coverings of muslim women in a distinct category, because the purpose of wearing them is explicitly to conceal the face from society; muslim women will therefore generally refuse to remove their face-coverings even when reasonably required to do so, and may even be punished by their families if they don’t. This refusal asserts a principle which is opposed to the principles of social and civic responsibility in a liberal democratic society.
To put it another way, if civic responsibility is to be upheld as a moral and democratic principle, it is not possible for any society to accept absolutely every kind of behaviour, however liberal a society strives to be. Some limits have to be set.
<i>I suppose it is possible that the burqa is a trojan horse to brainwash the west into fascism (it seems a bit roundabout and doesn’t have a clear method by which to instill fascism, though). At the same time, could you justify how this is any different from a Catholic Nun’s habit? It serves much the same purpose (modesty and submission before the lord) as the burqa…</i>
In Islam women are not allowed to remain celibate. Very early on muslim clerics ‘declared’ female celibacy to be the enemy-of-god. *Prophet*, in all his wisdom, realised very early on that large groups of independant and celibate women could provide a safe and powerful refuge from men, and posed, thus, a very clear challenge to the demands of a primitive, tribal, backward patriachy.
And so that escape-hatch was sealed shut.
While a burkha and a nun’s habit may have some resemblances, both are worn for very different reasons.
Nuns have made a conscious choice to remain celibate, to eschew men , sexuality, family and child-rearing, and they voluntarity and freely enter into a pact with other like-minded women. A nun’s habit signals complete independance from men, and from the traditional roles patriachy has normally reserved for women.
The burkha, otoh, signals complete submission to and dependance on, not god, but islamic patriarchy and the carnal demands of men.
Nuns cover their bodies to signal their independance from men and their complete disinterest in carnal demands, whereas a burkha signals the exact opposite
There are nuns in Christianity just as there is in Buddhism.
But what to say of women’s rights in a ‘religion’ that forbids female celibacy?
If women haven’t the right to remain single, if they haven’t the right to remain celibate, childless and independant of men, and if they haven’t the right to freely form associations with other like-minded women, then I put the following question to you: <b>Just what rights do women in this ‘religion’ have??</b>
Burkha=’s complete <b>submission to</b> men.
Nun’s habit=’s complete <b>indpendance from</b>men
No equivalence. Comnpletely different.
Solid evidence to support what I’m saying. There are more and more cases of this and more and more attempts to quash reporting on them. A wonderful illustration of just how islam, even a moderate version of it, ’empowers’ women. This judge was reprimanded and the decision overturned…luckily.
http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/a6107-08.pdf
Shifter…I can’t buy that, although there is something to it. And I didn’t know that about female celibacy in Islam; that’s very interesting.
It is true that in the past being a nun was a way of avoiding a certain kind of subordination to men, and some women may have seen it that way, but that’s not really true now (not when there are other ways that don’t demand so much self-abnegation and self-immolation), and in any case it can’t really be said that being a nun ever meant complete independence from men. Men ran the church, after all.
Shifter:
Yes, I think a nun’s habit is completely different. For one thing it does not conceal a woman’s face (at least in my experience). If it did, would the Church forbid a nun to reveal her face under all circumstances? I’ve never heard of such a rule, and it would not be consistent with the christian idea of what devotion and self-sacrifice mean.
In any case, if a nun wishes to take the veil it is (supposed to be) entirely voluntary — a voluntary act of dedication to a certain kind of religious life which does not invalidate different choices made by others and which implies service to others as to God himself. An act of self-renunciation, not an attempt at depersonalisation. Not at all a statement that the person is irrelevant (or, merely a God-ordained device for satisfying the wants of male owners). The burqa says not that a person has renounced her self in this sense but that she is not to be considered as a person. Totally different.
Score: Christianity 0.5, Islam -10.
Ophelia, if a religion (or ideology) that claims to be a boon to women’s rights will not allow a women to remain celibate, chaste, childless, and if that religion or ideology forbids women to form free associations with other independant-minded women who wish to remain chaste, childless and non-dependant on men, then just what rights does that religion or ideology afford women?
I think it quite reasonable that the starting point for ALL women’s rights begins with the right to remain independant from men. The right for a women to remain single and celibate is, simply put, the very cornerstone upon which all gender equality rests.
It may surprise you to know that traditionally, nuns have had much higher levels of education than lay women
Islamists will point to the number of women attending universities ( the majority) in Iran, say, as proof of how islam emancipates women, but what they don’t tell is that many of these women are persuing an education ( M.A.s etc) merely as a means to stave off the inevitable for women in Islam; marriage, childbirth and endless domestic chores.
They’ve all dashed off to some faculty or another in order to flee all the “emancipation” and empowerment their religion offers.
Shifter – absolutely. I couldn’t agree more that the right and freedom to say no to marriage and/or childbearing and/or dependence on/subordination to a man is crucial to women’s rights. I don’t think for a second that Islam has anything to offer women. I just disagree that nuns have complete independence from men.
No, it doesn’t surprise me that nuns have had higher levels of education. I do realize that being a nun was a good option in some ways for women in the past.
I oppose burqa bans in general because, as Scote hints at in the first couple paragraphs of #38, there are serious problems when the government starts to get into the business of divining the difference between voluntary compliance with religious/cultural norms vs. the kind of de facto coercion that can take place when a religious norm is hammered into a person’s head since birth. To put it more succinctly, I don’t think a burqa ban is practical (though in specific circumstances where head coverings are a pragmatic issue, e.g. driver’s license photos, places with security issues like banks, etc., I don’t see why there should be a religious exemption)
However, I agree with the thrust of Ophelia’s post: Anybody who thinks that the burqa can ever truly be voluntary is fooling themselves. And a such, we can speak out against the burqa without qualification, and still be in consonance with feminist principles. The idea that supporting the “choice” of a woman to wear a burqa is empowering that woman is a mirage.