An oppressed group demanding privilege: The puzzle of Muslim womanhood
There is a strong tendency for Westerners, whether conservative or liberal, to see women in most Islamic countries as an obviously oppressed group. After all, they often live under severe restrictions as to freedom of movement, may have to receive permission from male relatives to get educations or jobs, may find themselves the victims of honor killings by family members or of official executions for sexual transgressions, and are often forced to cover their heads and even their faces in public.
The face veil is perhaps the most striking aspect of Muslim womanhood to those outside the Islamic world. This is so even though it is far from universally worn and in Mecca, considered the most sacred city in Islam, face veiling is actually prohibited.
The veil automatically makes many non-Muslims queasy, as a covered face renders a person somehow not there, metaphorically invisible and literally anonymous.
However, it is quite likely that people, both men and women, in cultures in which women traditionally veil regard the practice as anything but degrading. Rather, they may see it as granting women a special privilege of privacy.
There is a Bedouin group, the Tuareg, in which men veil while women are bare faced. I doubt many people fret about the oppression”of Tuareg men by the veil!
Nevertheless, there is a significant irony in the demands frequently made by Muslim women in countries in which Islam is not the majority faith.
France has long had a tradition discouraging the display of religious symbols in its public schools. This was an attempt to avoid the sort of divisions that had once embroiled France in religious wars. Christian kids aren’t supposed to wear crosses (or at least large ones), Jewish students aren’t supposed to display the Star of David, Jewish boys should not sport yarmulkes, Sikh boy are not supposed to wear turbans – and Muslim girls aren’t supposed to cover their hair.
Members of most religious groups in France either accept the restrictions or attend private educational institutions of their religious persuasion. Not Muslim girls. They demand to be allowed to cover their heads in French public schools and cry religious discrimination if they are asked to follow the dress code demanded of everyone else.
The problem is complex. The strictures of the Koran are open to interpretation. While Muslims generally agree that they are required to dress modestly, many do not believe the Koran requires women to cover their heads. However, others believe it tells Muslim females to hide their hair from public view. As a result, few things say Muslim more strongly than a girl or woman with a headscarf.
I should make it clear that I’ve got nothing per se against a female covering her head if that is what she wishes to do. While in college, I was friendly with a young lady from a Muslim country who covered her head. I am friendly with a female Kroger clerk who does the same. Nor do I necessarily regard a scarf on the head as oppressive. After all, some non-Muslims put scarves over their heads simply as a fashion statement. Wearing a scarf on her head did not prevent Benazir Bhutto from ruling a nation!
Nevertheless, the fact remains that French public schools, for historically sound reasons, have prohibited students of any religious affiliation from making public displays of their faith while in school. Muslim females demand that this rule not apply to them.
Italy has long had a law against covering one’s face in public. This was deemed necessary because of criminals and terrorists wearing masks. Muslim women wish to be exempt from this law and allowed to hide their faces – and therefore their identities – in public.
In England, a woman schoolteacher was fired when she insisted on wearing a face veil. Children had complained that they had trouble understanding her because her voice was muffled since she was speaking from behind a cloth and because they could not see her expression. She refused to remove her veil. Then she filed suit for discrimination and demanded the right to keep both her job and her veil on even though the wearing of the latter interfered with her work performance.
In America, a Muslim woman refused to remove her veil to take a driver’s license photograph. She went to court to demand to be allowed to get a driver’s license sans pic or take the pic with her veil, thus rendering its purpose of identification meaningless.
There is a strange irony in all of this. Muslim women in Islamic countries are often thought of, even by the most traditionalist Westerners, as a subjugated group. Yet when they choose to live in the West, they demand rights that no one else, male or female, of any other religious faith or non-faith, is allowed.
How can this paradox be explained?
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Stumble It!
June 15th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Entitlement.