Would you support a law that prohibits the wearing of a veil or a burqa for religious reasons if it were to come into being in the UK?
Support for a Ban on Face Coverings?
Alternative View
I realise that maybe I have been slightly one-sided throughout my postings, emphasising how much I think people in the west misunderstand the veil in it’s cultural context in the developing world. There is no getting away from the fact that symbolically, it can be interpreted as extremely oppressive, and suggests a second class status of those who wear it. The fact that burkas cover the face apart from the eyes does represent the lack of voice that many women have while wearing them, and therefore connotations of forced submissiveness and oppression. It also presents a clear visual statement that women are considered homogeneous, defined by their gender and given a clear role within the family and community that they are expected to play and not exceed.
There is the connotations of ownership as well, when it comes to enforced religious face coverings (I want to make it clear that I am talking about situations where women are being forced to wear face coverings, by her community or family, not women that make the choice themselves). It presents a situation where a women dresses specifically so only her husband can see her, therefore suggesting she belongs to him, and how she lives her life is dictated by her husband or fathers wishes.This factor does present massive problems in terms of domestic abuse and FGM, as if it is culturally accepted that husbands and fathers have control over their wives and daughters bodies, the females are put in an extremely vulnerable position, as they may not feel as what they want in terms of their bodies is important.
I think this does present a problem in terms of gender and development, as these women must believe that they are not as important as their husbands and father, as it is how they have been brought up and therefore the norms that shape their lives. This is an obstacle as I believe it does take some self-belief and self-confidence in order to achieve a better standard of living, through education and learning. This does combat the argument that suggests veils and Islamic face-coverings are too heavily emphasised in the West, when there are bigger problems that women face that should be focused on, because it highlights the psychological impact of the veil, and therefore the mentality of women that are being forced to wear it.
I do realise that I have a very western view of the veil, and I have made some sweeping generalisations that may not necessarily be the case, however I think that this does represent some very important points when considering the veil in terms of gender and development, and highlights the importance of this as a subject.
Sextremism
I have become really interested in Femen, the feminist group who claim the ideology of ‘sextremism’.
This is the new ideology of women’s sexual protest presented by extreme topless campaigns of direct action, serving to protect women’s rights, democracy watchdogs attacking patriarchy, in all it’s forms: the dictatorship, the church, the sex industry.
They are openly rascist, claiming that white women are not responsible for saving black women from black men, this got me thinking, is it the responsibility of a women’s movement to be representative of all women as a single entity? The way this group behave indicates they believe women are different based on race and therefore are not united based on the fact they are women. in terms of the veil, is the responsibility of the women who are in societies where it they do not have to wear face coverings in public to campaign for the rights of women who have to be veiled, just because they are all women?
Found this cartoon as a really interesting take on perceptions in the west.
Colonialism and the Veil
I have recently been studying a lot about France and Algeria and the process of decolonisation in the 50’s and 60’s. It got me thinking about the relationship between the colonisation mission and the veil. Public unveiling was a ‘civilisation tool’ used by the French, where Algerian women would participate in large, public ceremonies where a French official would remove their veil as a symbol of the French liberating the Algerian women of oppression. It made me question the differences between the present day Western interpretation of the veil and that of the French Colonisers. Do we still have the same attitudes? You could argue the reasons behind why one would want to ‘unveil’ oppressed women have changed, more for humanitarian and liberation purposes as opposed to demonstrate power as the colonisers did, however I think there can be links made about the knowledge about the veil. The French saw the veil as an immediate barrier and made the assumption that women need help in order to be liberated, when in fact the majority had to be forced to unveil in public. I think that today we still share the same misunderstanding about the veil as the French colonisers did, and the assumption that all women’s experience of the veil is that of oppression and male dominance, when this is in fact a massive generalisation.
”Muslim men shroud their women in black sacks of submissiveness and fear, and dread as they do the devil the moment women break free to light, peace, and freedom. ”
Following a recent post about the women in Tunisia and the use of topless protest to raise awareness about women’s rights, it got me more interested in the organisation and thinking behind it, which led me to stumble upon the feminist group Femen. Last thursday, the group started a ‘International Topless Jihad Day’ to raise the profile of womens rights throughout the Islamic world.
This does address some concerns I personally had about the importance of talking about burqa’s and niqab’s in terms of gender and development, and the idea that it is a subject heavily focused on, however could be considered relatively trivial compared to other problems that women face in the developing world, especially such serious breaches of human rights as FGM or child marriage. The use of women’s bodies as a symbolic means of communication is so powerful, and therefore how they dress or how they are dressed communicates a message to the rest of the world that is interpreted (especially by the Western world) as how they live their lives. Is what women in the developing world wear important? or is it just what is seen first by the rest of the world and other issues are therefore overlooked?
Western Women
I think that the West have a big problem with Muslim women wearing religious face coverings, however is the same feeling felt by the Muslim world about the Western women who publicly wear more revealing clothes?
I think this a very interesting question to consider, to what extent is what Western women wear dictated by societal pressures?
Tunisian Revolution; New Opportunities or New Threats?
A recent article written by the BBC, has highlighted the issue of women’s rights in terms of the Tunisian revolution. It first meets a young, educated Tunisian woman who is celebrating her new right to wear her niqab, (which was outlawed pre-revolution) she tells the journalist; “I feel like a princess when I walk down the street wearing this,”.
Her joy is quickly contrasted with reports of the recent protests calling for a more secular state, now that the Islamist Ennahda party dominates the new government. These protests were led by women that feel their rights were under threat from the new regime, stressed by the topless protest of a nineteen year-old girl, who posted a picture of herself with the words, ‘my body is mine, not somebody’s honour’ written in Arabic across her naked chest on the internet. The Ennahda’s political bureau’s response to this was that they ‘protect her rights, but we also protect the rights of women to wear the niqab’.
This seems to be a very promising sign for Tunisia’s future in terms of women’s rights, it would appear as if the Islamist party are recognising that women should have the choice over their bodies, and will make different decisions.
However this is not necessarily an interpretation shared by all, as Amna Guellali, director of the human rights watch in Tunisia shares her thoughts that, ‘big changes are happening deep in society…so-called Salafist groups who tend to impose their own vision of society and religion – I think this might have a very strong effect on women’.
The article then revisits the at the beginning, and describes her modernity through her use of her smart phone, her studies and her love story with her fiancée. Maybe the revolution will be an opportunity for a new framework for women to express themselves within an Arab society how they wish, only time will tell.
Full article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21925753
Is the Burka Threatening?
One of the main issues that I think westerners have with women wearing burkas, is that they feel they are threatening and make them feel uneasy as the true persons physical identity is concealed.
To what extent is this true in the western world?
This has not been helped by the few suicide bombers who concealed themselves under the burka, and used it as a tool to commit acts of terror. I think that this has created a distrust towards the covering, and therefore the women who wear them in the developed world.
If wearing the burka (through a women’s own choice) in the developed world creates a mistrust and difficulty trying to communicate with the rest of society and form relationships, how is this empowering?
The Burka; Prison or Power? 