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?
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
This article talks about Dana Bakdounis, a young Syrian women, part of the uprising of women in the Arab world, that posted a picture of herself, unveiled as a message to the world to say that she was against the strict rules that said she had to wear a burqa and to make a statement that she was not going to oppressed any longer. The image has circulated the internet, has hundreds of thousands of views and has generated a massive response, both positive and negative.
Through these actions, she’s received many death threats along with the end of the relationship between her and her mother, as she disproved of her daughters actions. Along with this however, she’s become an inspiration for so many Arab women who have said ‘we respect what you did, you’re a brave girl, we want to do the same but we do not have the audacity’.
This image was posted on Facebook, and shows her unveiled holding her identity card, with her veiled picture on it. The administrators of the site, took down the image four days after it was posted, and blocked Dana from having any further access to the social media platform.
This story is a really powerful message to the rest of the world, highlighting how this issue is key in representing women’s rights, and how although having to wear a head covering is not the biggest breach of rights that some women experience, it is certainly extremely important in it’s symbolic sense. I think it’s so powerful how Dana has used it as a tool in this case to get the worlds attention and to make a statement that cannot and has not been ignored.
Fawzia Koofi is a female MP, who strongly campaigns for the rights of women and children in Afghanistan, where she has lived all her life. She is running for president in their elections in 2014 after being elected as an MP in the Badakhshan province back in 2005 and becoming the first female Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament in Afghanistan’s history. She is a real inspiration and is creating change in order to make a new Afghanistan for her daughters to live in equality with the opportunities they deserve.
She grew up under the Taliban’s strict, repressive rules, meaning that she spent a lot of her adult life having to wear a Burqa, for fear of public beatings. She spoke about her experiences of this in her book entitled, ‘letters to my daughters’, and a particular quote stuck out to me, which was relating to her having to wear the burqa, saying it meant she was ‘looking at the huge word from a tiny window‘.
This is extremely symbolic of how it is used as a tool to narrow women’s horizons and restrict what they can do with their lives when the wearing of it is enforced. it highlights the disconnectedness and distance that it can impose and how it can act as a barrier, both from the world to the woman, and more importantly, from the woman to the world. Regimes that enforce the wearing of the Burqa, such as the Taliban are detrimental to gender equality and women’s rights, but then, there are women that choose to wear it in other areas of the world, does this mean, therefore, that the choice of wearing a Burqa is what’s empowering to a woman, and therefore the decision in countries such as France where it is banned, is as negative as the decision of those regimes where it is necessary?
In March, earlier this year, 32 year old Shaima Aladwadi was brutally attacked where she lived in El Cajon, California, a note was left by her body stating, ‘Go back to your country, you terrorist’ when she was found by her eldest daughter. Is the banning of the burqa in some western countries a manifestation of ‘islamaphobia’?
I think that it’s really easy for us in the western world to jump to conclusions when it comes to religion, simply because most of us (myself included) can’t relate to the relationship with religion that much of the developing world feels. This story highlights the misunderstanding of Islam itself, especially in relationship to terror and extremist views, can this be extended to the misunderstanding of the wearing of burqas and niqabs?
The punishment of a Woman wearing a face covering in France is interesting from a gender point of view, a woman wearing a burka or a niqab in a public place, would be subject to a 150 euro fine, whereas forcing a woman to wear a face covering in the same way would entail a 30,000 euro fine.
Does this target the problem of face coverings being a repressive instrument to women? It certainly encourages a woman’s decision making powers to be less controlled by others, however instead of giving them back to her, it allows the state to control them, is this dangerous or protection?
“not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience”
“We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity,”
The Burka; Prison or Power? 
