Menace to society?
The obsession with the headscarf is having a profoundly negative effect on Muslim women around the world. Luckily, feminist activists are standing up for the rights of all women to attend school and hold public office — no matter what they wear.
Under Turkish law, women who cover their hair cannot attend university or enter public buildings. The laws were passed in the name of secularism; in reality, though, they’re powerful tools of oppression, and particularly of male power to dictate which kinds of women are acceptable in certain spaces. Because make no mistake about it — in Turkey, this is about class as much as religion:
Ms. Benli’s family came to Istanbul from rural Turkey before she was born. They were part of a huge wave of migration to cities that began in the second part of the last century, as uneducated religious Turks sought work in newly developing industries. In the process, Turkey changed into an urban society from an agrarian one, with more than 70 percent of the population living in cities today. By the 1990s, their children began to go to college.
Still, the state remained divided by class, and the secular elite who controlled the state through institutions like the military and the judiciary watched warily as growing numbers of covered women, whose mothers had not been educated, entered campuses.
Ms. Benli was the first person in her family to get a college education. She earned her law degree before the state began to enforce the ban in the late 1990s. But her two years of additional graduate work was stopped by the restriction, an interpretation of an earlier court ruling. A 300-page master’s thesis at Istanbul University law school had to be orally defended on campus. Her mother, also covered, pressed her to remove her scarf, to no avail.
“I just couldn’t do it,” Ms. Benli said in an interview in her small law office this week. “I left the room crying. They marked me absent.”
She says the reasons, deeply personal and hard to put into words, are a combination of her relationship to God and her aversion to accepting what she sees as misplaced authority.
“This is related to my private life,” she said. “It’s my personality. My wholeness.”
In one particularly traumatic example, as told to Ms. Benli by several of her clients, a university rector forced several women to uncover their heads in front of him, in order to obtain his signature to allow them to transfer out of the college he was taking over and no longer allowing them to attend.
The state, she said, was saying, “No matter what you think, I can make you do what I want,” an attitude which, if obeyed, made one feel “degraded.”
MS. BENLI contends passionately that the ban moves Turkish society backward by keeping women like herself out of skilled professions. The women in her generation of the family include a doctor, a dentist and a teacher, but their daughters have fewer opportunities.
“There’s a sense of defeat,” she said. “Now, the objective is to have a family, to make a nice marriage. They do not have the ideals we once had.”
For the past decade she has been defending cases of covered women who argue that the state has violated their legal rights. She has medical students who cannot get their diplomas, a housewife who is not allowed to take driving lessons, a woman whose husband, a civil servant, takes another woman, uncovered, to official ceremonies as his wife.
Because of her scarf, which is also banned in public buildings, Ms. Benli cannot defend the cases in the courts, and so has to send uncovered partners to do so for her. Last month, one of her law partners took up the veil, and now they are both looking for new partners.
Turkey isn’t the only country dealing with these issues. Islamophobes in Western nations like the United States, France and England actively seek out ways to bar covered women from social and political participation. No matter how you feel about religious dress — and there are certainly valid arguments to be made about how “modesty” movements are problematic — it’s impossible to deny the fact that anti-headscarf laws hurt women and girls. Banning women’s public participation is not the way to empower them. And all the talk about the headscarf takes the focus away from more important issues:
“I could tell you about domestic violence, about honor killings, about the parts of the criminal code that discriminate against women,” she said, ticking off her areas of expertise in rapid-fire sentences. “But we can’t move on to those issues.
“The head scarf is where we are stuck.”
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OT, but this Nation article is really good:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080303/joyce
It’s about how right-wingers are using the fear of “Eurabia” to attack reproductive rights in Europe.
I am similarly conflicted on this issue. I don’t agree with headscarves/burqas, in that they’re clearly tools designed to supress female freedom/identity. Yet at the same time I obviously hope everyone has the freedom to wear what they damned please, and some women clearly want to cover themselves in this (to my, western eyes) demeaning fashion- and they should have the freedom to do so, and go where they please when they do. Yet some women are clearly forced to wear these things against thier will (or, worse still, have lost sight of even the concept of having a choice in the matter at all). It’s so difficult to provide protection for the rights of one group while maintaining freedom for the other. All we can hope for is evolutionary change, that one by one, women forced to cover themselves will realize they can access that freedom (although it is very difficult, in some circumstances), and as more and more do so it will become easier for the others, and then everyone will have the right to choose. Step-by-step, it can become a reality, but blanket-banning is perhaps not the best way to bring this about. It’s a complicated issue.
Destructor–
All the more reason to open up public spaces to them. If people see that public, open spaces are free and open to all to do whatever they please, then the conditions under which they feel obligated by pressure to do something or other will be lessened. Banning headscarves is just stupid and counterproductive.
Especially considering that it’s not really all that different from the garments worn by old Jewish and Italian women in the states. (the hijab, at least)
I saw this on the news a few weeks ago, and was disgusted. This is the epitome of bullshit, all in the name of “secularism” and “progress”. Exactly as that woman said, it’s completely ignoring the real oppression of women that is taking place – much of it codified in law – and is instead stuck at merely enforcing the tired stereotype of “that evil, backward, veiled, terrorist-woman, enemy of all things modern and progressive”. There are so many women on my campus who wear hijabs. I see them walking around every day, yet I haven’t converted to Islam, nor have the vast majority of the many hundreds of people who see such women walking around in public.
Gah. This “Eurabia” hysteria just really gets under my skin.
I quite agree. Already in the last decade there has been massive forward movement for progressive Muslim women. Certainly all of my female friends who were raised as Muslims feel completely free to wear or not wear the hijab (most, of course, choose not to, which puts some family pressure on them, but they don’t care), and I hope they stand out as examples to others that have less freedom that they have more choices available to them.
Turkey is very much unlike other muslim countries. I dont really have a problem with the banning of the scarves as it was part of Ataturks reforms which did a lot of great things for the people of Turkey. Ataturk also supported and enacted full equality for women in the 1930’s, he was quite ahead of his time. He was unable to enforce that policy as he died a few years later but the barring of the scarves as well as a host of other things is rooted in the attempt to make Turkey a more progressive country which it most definitely has become. Quality of life has increased a ton and all people of Turkey have much more freedom than they otherwise would have had. Perhaps now is the time to relent a little and allow full freedom in the public space to all but it is very complicated situation.
Destructor -
It’s true that there are many Muslim women who are forced to wear the veil, but I’m not sure a voluntary Hijabi or Niqabi would appreciate having her choice called a “demeaning” “tool” that’s oppressing her. Can we respect the fact that plenty of veiled Muslim women are making an informed decision, and are happy with it? There have been numerous societies throughout history in which women haven’t covered their breasts, but I don’t consider a shirt oppressive.
“Can we respect the fact that plenty of veiled Muslim women are making an informed decision, and are happy with it?”
Respect it? It’s not respect, it’s belief. I don’t have a hard time respecting an informed decision, I have a hard time believing that it is one. Just as I have a hard time believing that all those women in fundie Christian families are making informed decisions about subjugating themselves to men.
dan&danica:
Would this progress not have been achieved without a ban of headscarves?
I’m not particularly well-versed in Turkish history myself, so please do elaborate.
This stuff annoys me. I remember a really disturbing encounter with an American Foreign Service Officer in Bosnia. He went on a really scary rant about being filled with uncontrollable rage when hijab-wearing teenage Bosnian girls passed him in a crowd on the street, and that their mere existence stoked his rage. The guy came off sounding like a misogynist psychopath. When I called him out, he patronized me with, “Honey, you’re young and haven’t lived in enough Muslim countries to understand. These people ruined Bosnia. This used to be a Christian society.”
Umm, wow, was basically my response to that. My non-Muslim Bosnian friends were appalled when I told them as, obviously, so were my Muslim friends.
WTF on so many levels.
What a world!
From what I’ve heard, there’s a fear that now more and more women are pressured to wear headscarves. There are already places where women are looked weird if they’re not wearing one.
Of course women should be free to express their religion or dress whatever the way they feel fine with, but I’m afraid if the de-banning of the headscarves will just make the situation worse for the women who don’t cover their heads. I don’t know what the solution should be; seems like it’s a bad thing for half of the women anyway.
I’m sorry, but the most terrifying part of that article was the part where a woman – an educated, intelligent woman – was so conditioned into covering up that she physically could not remove her covering in order to defend her thesis and complete her education. I can’t be alone in thinking that, surely?
You can’t “freely choose” something that has been used as a tool of your oppression. It’s a contradiction in terms.
And I do consider shirts “oppressive” — for women. I’d love to go shirtless in appropriate weather. But I’m not allowed to. But men are. But I can’t, because the patriarchy has deemed my breasts offensive.
Isn’t the point that either way, the women are being told how to dress by men. Given those circumstances, I would choose the way I thought would lead to eternal happiness. So follow religion, not the state. It’s not like having your headscarf forcibly removed so you can attend class is liberating. Its just a more acceptable form of oppression.
Lazer,
A simple though somewhat biased account can be read over at wikipedia if you go look up ataturk. Iran is my area of focus but Turkey falls into that a little. To really understand the issues behind the scarves it does help to have a little background on the country in which the issue is playing out. In basics, Turkey was thrust forward in the 20’s and 30’s by a man and a regime who came to power His focus was progress with a humanist gist to it. He got rid of Islamic law, got equal rights for women, adopted a new alphabet and a host of other measures. This upset people in the rural areas, mostly those more fundamentalist or devout in their beliefs, but it made huge change possible for the country. Turkey is now a mostly urban country and while it does have a lot of problems it is among the most progressive of muslim states. The issue highlighted here might seem like a no-brainer to us but given Turkeys modern history and its struggles to secularize it becomes a bit more complicated. Perhaps now is a time to relent a little but this scarves issue is tied up in the greater issue. Yes honor killings and all the rest are horrible things but they are relics of the religious parts of Turkey and the opposite of the country the banning of religious wear in public spaces the progressives are trying to produce.
Why do we highlight these kinds of articles and then only look at with a Western perspective?
Highlighting the work and words of a Turkish Muslim woman fighting for her right to wear the headscarf in her own country is looking at the article with only a Western perspective?
Ataturk’s disdain for traditional head wear was not limited to women. Ataturk also banned the fez hat for men. Likewise, a Jewish man would be unable to wear a yarmulke in any government building. He was trying to promote secularism in a country where 98 percent of the population shared the same religion. While the head scarf gets all the press, NO outward religious displays are allowed in public institutions. While a cross on a necklace is easier to conceal under clothing, the same rules would apply if you were wearing it outwardly. This does not have the intent to in any way disadvantage women. While it may have that effect, this is purely an attempt to secularize the country and the same rules apply to everyone. Looking at Turkey’s past and the region’s present, I understand Turkey’s borderline paranoia about keeping religion out of the public sphere.
no, highlighting them is fine but the writeup and the comments have a distinctly western slant. as i said “why do we highlight these kinds of articles AND THEN only look at them with a Western perspective”. Its not as simple as men telling women what to wear or that all people in all places should have total and completely free expression of religious belief in all places, especially in a country like Turkey. remember, women cant wear scarves and men cant wear a fez, is that right? I tend to think so for what their leadership was/is trying to do but as i mentioned above, it might very well be the time to relent a little, its just a very complicated situation.
also, “fighting for her right to wear the headscarf in her own country”, well thats expressly not a right as defined by turkish law, are we prepared to say it should be a right in turkey and ignore all the issues associated with it?
“You can’t ‘freely choose’ something that has been used as a tool of your oppression. It’s a contradiction in terms.”
Well said, tinfoil hattie.
In my opinion, the injunction against head scarves is a noble one. The head scarf is not merely an individual fashion decision. It is a symbol of misogynist religious repression. Do we really wish to see Turkey regress into another theocracy? It may seem like a small thing now, but it is another small step toward the dismantlement of Turkey’s secular society.
…what? Just because something isn’t a right expressed under Turkish law doesn’t mean that someone can’t fight for that right. For example, women in countries where abortion is illegal fight for their rights to abortion. Gay and lesbian people here fight for their right to get married. etc etc. Rights are defined by more than simple law, and when we discuss them, we don’t assume that the current laws are the only “rights” that people have or should have.
My understanding of Turkish history is hardly comprehensive, but I have studied a fair bit of it, and I understand the arguments in promotion of secularism. My argument is that secularism is as much about religious freedom as it is about keeping religion out of government and public policy. So as much as government employees should not be required to wear certain religious garb or profess a particular faith, individual citizens should not be barred from practicing their own faith as they see fit — so long as that practice doesn’t cause harm or significant burden to anyone else. Allowing women to wear the headscarf to school doesn’t harm anyone; however, banning them from wearing it means that some women simply won’t attend school or work in particular fields. That is a damn shame.
It should also be pointed out that the headscarf is about more than religion. Yes, many (even most) women wear it as an expression of religious faith, but it’s a complicated thing. Many women wear it as a sign of their culture; for them, it’s a physical way of challenging Western supremacy and hegemony. For still other women (and especially for some girls), wearing the headscarf gives them greater freedom — their parents will give them greater leeway to participate in after-school activities, to socialize with friends, to go out alone. All of these things matter to this discussion, and it strikes me as really simplistic to just see the headscarf as a challenge to secularism and then ban it.
If a mixed-sex group of professors asked you to remove your shirt and bra before defending your thesis, would you do it?
It’s not a perfect example, but understand that for a lot of women, the headscarf is part of their daily body covering, as much as a shirt or a pair of pants is part of mine. I’m conditioned to feel really fucking exposed with my shirt off and my breasts exposed; that’s certainly patriarchal and ridiculous, but it’s my reality. I don’t think I’d be able to get up and defend my thesis topless; I think I’d walk out. So no, I don’t think her reaction was terrifying; I think it’s terrifying that academics are willing to abuse power like that and force her to make an unreasonable choice between her education and her faith.
it was seen that way, as part of the much larger secularism drive. yes as mentioned several times now perhaps it is time to relent on some of these issues but that is a complicated issue and not one for us in this country to decide. the ultimate goal of secularism, as you pointed out, would be for everyone to be free to express themselves as they wish but turkey is not yet at that point.
the wearing of scarves may indeed present a significant burden as it would be seen by some as a most recognizable return religious belief in the public space, something a lot of turks are very much against.
it wasnt seen simply as a challenge to secularism, all religious garb was banned as an attempt to secularize, a goal which i laud and again one that has not reached its ultimate goal.
so are you saying she should be able to wear her headscarf and that all people of whatever belief should be able to wear any religious garb they choose wherever they are in turkey? yes it should be that way in a perfect society but with Turkeys history and its location in the world, should this really be done?
“I don’t have a hard time respecting an informed decision, I have a hard time believing that it is one. Just as I have a hard time believing that all those women in fundie Christian families are making informed decisions about subjugating themselves to men.”
kathygnome – So no Muslim woman anywhere is making an informed decision, and you know better than them. And the veil is *always* a form of subjugation, never anything else.
“I’m sorry, but the most terrifying part of that article was the part where a woman – an educated, intelligent woman – was so conditioned into covering up that she physically could not remove her covering in order to defend her thesis and complete her education. I can’t be alone in thinking that, surely?”
Degar – Why do you use the word “conditioned?” You acknowledge that she’s educated and intelligent; don’t you think there might have been something more going on than just brainwashing? I’d feel pretty damn sensitive if someone told me to show them a part of my body that I didn’t think they had a right to look at.
“You can’t “freely choose” something that has been used as a tool of your oppression. It’s a contradiction in terms.
And I do consider shirts “oppressive” — for women. I’d love to go shirtless in appropriate weather. But I’m not allowed to. But men are. But I can’t, because the patriarchy has deemed my breasts offensive.”
tinfoil hattie – So every single time I put on a shirt, I’m participating in oppression? Sure, it’s not fair to make me cover up if I want to go topless, but what if I don’t want to? Are you saying that I’m incapable of freely making that choice? What if I have another reason for wearing that particular garment?
“Isn’t the point that either way, the women are being told how to dress by men. Given those circumstances, I would choose the way I thought would lead to eternal happiness.”
yazikus – I know you mean well, but that’s a pretty simplistic way of looking at Muslim women’s choice to wear a hijab or niqab. Many of them wear veils was a way of demonstrating pride in their religion, culture, and identity. Many others wear veils for many other reasons.
This type of attitude is why feminists in other cultures don’t like working with Western feminists – we can’t accept the possibility that maybe they’re every bit as capable of analyzing their culture and thinking for themselves as we are. It never occurs to us to trust them and follow their lead; we have to come in and save them from themselves, because they’ve been “conditioned.” And, just as the article says, we find ourselves stuck at the headscarf.
And what of the women who do not wish to wear the head scarf? What will become of these women if the ban is repealed and the tyranny of the Muslim majority is brought to bear on them? No doubt we would soon be discussing the threat to -their- freedom.
Lots of things are symbols of misogynist religious repression. What about floor-length dresses for women? That’s what the Christian fundies wear here, right? Can we ban those? What if I wear a long modest dress because I think it’s pretty — is that ok?
Should we ban nuns habits? Or at least ban nuns from entering public spaces? I mean, being a nun is as religiously oppressive as it gets, right?
No one here wants to see Turkey become a theocracy. But repression isn’t the way to secularism, and allowing people to cover their heads in public is not going to cause the downfall of a large secular democracy. What is happening, though, is that an entire generation of women are being blocked from higher education and employment — the very places where they would be more likely to develop secular values.
I’m just sick of these fights always playing out over women’s bodies. No, wearing the headscarf is never a fully free choice, any more than my wearing a shirt today is a fully free choice. Under a patriarchal system we are all constrained, and I am totally in favor of challenging that. But I’m not in favor of only “challenging” patriarchy in ways that do harm to women. That’s what these headscarf bans do: They keep women out of school and out of the workforce in the name of “secularism.” It’s men who are making these laws, men who are enforcing them, and men who are benefiting from them. That is not feminism, or even any acceptable form of “secular humanism.” It’s the same bullshit on a different day; it’s the same oppressors and the same people being oppressed, only different tools are being used.
That’s the dumbest argument I’ve ever heard. “If we let religious people wear the headscarf, then suddenly everyone will have to wear the headscarf!” It’s ridiculous. The choices are not between “ban the headscarf” and “require the headscarf.” All women are asking for is the right for them to wear the headscarf in public buildings and schools. It’s sort of like saying, “If we let women in the United States go topless at the beach, all of a sudden they’ll be making everyone go topless! What will happen when the tyranny of the feminist majority is brought to bear on everyone else?”
If there is a proposal to require all women to wear the headscarf, I’ll be as up in arms about it as I am about this. But the answer to tyranny is not tyranny. The way to end oppression is not to oppress in the opposite direction.
good stuff jill, youre very well spoken. you and i just differ on what rights are in this context. you used their bared breasts argument to highlight the importance of the scarf to some women in turkey. an Iranian friend of mine, from the turkish border, would say allowing the wear of scarves and other items with religious import would be similar to yelling fire in a crowded theater, as it would create a firestorm in turkey if these policies were officially overturned.
simple law does not encapsulate all rights and laws can be corrupt things and take away rights one should have but in this case i believe it is an issue of the greater good (yes that is subjecitve and an argument that could be used to support most anything but there it is).
Oh, and I’ll add that, as Ms. Benli pointed out in the article, the emphasis on the headscarf is impeding progress in other areas of women’s rights. Oftentimes, religious women are the best advocates for other religious women who face substantial oppression; they’re looked at as insiders as opposed to Western-influenced imperialists. The headscarf ban is directly in the way of them getting their work done. It means that women who wear the headscarf can’t go to court to promote women’s rights; can’t partake in negotiations or discussions about human rights law; can’t change the system in a whole variety of ways, simply based on what they choose to wear. So it’s hurting them on an individual level, but it’s also having profoundly negative effects on broader human rights goals.
Sure. And I think you make really important points about the different concepts of secularism in a place like Turkey versus in the United States (and versus a place like, say, France, which has even further differing views on what secularism means). It’s a hard balance to strike, and you’re right that a lot of the issues here relate very specifically to Turkish culture and history. Thanks for making those points.
Also, aren’t bikinis and miniskirts and other “sexy” clothing tools of patriarchal oppression, too? Or is it only religious misogynist oppression that we object to? Because I feel a whole lot worse about myself as a woman when I look at Maxim than when I walk past a hijabed woman on the street, and I don’t think my experience is uncommon.
So let’s ban my headscarf, along with my loose-fitting floor-length dress, but let’s also make sure that I’m not being bossed around by the patriarchy by banning my bikini, my high heels (those are actually physically bad for you to boot), my tight jeans, my mini-skirt, and my push-up bras.
I don’t know what I’ll actually have left to wear, and that may stop me from ever being able to leave the house, but hey, at least you’ve made your point.
Jill, you’re not seeing the issue of the head scarf in the greater context. If this were simply an issue of head scarves, it would be the no-brainer that you suggest. The fact of the matter is that Turkey’s secularism is under constant threat, and the head scarf issue is just another step towards dismantling that secularism.
I do not see my argument as ridiculous. There does not need to be a formal “proposal” requiring all women to wear the head scarf to achieve that very same result. The current injunction does not just “repress” Muslim women who want to wear scarves. It protects the minority of women who don’t, and that is by no means “anti-feminist”.
Repression is indeed a waypoint on the way to secularism, at least as far as Turkey goes. It is the only way they have been able to make the gains theyve made, otherwise they would have been swallowed up by fundamentalist islam as their neighbors were. Turkey, unlike some other muslim nations, puts no restrictions on what one may believe, only how one may express that belief in public space. There is a reason Turkey was not as susceptible, on a state level, as say Iran to radical islam. This is only a womens issue as far as a few specific religions require their adherents to wear something that is not allowed in a public space. Why is there no mention, other than seans, of the jews, sikhs, or other groups who are also affected by this? They must make the choice and yes it is a damn shame their choice may prevent them from furthering their education but if that is a tradeoff they are willing to make, so be it. Its an issue of that has raged for 70 years in turkey and there are some fascinating books out there on it, ill try and find them. The question is if allowing religious garb in public spaces would have enough of a negative effect on the progress/policies of a secular turkey to be a net loss, I’m not qualified to answer that. Some would say yes and some no but its not a simple issue.
Jill,
There is a slippery slope fear that allowing women to wear head scarves in government buildings will increase the coverings acceptance and create an eventual de facto requirement to wear it all the time. Like I wrote before, Turkey is terrified of losing its secularism. Also, to the vast majority of Turkish women, this does not appear to be a big deal. While I admit I spent most of my time in Istanbul, many of the Turkish women at the school I attended wore their head scarves to school, took them off at the door and put them in their purse, and reapplied them when they left. And of course, many didn’t wear them at all. And your argument about nuns doesn’t work because nuns already can’t wear habits in government offices either. The rule applies to all people of all religions. No external display of religion is allowed in any government building.
Right, I get that Turkey’s secularism is threatened, but I fail to see how banning the headscarf achieves the goal of maintaining it. Unless you’re admitting that banning the headscarf effectively keeps an entire class of religious women from public participation — I can see how disenfranchising a bunch of people would be highly successful at maintaining the status quo.
How in the world does the current injunction not repress women when the actual outcome of that injunction is that many, many women do not attend school or work because they can’t walk in the building? If your argument is that those women are collateral damage for the greater good, then just say so — but don’t kid yourself and argue that there’s no harm being done to women here. That is on its face untrue.
Sean, did it occur to you that perhaps there are many women out there who would have otherwise been attending your school, but didn’t bother to even show up because they knew they couldn’t wear their headscarves inside? Using women who are comfortable removing their scarves as your sample for “Turkish women” isn’t particularly accurate.
And yes, I understand the fears of sliding into religious rule. I really do get that. I’m arguing, though, that Turkey is going too far in the opposite direction, and that the version of secularism they embrace is likely breeding great animosity towards the entire concept of secular democracy. That’s a dangerous thing.
……..
No and that analogy is a little disingenuous unless youre saying, as you mentioned in your earlier post, that many, even most women find bikinis and miniskirts and other sexy clothes as tools of patriarchal oppression in the same way many or even most turkish muslim women see the scarves as signets of their faith.
Youve mentioned sexy clothes and floor length dresses as all being tools of oppression, so what is “allowed” and not a tool of oppression in your mind? As an atheist the sight of anyone in full religious garb is more disheartening to me than a woman in string bikini or a man in a banana hammock. But I believe they wear what the want for their own reasons, more power to them.
I don’t mean to suggest this isn’t a hot topic in Turkey. It is. I think the solution is to stop telling women they need to wear head scarves in order to be good Muslims. I don’t think the solution is to enable the religious fundamentalists by enabling them to exert more control over women by increasing the head scarf’s acceptance.
Hear, hear!
And seriously people. I think that rules about dress – like women should wear headscarves or make-up – are worse than dumb. But can we all agree there’s a vast difference between arguing against cultural mores and banning something?
We generally seem to get it (even if others don’t) when the discussion of language comes up and we are accused of censorship for simply saying certain types of words are rude and sexist and wrong. Why are so many people not getting that the issue at the moment is not if a certain custom is oppressive, but that laws banning certain styles of dress most certainly are? If it’s oppressive that women can’t walk around topless – especially when men can – then it would certainly be oppressive if we were required to walk around topless as well.
How can we argue against the laws that require burquas if we do not also argue against laws that ban hijabs?
By saying the latter is ok but the former is not, we are not defending the rights of women, we are simply saying that while it is bad religion to oppress and control women through the state, it’s more than acceptable for the state to do so on it’s own.
Theyve been doing this for a long, long time and it has worked for the majority of the population, especially for women. Yes there may be some who do not go to school or work because of this policy but the % of Turkish women who have any education at all is vastly higher than it was before the secularization drive, if we are to distill this down to only a womens issue, women have benefitted immensely from turkeys secularization, is this perhaps a flaw or chink in the armor? yes but it is worth possibly starting to unravel what has been established? no in my opinion.
girl detective- you are right, thanks for pointing that out. Oftentimes it is easy to get caught up in our own understandings of other peoples problems and to forget that it is them, not us, who truly understand them.
I meant no offense.
I myself belong to a faith where there are circumstances that I am asked to cover my head with a scarf. I am not oppressed, nor uniformed in my own case, so I should not have assumed it was so simple.
I will not deny that there is harm being done to women due to the ban, and that harm is indeed unfortunate. But as others have argued in this thread (more eloquently than I), there is a compelling slippery slope argument here that I am unable to overlook.
As for my callousness in desiring the greater good, or the lesser evil, I suppose that is what my argument amounts to. The dissolution of Turkey’s secular government in favor of an Islamic state is the greater threat to the women of Turkey.
Jill,
Yes. It did occur to me that I was begging the question with my example (the women who didn’t have a problem with it didn’t have a problem it). Sometimes I get a little sloppy while pretending like I am paying attention in class. I know that your shirt/bra analogy was intended to be a drastic example but I was just trying to show that, at least in the big cities, there is nothing like that level of consensus on the head scarf. Unlike a bra/shirt, most of the women I saw in Turkey really don’t wear the head scarf.
That’s fabulous. You’re very enlightened. But the analogy here would be a man in a position of power using his power to force a woman to strip in front of him. I know I would find that profoundly degrading. I would find it degrading even if I didn’t have a problem with public nudity, which I do. It’s hard for me to see how any decent human being, let alone any feminist, could defend that kind of behavior.
mickle,
good point but many countries have banned various garments, whether it be a hijab, roo sari, swastika or anything else. is it hypocritical to say, in a vacuum, mandating burkas is wrong but banning them is right? Yes, yes it is but again this is not simply a womens issue as it relates to Turkey, the headscarves are the same as any other religious garment anyone of either gender either chooses or is required to wear. It is a question of tradeoffs in my mind and if a state wishes to secularize and does everything in its power to mandate that state owned spaces are religion free in all aspects, I would take that as it is a waypoint on the way to ultimate secularism in which anything would be allowed.
How in the world does it not oppress women who want to wear the scarf? And how in the world are you not being anti-feminist when you make sure that they only women who have access to things like education are the ones that are lucky and courageous enough to be able to buck tradition?
Requiring faux feminism is not a feminist act. Banning headscarves from certain places does not stop women from wearing them, it stops women from going to those places. You can’t solve the problem of religious/social pressure by forcing the women who are subjected to it out of the public sphere. That’s pretty much the equivalent of making them hide their heads in the sand because you don’t want to deal with what they have to deal with.
Women all over the world have vastly more opportunities than women did before Turkey began its secularization drive. The expansion of educational and career opportunities for women is a global phenomenon of the 20th century, and it is by no means limited to countries which ban outward displays of religion. You seem to suggest that if Turkey revokes the ban of outward displays of religion, it will magically revert to the way things were in the late 19th century. I just don’t see how that would work. First women who wear headscarves will be able to go to college and then… what? What is the next step on the road towards women being denied opportunities?
Also, the linked article suggests that the headscarf ban is actually pretty recent. That’s how Ms. Benli was able to get her undergraduate degree. The ban wasn’t enforced until after she began her graduate training.
it is a result of the 20th century but compare turkey to its middle eastern peers, as far as womens rights go and youll see quite a difference. Secularized countries are far better off in almost every way though there are some quite notable objections. You’re right, if the official policies were overturned on Monday, there wouldnt be a caliphate on Tuesday but if you were to overturn the policy on public garments and expression in state spaces you would see huge conflicts within turkey, between the secularists and the fundamentalists. Its not as simple as -this isnt right, overturn it and everything will be ok-.
FYI: This argument is about to be moot. I hope that I’m wrong and this is good for Turkish women.
dan&danica
Then were we fundamentally disagree is over whether or not one can really achieve good by doing evil acts.
There are times when I think the situation makes normally evil acts into acts that are more good than they are evil (such as killing for self-defense). I don’t think that this really works when it comes to censorship though, unless the thing being censored is how you treat other people, such as making harassment illegal. At that point it’s not a matter of the state messing with someone’s freedom, it’s a matter of the state preventing one citizen from messing with another citizen’s freedom, which is what the state is there for.
There are certainly good reasons to require certain styles of dress that go against the kind of cultural mores we are trying to fight. Wearing high heels is dangerous in many situations and it makes sense to require that workers carrying heavy loads not wear them. But whenever you are banning something only in order to fight cultural pressure, it tends to backfire for a lot of reasons. The main one being that it’s dangerous to give the state that kind of power, no matter what the reason.
What you seem to be arguing is that other women wearing the hijab ends of messing with the non-hijab wearing women’s freedom even if they do nothing else because it creates a pressure to do the same, making the issue similar to the issue of harassment. But I don’t think that really works; I think that ends up sounding very similar to the fundamentalists who argue that women should cover up because otherwise they are too much of a distraction for men. You still aren’t getting to the heart of the problem, which is requiring that only certain people bear the burden of humanity’s imperfections.
Europeans and Muslims have “history”. The Crusades (not the current Bushie one) were noted for barbarity to innocents. The marauding hordes have meaning to peoples that faced them. Don’t discount their fears simply because you are “free, white, and over 21″.
I think that, no matter what, there are going to be huge conflicts between secularists and fundamentalists (or maybe “non-secularists,” which I don’t think is necessarily the same as a fundamentalist). Banning headscarves, which seems to be a relatively recent practice, isn’t going to stop that conflict from happening. What it will do is deny opportunities to women, especially to working-class women, who as I understand it are the women who are most likely to wear headscarves at the moment. And as a feminist, I can’t accept that women should be collateral damage in “more important” struggles. I can’t accept that some women will have to be denied access to higher education because hey, they’re just working-class women, and there are important principles at stake here. Screw that. Equality of opportunity is an important principle.
I think there is something to the argument that the Turkish law helps women by preventing them from being forced to wear the headscarf; the worldwide fundamentalist movement means women are wearing the headscarf even in countries where they never had this tradition. Women who still go around bare-headed are shamed into covering in Malaysia and Singapore, for example. The Koran quote I’ve seen cited as justification requests merely that women cover up their bosoms in the marketplace — how that came to include covering hair as well is beyond me.
When I grew up, however, headscarved women in education were completely unremarkable:
http://bp0.blogger.com/_Uxr1s_65ejI/Rv6dO2KxKQI/AAAAAAAAAW0/GIPlErcCr0E/s1600-h/100_2590.JPG
I’m just going to pause for a moment to register a brief “WTF” to Mold’s comment 51, on so many levels that it probably isn’t worth getting into it.
Ok. Now back to our regularly scheduled, non-unhinged debate.
This is no-win.
All anyone really has to do is take a look at the revolutionary process in Iran to figure out what would happen. The secularist thing is used as a firewall to prevent thuggery from the lower classes and rural folks. For me, personally, I don’t really see this as being especially different than fundies attempting to use civil rights logic to pursue non-civil gains.
The hard truth is, the headcovering issue is one that is explicitly used to prevent discussion on other issues. It isn’t particularly germaine to women not being allowed to be comfortable doing state sphere activity. If it weren’t for that issue, it would be something else!
Also, note that the fundies are, more or less, on the side of the angels in Turkey. The secular elite there is pretty corrupt and fascistic. Therefore, you have to do some *really* fancy dancing if you want to talk about the issues there. I would want to support the anti-corruption and pro-democracy aspects of that fundy movement, while assuring the over-all secular nature of the state. Given how headcovering function so effectively as a means towards social control of women by the brother and fathers who “owns” them, I do not support the relaxtion of the ban. Remember, without that ban, it gets really easy to figure out the truly secular women and it’s easier to get the society to target said women. The ban, in effect, promotes anonymization.
This is the typical state of women…Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t. Weighing who gets more rights doing what inevitably leads me to support the ban. What’s really at issue here is that sexist and classist people are using the ban to harm women. Target *that*.
Turkey’s got a complex history vis a vis secularism and religion – but my take on it is that ultimately, people will resent intrusion. Meddling encourages fundamentalism as a reaction. However, Turkey is one country, with its own specific background, and I’m not going to say I’m 100% equipped to debate it.
There are larger issues at hand,
If banning the headscarf is so great and progressive, we should go ahead and ban lipstick too. Both can be construed as symbols of oppression.
And then we can figure out how everything else that we wear, do, and say is a symbol of oppression – which will finally culminate in us not being allowed to leave the house, as Jill already pointed out.
And then, the fundamentalists of all stripes (both religious and otherwise) would have won.
Secularism is a noble goal, but you can’t force a population to become secular, just like you can’t foist democracy onto a population and expect it to stick. The “nobility” and “necessity” of forced secularism sounds awfully similar to the Bush administration’s blathering about FISA and Iraq.
You simply can’t achieve a noble end by using means absolutely contradictory to your goal- that’s the type of hypocrisy that we’ve been shoveled for seven years in this country. What suddenly makes it okay in Turkey? All that banning religious outerwear is going to do is make you look like an oppressor (which, sorry to say, would be correct). No, the correct way to achieve equality is by giving women more choices, not fewer. Social change would take longer, but it’d be far, far more stable than the mess that Turkey has brewed for itself.
i see what youre saying natalia but i do not think lipstick and headscarves are in any way comparable in this instance. Mickle summed it up pretty well but what seems to be happening here is some are looking at it as a worldwide situation and others as specific to Turkey. In my mind it would be absolutely great if anyone could do pretty much anything they wanted as long as it didnt directly hurt someone else, I’m very much a libertarian. The issue for me here is specifc to Turkey and the way it has handled this issue among many others. As mickle synopsized my views, I do in fact believe that what Turkey is doing is the lesser of two evils. Perhaps now or some time in the near future this policy would be lifted but it will not come easily and there are reasons not to. As mentioned a few posts ago, though Turkey is now very much an urban nation, the fundamentalists still control a lot of the land outside of cities where if this policy was overturned it is my firm belief that it would be the first in many steps to roll back a lot of the freedoms women, and people of different beliefs, have gotten.
If you’d like to see one result of what lifting this ban might produce you need look no further than post-mossadegh/pre-revolution Iran. Women then also had the choice to wear it or not, it was neither required nor prohibited but there were massive problems stemming from not wearing the roosari or roopoosh, especially in the rural areas outside of Tehran and Shiraz, let alone areas around Qom or in the sistan-baluchistan province.
People can and do resent intrusion but most of the turks I know are pretty much for it unless they are very devout in their religion. It is indeed a problem for women who have to wear it as part of their religious practice and its a difficult decision but I do not see the overall gain in beginning to unravel the secularist state that on the whole has done a lot of good. Again, as a principle it sounds good but in practice, in turkey, its not that simple.
puggins,
so your solution would be to give all groups and people in Turkey complete and total freedom then hope the best evolves from that? Can you force a population to recognize federal authority over regional/provincial/state authority? Can you force them to abolish slavery? Old examples to be sure but relevant especially as one could certainly compare Bush to Lincoln in some respects with Bush coming out cleaner. I agree with you as a principle but it simply does not work that way in application. Banning of the wear might make you seem like an oppressor but on the flip side, given the history turkey had and the reasons these changes came about, it could also be seen as liberating to not be beholden to religious norms in public space.
The problem is that Turkey is banning headscarves, which is wrong because it takes away the freedom of women to express their religious or cultural or bad-hair-day beliefs.
The larger problem is that the headscarf itself is a symbol of oppression. So are bikinis, mini-skirts, and yes, the beloved high heeled shoe. Yes, indeedy.
And wanting to be able to go shirtless is not the same as advocating that men be allowed to force me to do it.
And yes, I am enlightened. Your sarcasm is noted and unnecessary.
Acknowledging that we live in a patriarchy does not mean it’s possible to be aware of patriarchal influences and therefore live a life free of them. In fact, it means the opposite. We have to make our choices within the patriarchy because that’s all we’ve ever known.
And yes, in a vacuum, it could be possible that without patriarchy, women would have chosen to objectify themselves sexually, create male-dominated and patriarchal religions, create laws benefitting men and harming women, and create an economy and work force based on male convenience and ideals. It is indeed possible. Just not very likely.
tinfoil,
I’ve heard these arguments before but it always confuses me a bit. ok, high shoes, bikinis, mini-skirts and so on are symbols of oppression because they were designed by men and objectify the female form right? nowadays floor length dresses and the like are deemed as symbols of oppresion by some as well as other garments. exactly what clothing can a woman wear that isnt a symbol of oppresion and who gets to choose it or define it? many also see the suit as one example of the straightjacket the patriarchy forces men into, so what are the other options? just always wonder about that.
not to say they are completely analagous but american, german an israeli public institutions, schools, can and have banned certain garmets to include swastikas which can very well be a signet of someones beliefs yet we decide for societys sake it is better that those be banned in certain areas, is that a problem? (personally I wouldn’t care if someone walked in with tattoos of swastikas, burning babies, and crack vials, whateva gets ya high.)
Right, exactly. That’s exactly my position on the headscarf: women should not be forced to wear it, but neither should they be denied opportunities if they choose to wear it. But that’s what has happened to Ms. Benli’s clients. They have gone to see a male authority figure who had massive power over them, and he has told them that they had to take off their headscarves in front of him or he would use his power to end their educational careers. That’s equivalent to a man forcing you or me to take off our shirts and flash our tits to him in order for him to allow us to enroll in college. And it suggests that the headscarf ban, in the hands of misogynistic males, can actually be a tool to harass and humiliate women, in the same way that forcing me to take my shirt off would be a way of harassing and humiliating me. You could argue that the reason that I’m uncomfortable showing my breasts to strange men is that I’ve internalized patriarchal ideas about my body, and you’d probably be right. But that’s not the point. I would still argue that I have a right to keep my top on when I so desire. I would still argue that any attempt to force me to parade around topless would be a pretty terrible affront to my dignity.
Tinfoil,
I could very well argue that by your not wearing a veil (or shirt), you are giving into patriarchy because teh menz have conditioned you that showing your hair (or breasts) is the “right” thing to do. It’s all about your perspective and that under no circumstances should be *DEMEANED* by looking down on any woman who has made her own reasoned decisions-regardless of whether or not you think they’re “reasoned.”
This really is ludicrous. And really, this argument is getting old. I wear the veil and it pisses me off to no end when I’ve been deemed as oppressed, repressed, dillusional, meek, stupid, gullible, etc etc. The list goes on and on. When the hell are we going to move past this? Piety movements come and go in cycles. Islam is in one of it’s peaks now. 100 years from now it will wane. And on and on. In the meantime, how about we just forgo the stupid assinine judgments of other women and focus on oh- I don’t know-equal rights to opportunity? I’m not saying you have to love the fucking scarf, but at least let us live in peace without looking down on us. I don’t need your sympathy Goddamit. I need you to support my access to every avenue out there- even if it’s a road you think is dangerous.
Jeez, we can’t even let one another live. Is it any wonder fundies have the rest of this fucking world so tied up?
:: cursing a blue streak ::
Count me against a headscarf ban, as well: I’m not Muslim, but I’ve spent a lot of time wearing veils and, dammit, I like wearing a veil. I’d probably wear one some of the time if I thought I could get away with it, but I know from experience that, looking the way I do and living where I live, I can’t. For one thing, when I’m wearing a scarf over my head to keep it warm in the winter, and wearing my long black coat, certain kinds of men on the street attempt to walk through me. I might as well not exist. People around here are really good at unseeing things that disturb them, and a pale-skinned, blue-eyed woman who superficially looks like a pious Muslimah must bother the hell out of them. IBTWesternHegemonicP.
Why would I do it? A scarf over the head is warmer in the winter than going bareheaded, and I have such antigravity hair, most hats give me a huge static charge, and/or a bad case of hockey hair. The right scarf over the head is also cooler in summer than going bareheaded with dark hair. Further, it keeps my antigravity hair tidy and out of my face. Other than other people’s stupid attitudes, I’m not seeing a downside here…
I get tired of hearing this too.
I’m not Muslim; I don’t face what Muslim women do, especially in Turkey.
But I was an Orthodox Jew for years, and as a married woman I covered my hair. I stopped doing it, and being Orthodox, partly because I personally felt it was sexist, but I’m not going to say “therefore anyone who still does it is just under the thumb of the patriarchy…” etc. Plenty of women grow up in non-religious households and then become religious. (In Judaism, but I know it’s true in other religions too.) So how can people be sure they didn’t make a reasoned decision?
Either way, I can’t possibly see how anyone can think forcing women to remove their headscarves, something which is truly demeaning to them, would be a positive thing. I would not have done it… but as a Jewish woman in the U.S. it’s unlikely that anyone would have tried to force me to. (I have heard of Jewish women getting hassled about covering their hair, usually at work from other Jews trying to tell them “we’re not in the shtetl anymore” but it’s a very different situation when you have legal redress, and it’s a different situation for Muslim women.)
(By the way, I’m not trying to imply that if women were raised to cover themselves then people can say they didn’t make a reasoned decision … I don’t believe that at all.)
Also:
Exactly.
Personal freedom of self expression? I can’t see how limiting that will ultimately benefit the nation. We can see in this specific example that the restriction is being exploited to enforce a class system that- at least to the outside observer that knows very little about Turkey (ie, me) just as repressive in its own way as Islam.
That has nothing to do with personal freedoms, assuming the regional governments aren’t persecuting their own people. In that case, yes.
Call it the idealist in me, but I think that even the most primitive repressive slavemasters realize that they are inflicting a horrible crime upon another human being- at least on some level. Outlawing slavery is never about maintaining personal freedom, no matter how twisted the ruling class spin machine can get. The SOuth knew damn well what it was doing and it did it anyway.
Well, like I’ve said, I don’t know a single iota of Turkish history. History is rife with example of artificially created societies that attempted to bottle up cultural or religious tension via law, and I can’t think of a single example of one that eventually wound up working well. I can think of plenty of disasters for the ruling state, though- Austria-Hungary, Poland, South Africa, oh, and lookie here…. Iraq!
My money would be on a horrific collapse of the Turkish state at some point in our lifetime, especially considering the lengths to which they think they have to go to maintain their state- attacking the Kurds just doesn’t look very promising right now.
I’m in the same patriarchy as you, Sylvia. Wear the veil, don’t wear the veil. We all make our choices under the umbrella of patriarchy. I do not feel any sorrier for you than I do for myself. You’re projecting. I said nothing about anyone’s decisions not being “reasoned.” I said our decisions are not made in a vacuum. Take it out on me if it makes you feel better, but I did not invent patriarchy. I’m married. I have kids. I stayed home with them for years and then went back to work. I’m fat. I wear make-up to work.
All decisions/conditions that were influenced by the patriarchy. All decisions that were, thank you very much, “reasoned.”
I see a lot of parallels between your argument and the argument that fundamentalist religious dogma uses to require women to dress a certain way/act a certain way: “If we were in a perfect state, ladies, you could do whatever you liked and go anywhere you liked, but we are NOT, so do as we tell you for your own good.”
I’m not saying that you’re a fundamentalist, but for me, especially as someone who has worn the veil as Christian Orthodox woman, the similarities are striking.
Also, I never used the word “enlightened” and was not trying to use sarcasm against you. Or maybe that wasn’t directed at me? I’m not sure.
I’m actually really confused about what tinfoil hattie is arguing.
I think most of us probably agree that we all live under patriarchy, all of our choices are conditioned by patriarchy, and that there is no unpatriarchal choice when it comes to the question of whether or not to adhere to your local standard of modesty, whatever that might be. You can’t choose your way out of patriarchy, any more than you can opt out of capitalism or denounce your race. It’s structural. It’s there whether you acknowledge it or not. That’s not just true of clothing choices. It’s true of everything. You can’t opt out of patriarchy by choosing not to get married or choosing a non-traditional career or making your own clothes instead of shopping a Wal-Mart.
I guess it’s possible that tinfoil hattie thinks that this is the only acceptable insight for anyone ever to offer on a feminist blog. We may not talk about any specific instance of patriarchy hurting women, because that diverts attention from the only acceptable goal, which is smashing patriarchy. Anything else is ameliorative bullshit, which will not address the real problem. I have no idea what actions would seem sufficiently patriarchy-smashing to TH, but maybe she’ll tell us.
But the other possibility, and frankly this seems more likely to me, is that tinfoil hattie has a different standard for discussions related to headscarves than to other discussions. If some non-headscarf-wearing woman found herself barred from higher education because of her gender, it would be permissible to discuss that. We wouldn’t be limited to the insight that we all live under patriarchy, yadda, yadda, yadda. We could decry the specific manifestation of patriarchy that limit women’s life choices. But headscarves are different, and the women who wear them are different. We all live under patriarchy, but somehow their patriarchy is worse patriarchy, and really their role in the world is to represent patriarchy in its most distilled form. How dare they concern themselves with mundane things like their desire for education and better careers, when really they ought to embrace their roles as walking, talking manifestations of patriarchal oppression! How dare we talk about them in the same way we’d talk about any other woman fighting for her right to equal opportunity, when the real point here is to repeat, ad infinitum, the insight that there’s no way to escape patriarchy!
It seems to me that what’s going on here is that you have a community, the recently-urbanized Turkish working class, which has new access to opportunity. And you have a policy which was intended to, among other things, liberate women but which is now creating a situation where women in that community can’t take advantage of their new opportunities. And that’s going to change the dynamics of the community. Men are going to have new options and chances for mobility, and women aren’t. Men are going to have the power that comes from increased education and earning potential, and women aren’t. That’s not good. That’s worth discussing. That seems to me to be at least as significant a manifestation of patriarchy as women’s patriarchally-determined choices in headgear.
puggins,
interesting post but we’ll have to agree to disagree. you project a total collapse but also say you know nothing of turkish history or, i would assume, current events. the only collapse that might happen in turkey is if the fundamentalists succeed in rolling back protections granted and set up another islamic state which is the worst possible outcome for the women of turkey. i just cant see it as a simple personal freedom issue in that “they should have the right to”, in this specific case I just dont see it that way as this issue isnt only about women and if I’m to use my point of view, as you used yours to answer my questions in an earlier post, I would say in that country, in that culture, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and what Turkey is doing is more beneficial than detrimental, a net gain. people will abuse any system, secular or religious but i have to look at it at a state level.
I would call you an idealist and thats a great thing to be but your views of slave-owning southerners realizing what they doing was “wrong” and they were getting away with something is flawed in my mind, youre viewing this through your own personal lens. i have associates that have no problem at all with sexual slavery and make frequent use of those women and boys, they do not see anything at all wrong with it, not one iota and I have seen people cut up babies and women as they dont see them as human, not on any level, there is no “wrong” feeling, no regret. the people in turkey have a different cultural frame of reference, we cant see their issues through only our eyes (and no im not a multiculturalist who views all peoples/cultures as “equals”)
awesome post sally, this really is an unintended consequence in a way of the religious garb policies.
question for you all: The patriarchy is constantly mentioned and talked about but do you think there is any other way that this world could have evolved? I just got done rereading guns, germs and steel for about the 9th time and the more I’ve thought about it, there was simply no way for any large culture to not be a patriarchy until very recently. Sure there were some pockets and cultures that were matriarchal but they didnt stand against their patriarchal rivals unless there was a lot of space and they were a smaller society. Looking back 30,000 years until say the middle of the dark ages there was just no other way it could have gone in my mind. Ever since, only for westerners, the dark ages there could have been more and more voice for women in society and indeed there was, with ups and downs it progressed from a completely subservient position, again with some notable exceptions, until now but has only really accelerated in the last 200 years, an amazingly short time for systemic change in a global society. Sorry for the OT post, just something I find interesting.
Do you also support that in our country, only with the roles reversed? Any perusal of k-12 educational stats and higher education stats show a marked advantage for women, is that not good?
I don’t mean to pounce on you, Dan, because I know that you’re not intentionally trolling, but what you’re doing here is familiar, annoying behavior on feminist blogs. Basically, what happens is that a guy (it is usually a guy, although I can’t tell from your handle if you are one) stumbles on a feminist blog, is intrigued, and decides that he’s going to interrogate the feminists present about feminism. They’re busy discussing something, but the new guy expects them to drop what they’re doing and immediately service his desire for answers, information, and debate about whatever he feels like debating. This blog was created so that we had a place to send people who did that, so that they didn’t feel entitled to derail and dominate discussions between feminists. It’s great that you want to learn more about feminism, but we’re busy here. You’re not automatically entitled to our time and attention.
Well, seeing as she interpreted Sylvia’s anger at being told she doesn’t know what she’s doing as “projecting,” I don’t think she even knows anymore. Hattie, I’m not sure how you can say this:
…and then claim that you never said anyone’s decision wasn’t reasoned. Yes, we’re all living in the patriarchy. We get it. Now could you please stop insulting Muslim women (not to mention the rest of us)?
(By the way – yazikus, sorry that I was short with you earlier.)
I feel like it’s important to not discredit the other reasons women wear the scarf. I went to high school in Dearborn, Mich., where one of the largest Muslim populations in the country has called home. There were more Muslims in my high school than whites or blacks, even though we bordered on Detroit. And I had a teacher who fought to pull the women away from their oppressive shell of beliefs. Some changed, others didn’t. I asked one girl why she kept wearing the scarf, and she said beyond religion and tradition, she liked wearing it just because she enjoyed having men talk to her as a person and not as a sexual object. (Meanwhile I watched the arab men date white women so they could screw around until they got married to a nice, virgin arab woman.)
To her, it was like wearing a suit and tie–there’s a degree of professionalism and decency in every day life. She felt she was being respectful to her god, her family, and society.
Of course, there were wide variations of what the women would wear. Some wore completely black, long flowing garments that hid everything but their eyes. Others would wear tight, form-fitting clothes and brightly colored scarves. In college, more of the women dropped the head scarf entirely.
As a feminist, I was against head scarves at first, especially because of the symbol of oppression. But there have been times when I’ve felt pressured to “look sexy” and show off my assets rather than my personality or intelligence, and Meha’s relief at not having to feel that pressure was what made covering herself worth it.
So turning this into a scarf issue isn’t targeting the real issue. The real issue is about teaching men (of all cultures) to respect women despite what they wear or how they look. And that’s not just a problem in Turkey or the Middle East. It’s a problem all over the world, and we shouldn’t put ourselves above those countries just because their problems are more obvious.
I’m sorry I offended Muslim women. I did not intend to. I don’t think you can’t talk about headscarves on a feminist blog. I did not say you can’t talk about headscarves on a feminist blog.
I’m talking about patriarchy. I did not tell anyone what to do — what is this comparison with fundamentalism all about? I am pointing out that we all live under a patriarchy and therefore all women live with repression. Head scarf. High heels. Breast implants. Breastfeeding in public. Female body as commodity. Rape culture. Unequal educational and work opportunity. Inability to walk down a street unharassed.
And that we make ALL our choices, every day, within this system of patriarchy. And that men’s choices under patriarchy are privileged choices, and women’s are not.
The head scarf debate is a perfect example: damned if you do wear a scarf, because it’s a symbol of repression. Damned if you don’t, because what if you want to, and your country forbids it?
Look again at what I said. Do you not see that all these things disproportionately affect woman?
Is it bad etiquette to discuss patriarchy on a feminist blog?
Again, I apologize for offending you.
The fact of the matter is that Turkey’s secularism is under constant threat, and the head scarf issue is just another step towards dismantling that secularism.
Oh, it is not. Throughout history, very few Turkic peoples have been inclined to religious fundamental extremism. Today, a lot of Turks from the country identify as Muslim and are socially conservative, but they don’t actually observe their religion along the lines of Islamic fundamentalism.
The ruling party in Turkey now identifies with Islam, but it’s also the party that’s been pushing to expand democracy, reform the military-junta-written constitution, improve the economy, and, in general, get the country eligible and accepted for EU membership.
A lot of people in Turkey have been disenfranchised for decades, and the current government has been working to give them a legitimate voice in the public sphere, which, among other things, decreases the risk of terrorism and fundamentalist revolutions. Making it more difficult for certain classes of people to get an education and work in many professional spheres is counterproductive.
sally,
Thanks for the link, its been linked for me many times in the past. Right now it is a guy posting, Dan, other times my wife is posting, Danica. I understand what youre saying and I do not mean to frustrate you but I often enjoy sprinkling a little OT question here or there in a dedicated thread if the person I’m responding to seems particularly interesting. Feminism 101 and some other sites are indeed great, ive done a good bit of reading over the last ten years and I have also taken some womens studies courses though my wife is far more expert/educated so youll probably be able to tell a difference between her posts and mine. Most of my points/posts in this thread were directly on point though or at least somewhat related and I didnt just wander in and post my thoughts, I’ve lurked here for a little while though i spend most of my time at feministing and pandagon I thought I had something to contribute to this thread as my job and my focus is working with issues relating to Iran and I’ve spent quite a lot of time studying Turkey as well as having many turkish friends/associates. If you wish I will refrain from OT posts in the future.
It’s a really tough issue because devout women feel they are being disrespectful of their god if they don’t wear the headscarf. On the other hand, religious fundamentalists might harass the girls who choose not to wear it. Religious fanatics are such a nuisance.
I wonder if they have considered banning the headscarf in public school but allowing it in private school? Many Catholic schools in this country required uniforms which didn’t interfere with public school children wearing regular clothes.
Great post, Jill. I’m a muslim male blogger, and have been blogging about women’s issues especially with respect to the veil/scarf for quite some time, and it is encouraging to see a western liberal take the side of those who choose to veil. I wrote an essay some time ago drawing some parallels between the burka and the bikini which I think gets to the same issue from a different direction.
I found Destructor’s initial comment to be rather offensive, I must admit.
The one little difference between the burka and the bikini is you don’t get killed for not wearing a bikini — all these intellectual culturally relativist arguments and a careful avoidance of the reality of women’s position in Muslim countries and an avoidance of history.
The nature of the society is viewed from a male perspective not from the female and that is because the price of defining their reality is too dangerous for women in patriarchal cultures. The clan nature of social structure and its’ resulting pressure to conform is not understood. Once you can wear a headscarf there is unrelenting pressure to wear the headscarf – then dress modestly, then wear a modified veil and then the burka — and all this enforced by beating within the family, kidnapping in the name of honor, rape in the name of honor, murder for honor — modesty and honor and the same from the legal system if not the law.
Choosing to wear garments that set you aside as something different can make you feel special when there is a real choice for some Muslim women in western secular societies. Choosing not to behave as is demanded by the patriarchs in a Muslim country gets you harassed, beaten, arrested and/or killed. The covering presented as a choice soon becomes a demand from the family and the coercion is approved by the male legal system so that choice is soon even the illusion of choice is discarded.
The protection of the rights of all women is more important than giving in to the demands of some male identified and defined women who speak as they have been taught and told to speak. Let them bring a higher standard of human rights to the middle east starting with Turkey before they gain the right to label women’s hair shameful.
Speaking of history, the president campaigned on a no rollbacks to secularism platform and as usual as soon as the theocrats gain power they expose their policy of lying to those who they consider infidels. No rollbacks was a lie – it is always a lie and you will get rollbacks when religious Muslims are elected in a democracy. All this woman want to wear veils rhetoric is a similar lie which will end in forced slave dress.
It is so interesting to find out that the burka/bikini article which so called feminists fell all over them self defending was written by a man. I was kicked off Alas a Blog for voicing outrage over the lies therein. I was savagely trashed by the women there defending the article. What a joke.
What is really sickening is that the left is not content to have actually sabotaged the liberation work for Muslim women during the war but now collaborates in oppressing them while they sabotage the election of a feminist in the US. And women are buying all this. I say once again – you will live in the culture you advocate for other women.
This is a ridiculous argument. The reason women get killed is not because of bikinis or burka’s- it’s because of “RULE OF LAW”. Any country that allows such treatment of women is because they are poor, uneducated and lack resources for the bare minimum (housing, shelter, food, etc).
This is also ridiculous. Can I then argue that by allowing women to wear bikinis that the end result is 1 in 4 women will be raped? This is your slippery slope argument but applied to the United States. Attack the idea that a family’s “honor” is a burden on a women- yes. Attack the idea that women don’t have legal rights within any particular country? Absolutely. But to take one aspect- the veil- as if it were some giant monolith of an evil that’s to be stopped and demeaned at any cost is simply asinine and quite honestly, downright one-dimmensional.
This betrays your ignorance. The Muslim culture does not label a woman’s hair shameful *by any means*-if anything it’s the opposite. They tout coverage of anything they constitute as beautiful. Hence the different degrees of coverage by various Muslim traditions. Her hair, her legs- for some her eyes, or for others just her chest.
I don’t even know what to say to this… I’m a Muslim woman who wears the fucking scarf and I’ll be damned and mighty upset if anyone or their momma tells me what I can and cannot wear-including you. And I’ll defend the right of my sisters, aunts, cousins, and neighbors to make their own goddammed decision about what she puts or doesn’t put on her head. And if that doesn’t convince you I’m not lying, well then- frankly, I don’t give a flying fuck…
Tinfoil,
No apologies are warranted if there truly is a misunderstanding of viewpoints here. And my apologies if I misconstrued what you wrote. And while I now understand your overall point, it just felt like you were applying different degrees of what constituted as “acceptible” within our Patriarchal confines. It felt like you were advocating something along the lines of “Well, yeah, we both have confines and we both have to live with men’s bullshit, but your bullshit is like way more oppressive than mine.”
It’s comparisons like these that get my goat….
The lack of choice is what is demeaning. If you were forced to bare your breasts against your will, you would most likely find that demeaning. If I were forced to cover my face, I think I would find that extremely oppressive.
There is a substantive difference between wearing clothes to cover your torso, which do often have a purpose in warming and protecting your body, and covering your face, which essentially is an attempt to make you a nonperson, not to be seen. I believe that this form of dress has been specifically designed to supress female identity, in keeping with the dictates of the culture that designed it. Yes, women may choose to cover their faces and, as I indicated, I completely support the idea that people should wear whatever they wish. But Hijabs are demeaning. They are tools. Even if the person behind the veil is happy to be there, that does not alter the purpose they were designed for- to flatten the identity of the person behind them. I respect people’s choices, and do not advocate a ban for that reason, but I can no more get behind the idea of a Hajib/Burqa than I can get behind the idea that women should not be allowed to speak in front of men, or that women should be paid less than men for the same job.
Destructor, you’d be more convincing if you appeared to have any idea about what we’re talking about. We all agree that forcing women to cover is a bad thing. What we’re discussing is a ban on headscarves — a law which bars covered women from entering public buildings.
Also, a hijab doesn’t necessarily (or even usually) cover your face. Not every piece of Islamic dress is a niqab or a burqa. A hijab is not the same thing as a burqa. Seriously, a two-minute Google search will do you a world of good here.
And yet, women are not passive victims either.
Exactly. A hijab is like the last vestige of the habit that nuns wore before they switched completely to “civilian” clothing.
The old Catholic nuns’ habits complied perfectly with most traditions of Islamic dress by the way: the only exposed parts of the body were the face and the hands, and the clothing did not even suggest the contours of the women’s figures. And yet no one thought a nun in her habit was in any way remarkable.
Destructor –
Calling something feminist does not make it so – this blog is interesting but there is no predominately feminist perspective here. This is the perspective of left wing women who can recognize some forms of sexism when it relates to their personal experience. Other than their experience they are influenced by male identified women and other men. The actual experience of women who live under Sharia is not a felt experience for them. They do not consider how they would feel under the pressure of clan patriarchal life. Those women are the “other” to them. But these are intelligent women which means they will change as they experience their own oppression. Then they will remember your words.
There are many other feminist blogs on the web where your perspective will be supported. You do not have to google every form of garbage bag some slave master demands his slaves wear in order to respect the names MEN give the slave costumes. They are all garbage bags to excuse the rape of women who do not obey.
You know oppression when you see it. I know you know what you are talking about and you certainly know what these women are talking about which is excusing the oppression of women in predominately Muslim countries. And they want to label that supporting women’s rights but some of us can still recognize the double speak of the privileged.
Keep writing – keep standing for those women silenced now but who one day will be able to tell what it was like for them. Some have escaped and written books which these women do not read.
The nun’s habit argument shows how little you know about women – nuns rejected their habits and when the church objected, they left the church.
…which is why there are no more nuns who wear habits, right Virginia?
Some nuns rejected their habits and the church. But I’m relatively confident that there are still a whole lot of nuns who wear the habit — are they not women?
And Virginia, you’re getting fucking tiresome. You’re welcome to your opinions, but when you start playing the “you’re-not-a-feminist” game, I start to get pissed, and your ass is about to get booted.
Hijab refers to the institution of covering women, through a variety of means, and both burqas and headscarves are part of that tradition. However I appreciate that is not the direction the conversation has taken and will drop it. The only point I wanted to make that banning headscarves entirely and forcing women to wear them are two sides of the same coin, and I support neither, but recognize that there’s a delicate tension between these two sides that needs to be respected.
There are many other feminist blogs on the web where your perspective will be supported.
I read feministe every day and I think it is superb. Most blogs I read don’t exactly match my perspective, and I am very glad for the fact- it broadens my mind to read other people’s thoughts. I hope I didn’t sound aggressive or disrespectful when trying to convey mine.
The word Hijab does not refer to the institution. Do you mean to say “Purdah”? Or “Tahajub”?
No, I said what I meant, and what the Qu’ran states. Hijab is the institution/tradition. The headscarf is simply one of many ways the rules dictated by Hijab are enforced.
Purdah is the practice of preventing men from seeing women, so is related but not accurate. I’m not sure what Tahajub is, but if you meant to say ‘Tahajjud’, that is a night prayer, so I’m not sure what relevance that has here?
or even Muslim American feminists….
As an educated (informed decision making) and believing covered (shayla usually) woman, I just want to add that two of my closest friends love to wear niqab (face covering) because it provides them with nearly absolute power as to who gets to see their face. They find it rather fun…can you imagine that? Close your eyes and try hard.
As a white American Muslimah revert who keeps hijab, I’ve had the experience of being both a “sexually liberated” Western woman and an “oppressed” Muslim woman. Personally, I prefer oppression. I don’t understand how choosing to keep hijab is anymore coerced than choosing to wear high heels; pretty much all women’s choices, especially concerning what we wear, are patriarchally coerced, and in my experience, regardless of what I wear, I get attention. At least when I’m keeping hijab the attention tends to be more respectful and curious versus harrassing and sexual. Not to mention, as someone who’s spent my life struggling with body image (as many women have), it really changes your perspective on your own body and allows you (at least in my experience) to learn to dress for yourself, instead of for what other people want and expect…particularly because where I live (in the middle of drunk Greek university hell) it’s not particularly common to not want to dress to attract copious amounts of male attention.
Don’t get me wrong; Turkey is a special case, because for them the slippery slope fear is very real. But France? Most of the other countries with hijab bans aren’t even approaching the fear realistically at all. And no, I don’t think keeping hijab is better than dressing any other way; it’s just what is right for me, now, in my life. But my point is that it is really no better or worse than wearing any of the things I wore before I reverted; the decision is just as much a function of oppression, albeit under different systems, and we don’t have any more or less freedom to choose. Not to mention, in my opinion, forcing a woman to take off her hijab is just as wrong as forcing her to put it on, and it’s a little bit ironic that when I was younger a lot of the fuss was about getting girls and women to cover up because we were too sexual and liked to wear short skirts too often…the older I get, now I can’t wear long dresses or skirts or headscarves, because I’m told that I shouldn’t be modest. Also, we don’t attack other religions that preach modesty, like Pentecostal Christianity…I used to work at a restaurant where a Pentecostal woman got special status to wear skirts and other clothing items because they had religious significance. If I had asked to keep hijab at that time (it was before I reverted), it would have been seen as crazy and not acceptable. They’re both religious applications of modesty. Why is one better or more allowed than the other?
Hijab is also an entire system for both men and women, not just a headscarf only worn by women. Hijab bans specifically target women; they don’t ban traditional garments worn by men keeping hijab. One of my professors, Doris Gray, has an excellent book called Muslim Women on the Move, where she traces how hijab bans do the opposite of what they claim to do by excluding believing, covering women from the public sphere. Muslim men who are trying to keep hijab do not face the same difficulties in non-Muslim legal systems, so they do not face crises of faith, identity, and body image every time they step out of their door. I’ve heard the argument that this is Islam’s fault for not requiring men to cover their hair completely as well, but honestly, to me, that’s completely abstract and irrelevant. The millions of women keeping hijab around the world are not just going to all wake up today and decide that it’s better to take it off and the belief they’ve had all their lives is just silly. The fact is that hijab bans are totally unnecessary and they have the concrete, documented effect of keeping women from participating socially, politically, and legally in Western-oriented societies where women are supposed to have freedom of dress and are supposed to be able to participate in these systems.
The Turkish government (and military) is absolutely paranoid about Religious influence – they are extreme secularists, in other words, in the tradition of Kemal Ataturk. It’s not really an issue of “keeping women down” – more of an issue of “keeping religion down”. And while I am a secularist, I do think the Turkish authorities go too far sometimes, particularly in this case. After all, secularism isn’t about repressing religion – only keeping government and religion separate.
The Secularism of Turkey was for a good purpose – overall women in Turkey have better freedoms than they used to, and turkey is far more stable, far more prosperous than it would have been if it hadn’t freed itself from Theocracy.
I admit that the government of Turkey is over-zealous. However, they are afraid of slipping back to the bad old days where the clerics and the religious elite ran everything, and I can tell you, that period of time was a lot worse.
I am a Turkish feminist, studying Political Science for six years now. I have been trained and brought up believing in freedom of thought, speech and act. I don’t wear a headscarf. I am not in favor of the ban, but people need to understand some significant details that change the context in each case.
First of all, the Justice and Development Party who has been in power for the past six years, the Party who some commentors would name as “democratic” did everything in their power to delay the abolishment of the law of freedom of speech and thought in Turkey throughout the years they have been in power. Now the law is under reform, yet the proposal is still very far from securing people who think and express their beliefs in any way. We are talking about a “democratic” Party that regards the ban on headscarf is the ONLY problem with Turkish democracy. Isn’t the right of education of women under attack when the government advocates three children per family? Most of the members of the party married their wives when those women in their (early) teens. It is the men who pick their female party members so carefully so that they don’t pose a threat of actual criticism. Within the very patriarchal nature of the Turkish society, women feel threatened and I believe they have every right to. It is not about the headscarf that perpetuates a threat per se, but it is the fact that along with the discussion on headscarves, what is really being debated is the “right of conservatism”. The discourse of the conservative side is shaped so that what we are facing is some elite seculars who have been tormenting “poor conservatives” for centuries. Those who advocate the right of conservatism do this very pragmatically to overlook all the underlying fact that Turkey HAS already a very conservative society and such stress on the right to be conservative only bolsters the patriarchal taboos Turkish women face, regardless of headscarf or not.
I think the headscarf ban is a very racy issue to publicize, but there are much bigger problems of women in Turkey if you are that much concerned about women’s freedom in Turkey.
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