(no subject)
Oh gods, I'm about to make myself unpopular.
Disclaimers first. I'm a Western woman who asked a very small sample of Muslim women (uh, I think there were about five or six women around when I asked Alyia) about the hijab specifically. All the women concerned were British, with parents or grandparents who moved over from Pakistan. So yes, I'm aware that my second-hand experiences cannot be used to speak for all Muslim women everywhere.
The French have banned the niqab. Now, this differs from the hijab I'm more used to seeing on past friends and co-workers in that it covers the face rather than just framing it. What shocks me is how many people think this ban is a splendid idea.
Despite the initial argument that hiding the face makes people more of a security risk, the law is now being billed as a measure against the opression of Muslim women. Which would be fine, if:
a) All, ooh, call it three quarters of a billion* Muslim women were all identical in terms of culture, personality, piety, and submission.
b) All Muslim women that wear the niqab do so because they're made to by someone else.
c) This wasn't predominantly white men telling women what they can and cannot wear.
Opression: not actually better just because it's being done by European men telling women they know what's best for everyone.
What really, seriously doesn't help is people looking at the amount of women wearing the niqab and hijab, and describes it as "the situation getting worse." Wow. Firstly, there's the frank implication that more Islam=bad, and then there's an uninterest as to whether the upsurge in niqab wearing in Europe is down to resident Muslims adopting the niqab, or whether there's more Muslims coming in to Europe a whole.
Okay, anecdote time. Remember the co-workers I was talking about earlier? I asked them about hijab and niqab when I noticed that more and more women in the callcentre were wearing the hijab in particular. What Alyia told me was that they'd all been for extra classes with a teacher at the local mosque, and it had got some women thinking more about their relationship to Allah and how best to please Him. Interestingly, Alyia and Ruksana discussed it with their family, and their Dad actually asked them not to wear the hijab, because it would make them a target for racists and other wankers. He wasn't happy about it, but both sisters agreed that he respected their decision.
Now I'm aware that on the other side there are plenty of women being opressed by the men in their family. But banning the niqab isn't going to solve this global problem. If a woman isn't permitted to show her face in public, and the only practical way of covering her face is taken off her, then you know what? She won't be going out in public. France has condemned a generation of innocent women, and quite possibly the ones after, to be invisible prisoners in their own homes. Mmm, smell that liberation and empowerment!
However, treating the opression in the same that you'd treat, ooh, smoking in public areas just isn't going to work. Smoking is widely anknowledged to be unhealthy and generally a bad idea, so even those who are too hooked to mind or frankly don't care can see why someone would want to ban it. The niqab, on the other hand, can be seen as a symbol of opression in some eyes, but in others can also been seen a symbol of respectability and/or piety.
I'm starting to suspect that we're looking at two really different ideas of respecting women here. There's those who see women wearing and doing whatever they want in an atmosphere of equality and liberty as respect, and those that see women as worth treasuring (a loaded word, I admit) rather than throwing them out into the world and using some of them as mindless wank-fodder. It's a square that can only be circled in time by the interchange of ideas. All France has managed to do is antagonise some of its own citizens, and potentially even managed to prevent some of those citizens being able to take place in these crucial interchange.
* There's 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. I'm working on the principle that half of them are female. Not very scientific, I admit!
Disclaimers first. I'm a Western woman who asked a very small sample of Muslim women (uh, I think there were about five or six women around when I asked Alyia) about the hijab specifically. All the women concerned were British, with parents or grandparents who moved over from Pakistan. So yes, I'm aware that my second-hand experiences cannot be used to speak for all Muslim women everywhere.
The French have banned the niqab. Now, this differs from the hijab I'm more used to seeing on past friends and co-workers in that it covers the face rather than just framing it. What shocks me is how many people think this ban is a splendid idea.
Despite the initial argument that hiding the face makes people more of a security risk, the law is now being billed as a measure against the opression of Muslim women. Which would be fine, if:
a) All, ooh, call it three quarters of a billion* Muslim women were all identical in terms of culture, personality, piety, and submission.
b) All Muslim women that wear the niqab do so because they're made to by someone else.
c) This wasn't predominantly white men telling women what they can and cannot wear.
Opression: not actually better just because it's being done by European men telling women they know what's best for everyone.
What really, seriously doesn't help is people looking at the amount of women wearing the niqab and hijab, and describes it as "the situation getting worse." Wow. Firstly, there's the frank implication that more Islam=bad, and then there's an uninterest as to whether the upsurge in niqab wearing in Europe is down to resident Muslims adopting the niqab, or whether there's more Muslims coming in to Europe a whole.
Okay, anecdote time. Remember the co-workers I was talking about earlier? I asked them about hijab and niqab when I noticed that more and more women in the callcentre were wearing the hijab in particular. What Alyia told me was that they'd all been for extra classes with a teacher at the local mosque, and it had got some women thinking more about their relationship to Allah and how best to please Him. Interestingly, Alyia and Ruksana discussed it with their family, and their Dad actually asked them not to wear the hijab, because it would make them a target for racists and other wankers. He wasn't happy about it, but both sisters agreed that he respected their decision.
Now I'm aware that on the other side there are plenty of women being opressed by the men in their family. But banning the niqab isn't going to solve this global problem. If a woman isn't permitted to show her face in public, and the only practical way of covering her face is taken off her, then you know what? She won't be going out in public. France has condemned a generation of innocent women, and quite possibly the ones after, to be invisible prisoners in their own homes. Mmm, smell that liberation and empowerment!
However, treating the opression in the same that you'd treat, ooh, smoking in public areas just isn't going to work. Smoking is widely anknowledged to be unhealthy and generally a bad idea, so even those who are too hooked to mind or frankly don't care can see why someone would want to ban it. The niqab, on the other hand, can be seen as a symbol of opression in some eyes, but in others can also been seen a symbol of respectability and/or piety.
I'm starting to suspect that we're looking at two really different ideas of respecting women here. There's those who see women wearing and doing whatever they want in an atmosphere of equality and liberty as respect, and those that see women as worth treasuring (a loaded word, I admit) rather than throwing them out into the world and using some of them as mindless wank-fodder. It's a square that can only be circled in time by the interchange of ideas. All France has managed to do is antagonise some of its own citizens, and potentially even managed to prevent some of those citizens being able to take place in these crucial interchange.
* There's 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. I'm working on the principle that half of them are female. Not very scientific, I admit!