I have just finished reading an article by Jasmin Alibhai Brown in which she says that:
"Of course, many veiled Muslim women argue that, far from being forced to wear burkas by ruthless husbands, they do so out of choice. And I have to take them at their word. But it is also very apparent that many women are forced behind the veil.
A number of them have turned up at my door seeking refuge from their fathers, mothers, brothers and in-laws - men brain-washed by religious leaders who use physical and mental abuse to compel the girls to cover up. It started with the headscarf, then went to the full cloak and now it's the total veil.
A good number of these women are warned of the wrath of Allah unless they succumb to life behind the veil; they are told by their fathers they are whores; they are told they will have no friends in the community - and worse still - end up spinsters.
And so these women do wear burkas against their will. I see them in restaurants and parks, unable to eat properly or feel the sun and breeze on their skin."
Jasmin Alibhai Brown has given an eloquent account of her own experience. This personal account does not explore how Islamic Fundamentalism is a reaction to Western feminism or how dress codes symbolise modern jihadist movements emanating from Saudi Arabia. Is Alibhai Brown supported in her conclusion that women "wear burkhas against their will" and, if so, should the state intervene?
The Burka is compulsory in some middle eastern countries and women can be arrested for being seen to flout the dress code (See Amnesty International). The Burka is not specified in the Koran and the widespread insistence on its adoption amongst male moslems is concurrent with the rise of Saudi Arabian Salafism (paid for by western oil dollars).
When I first began this article I hoped to get some clear guidance from sociological surveys about the proportions of Islamic women who are forced to wear the burka. There is a tremendous paucity of such surveys, probably because they are confounded at the outset because if there are women who are forced to wear the burka they are unlikely to freely admit to this. Alibhai Brown says that she is approached by women who have been forced to wear burka and there is little reason to doubt this. Certainly in the countries of origin of many British muslims women are institutionally forced to wear the burka (See Forced to wear burka teacher quits and Sikh women in Pakistan forced to wear burqa’s). It is often the women in a community who force other women to wear the burka. As an example in Islamic answers dot com: If a woman does not wear a burqa, is she bad? a correspondent recounts that:
"When I was a teenager, they suddenly started forcing me to wear the burqa. They went to everyone's house and said that I haven't started wearing it so I'm bad. I did not want to be forced into anything, I wished to accept it with my heart."
Another correspondent, in My mother in law wants me to wear abaya at home says:
"Thank you all for helping me with my previous posts and I appreciate your understanding ! I wanted just to ask: is it needed to wear abaya in front of my in laws? I really feel very bad because my mother in law ask me for this, so basically I want to feel free at home and her jealousy is killing me ! "
Indeed the Islamic websites provide a picture of very compliant young women being dragooned into wearing what their families or female peers insist upon.
A review of wearing Islamic dress in the Australian Healthcare sector "Attitudes towards the Hijab: with specific reference to healthcare personnel and students" (by an Islamic author) has this telling couple of reasons for wearing islamic dress out of six reasons advanced:
"2. Parental expectations and religious obligation is the most common reason among women who come from religious migrant families
3. Societal pressures – many women stay in largely Muslim areas/suburbs and it may have a direct impact on their decision to cover or not, especially since there is a misconception that women who veil are more religious than those who do not"
The burka is no joke. It is effectively a mobile tent that covers the whole body and prevents normal interpersonal relations. If some women are being bullied or forced into wearing it and other, more extremist women are demanding the right to wear it then who is right?
Bullying and forcing a significant number of women to wear the burka is obviously wrong. Equally forbidding women from wearing burka seems to trespass on Western ideas of tolerance. So what are the limits of tolerance?
Approving the wearing of the burka is a bit like approving masochism - if a woman is found with bruises all over her body but says this is fine because she is a masochist is it then acceptable to ignore another woman who has bruises all over her body because her husband beat her up? The second woman will probably tell you that she "fell downstairs" so should the assumption be that a woman who presents with all the signs of assault and battery should be treated as if she has been battered until it can definitely be shown that she permitted this assault voluntarily? There is another parallel in prostitution, a large minority of prostitutes are sex-slaves but a sizeable number are keen to earn money from prostitution of their own free will. Are we condoning sex slavery if we condone prostitution?
If the burka is an unwelcome imprisonment forced upon 30% of muslim women but welcomed by 30% how do we deal with this?
The willing wearing of the burka is more difficult to separate from the forced wearing of the burka than, say, separating willing prostitution from sex-slavery or masochism from battery. Given this problem the French are probably right to have banned it. The burka is not necessary dress for an Islamic woman and by approving it we are also approving bullying and coercion. If women who wear the burka were not self-righteous they would understand that relinquishing the burka is a small price to pay to save some of their sisters from suffering. How badly are these women suffering? About 50% of moslem men believe that it is right to beat their wives and if a man finds that his wife does not accept holy writ such as:
"[2.223] Your wives are a tilth for you, so go into your tilth when you like, and do good beforehand for yourselves, and be careful (of your duty) to Allah, and know that you will meet Him, and give good news to the believers."
He might feel wholly justified in beating her according to the Koran:
"[4.34] Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great."
Having scourged her, giving her black eyes and a split lip, he can then demand that she cover up and go about her business. Now you would not expect for one moment that those strident ladies who demand the burka are receiving this treatment, most Moslems are civilised (half believe it is wrong to beat women despite verse 4.34), but if a woman is forced against her will to wear burka for reasons of religion we can expect that that is not all that she is forced to do in the name of religion.
Those who frame the wearing of the burka as a feminist issue of the "right to choose" a mode of dress are in grave danger of colluding in the bullying of those who have no "right to choose" and are compelled to live in stifling darkness and worse. Perhaps the greatest irony in the debate over the burka is that the rise in Islamic fundamentalism is a reaction to the rise of feminism in the West yet it is feminists who are the most vocal non-Islamic supporters of the burka. There was little appetite for Islamic extremism in the 1950s when women in the West were kept to the kitchen and family and forced to wear modest clothing and divorce was relatively rare. It is the reaction to the growth and spread of Western feminist culture over the past 40 years that has changed Islamic countries from places where even head-scarves were becoming rare to places where women are entombed in fabric. Extreme Islam is a reaction to feminism and those who call themselves feminists who ignore this are not feminists at all.
See
Are women the cause of conflict with Islam?
The roots of islamic terrorism: the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia
The Koran in the West including the verses in the Koran that deal with clothing.
Multiculturalism
The future of Afghanistan
The Arab-Israeli conflict
Alibhai Brown, J. (2010) The burka empowering women? You must be mad, minister. Daily Mail 21/7/2010
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1296132/The-burka-empowering-women-You-mad-minister.html#ixzz1JleRseDs
SYED, J. A Historical Perspective of the Islamic Concept of Modesty and
Its Implications for Pakistani Women at Work http://www.historians.ie/women/syed.PDF
See also:
Attitudes of Pakistani men to domestic violence
How my eyes were opened to the barbarity of Islam
P Chesler - Times of London, 2007
"Of course, many veiled Muslim women argue that, far from being forced to wear burkas by ruthless husbands, they do so out of choice. And I have to take them at their word. But it is also very apparent that many women are forced behind the veil.
A number of them have turned up at my door seeking refuge from their fathers, mothers, brothers and in-laws - men brain-washed by religious leaders who use physical and mental abuse to compel the girls to cover up. It started with the headscarf, then went to the full cloak and now it's the total veil.
A good number of these women are warned of the wrath of Allah unless they succumb to life behind the veil; they are told by their fathers they are whores; they are told they will have no friends in the community - and worse still - end up spinsters.
And so these women do wear burkas against their will. I see them in restaurants and parks, unable to eat properly or feel the sun and breeze on their skin."
Jasmin Alibhai Brown has given an eloquent account of her own experience. This personal account does not explore how Islamic Fundamentalism is a reaction to Western feminism or how dress codes symbolise modern jihadist movements emanating from Saudi Arabia. Is Alibhai Brown supported in her conclusion that women "wear burkhas against their will" and, if so, should the state intervene?
The Burka is compulsory in some middle eastern countries and women can be arrested for being seen to flout the dress code (See Amnesty International). The Burka is not specified in the Koran and the widespread insistence on its adoption amongst male moslems is concurrent with the rise of Saudi Arabian Salafism (paid for by western oil dollars).
When I first began this article I hoped to get some clear guidance from sociological surveys about the proportions of Islamic women who are forced to wear the burka. There is a tremendous paucity of such surveys, probably because they are confounded at the outset because if there are women who are forced to wear the burka they are unlikely to freely admit to this. Alibhai Brown says that she is approached by women who have been forced to wear burka and there is little reason to doubt this. Certainly in the countries of origin of many British muslims women are institutionally forced to wear the burka (See Forced to wear burka teacher quits and Sikh women in Pakistan forced to wear burqa’s). It is often the women in a community who force other women to wear the burka. As an example in Islamic answers dot com: If a woman does not wear a burqa, is she bad? a correspondent recounts that:
"When I was a teenager, they suddenly started forcing me to wear the burqa. They went to everyone's house and said that I haven't started wearing it so I'm bad. I did not want to be forced into anything, I wished to accept it with my heart."
Another correspondent, in My mother in law wants me to wear abaya at home says:
"Thank you all for helping me with my previous posts and I appreciate your understanding ! I wanted just to ask: is it needed to wear abaya in front of my in laws? I really feel very bad because my mother in law ask me for this, so basically I want to feel free at home and her jealousy is killing me ! "
Indeed the Islamic websites provide a picture of very compliant young women being dragooned into wearing what their families or female peers insist upon.
A review of wearing Islamic dress in the Australian Healthcare sector "Attitudes towards the Hijab: with specific reference to healthcare personnel and students" (by an Islamic author) has this telling couple of reasons for wearing islamic dress out of six reasons advanced:
"2. Parental expectations and religious obligation is the most common reason among women who come from religious migrant families
3. Societal pressures – many women stay in largely Muslim areas/suburbs and it may have a direct impact on their decision to cover or not, especially since there is a misconception that women who veil are more religious than those who do not"
The burka is no joke. It is effectively a mobile tent that covers the whole body and prevents normal interpersonal relations. If some women are being bullied or forced into wearing it and other, more extremist women are demanding the right to wear it then who is right?
Bullying and forcing a significant number of women to wear the burka is obviously wrong. Equally forbidding women from wearing burka seems to trespass on Western ideas of tolerance. So what are the limits of tolerance?
Approving the wearing of the burka is a bit like approving masochism - if a woman is found with bruises all over her body but says this is fine because she is a masochist is it then acceptable to ignore another woman who has bruises all over her body because her husband beat her up? The second woman will probably tell you that she "fell downstairs" so should the assumption be that a woman who presents with all the signs of assault and battery should be treated as if she has been battered until it can definitely be shown that she permitted this assault voluntarily? There is another parallel in prostitution, a large minority of prostitutes are sex-slaves but a sizeable number are keen to earn money from prostitution of their own free will. Are we condoning sex slavery if we condone prostitution?
If the burka is an unwelcome imprisonment forced upon 30% of muslim women but welcomed by 30% how do we deal with this?
The willing wearing of the burka is more difficult to separate from the forced wearing of the burka than, say, separating willing prostitution from sex-slavery or masochism from battery. Given this problem the French are probably right to have banned it. The burka is not necessary dress for an Islamic woman and by approving it we are also approving bullying and coercion. If women who wear the burka were not self-righteous they would understand that relinquishing the burka is a small price to pay to save some of their sisters from suffering. How badly are these women suffering? About 50% of moslem men believe that it is right to beat their wives and if a man finds that his wife does not accept holy writ such as:
"[2.223] Your wives are a tilth for you, so go into your tilth when you like, and do good beforehand for yourselves, and be careful (of your duty) to Allah, and know that you will meet Him, and give good news to the believers."
He might feel wholly justified in beating her according to the Koran:
"[4.34] Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great."
Having scourged her, giving her black eyes and a split lip, he can then demand that she cover up and go about her business. Now you would not expect for one moment that those strident ladies who demand the burka are receiving this treatment, most Moslems are civilised (half believe it is wrong to beat women despite verse 4.34), but if a woman is forced against her will to wear burka for reasons of religion we can expect that that is not all that she is forced to do in the name of religion.
Those who frame the wearing of the burka as a feminist issue of the "right to choose" a mode of dress are in grave danger of colluding in the bullying of those who have no "right to choose" and are compelled to live in stifling darkness and worse. Perhaps the greatest irony in the debate over the burka is that the rise in Islamic fundamentalism is a reaction to the rise of feminism in the West yet it is feminists who are the most vocal non-Islamic supporters of the burka. There was little appetite for Islamic extremism in the 1950s when women in the West were kept to the kitchen and family and forced to wear modest clothing and divorce was relatively rare. It is the reaction to the growth and spread of Western feminist culture over the past 40 years that has changed Islamic countries from places where even head-scarves were becoming rare to places where women are entombed in fabric. Extreme Islam is a reaction to feminism and those who call themselves feminists who ignore this are not feminists at all.
See
Are women the cause of conflict with Islam?
The roots of islamic terrorism: the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia
The Koran in the West including the verses in the Koran that deal with clothing.
Multiculturalism
The future of Afghanistan
The Arab-Israeli conflict
Alibhai Brown, J. (2010) The burka empowering women? You must be mad, minister. Daily Mail 21/7/2010
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1296132/The-burka-empowering-women-You-mad-minister.html#ixzz1JleRseDs
SYED, J. A Historical Perspective of the Islamic Concept of Modesty and
Its Implications for Pakistani Women at Work http://www.historians.ie/women/syed.PDF
See also:
Attitudes of Pakistani men to domestic violence
How my eyes were opened to the barbarity of Islam
P Chesler - Times of London, 2007
4 comments:
hi,
i totally agree with you. I am doing a project on this topic, and had been trying to come to an ethical conclusion. I believe in individual liberty, but the women wearing veils,they should understand that they are dragging a lot of their sisters into misery, by their actions. I wish they understood, that this whole movement is not against, its against the people who cripple their womens' lives in the name of God. If I have to choose between's the veiled woman's "liberty" and that of the forced woman's, I am certainly choosing the latter.
I am an Indian, we are used to seeing burqa-clad women.But I can totally understand the french citizens' discomfort. I applaude the french government for protecting their women-friendly culture, taking a step against the extremists bullies, and helping feminists in their battle. Bravo les francais! Vas-y :)
Hi, I read your article and I was just wondering about the Quran, you were stating that it's not specified in the Quran for the women to wear the Burqa, are you meaning to say that it doesn't state anything saying that Muslim women should/have to wear the Burqa in the Quran? If so, then do you know why their men abuse Muslim women's rights by forcing them to wear burqa, what do they abide by?
Thanks
A curios Person =]
The Koran says that: [24.31] And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments....
The Koran allows "looks" to be visible but "cast down": public flirting is banned but the burka is not required. In the context of first millenium Arab dress the Koran is quite liberal.
Hi
I've also written about this recently on my blog, as I'm living in France and finding it very interesting: http://shannon-laviefrancaise.blogspot.com/2011/11/burqas-and-mohammed-cartoons.html
My questions were quite similar to yours but I've come to the conclusion that an outright ban does not address the issues of female oppression and simply restricts the liberty of those who do choose to wear it. Thanks for your post though, very interesting.
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