Jezebel 
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New York, 2:29 PM
Wed Nov 11
71 posts in the last 24 hours
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09/28/09
Why do we give a pass to Muslimas?
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ETA/Rework the wording a little.
If you are out and about and see the Duggars, in their dowdy skirts and crowning glory hairstyles, do you judge them as other? I do. Pentecostals of any stripe earn my liberal derision, because I'm a pagan bitch that way.
Hasidic Jews, for some reason, get a pass. The Amish are borderline, but they get a pass. And Muslimas get a pass. Old Catholic women? Check, they get one too.
You have to admit it's somewhat interesting, no?
09/28/09
And I think fundamentalists might be derided against more on Jezebel than other types/sects of religion b/c of their extremism, which affects our daily lives (for example, pro-lifers wanting to get rid of Roe vs. Wade). I think Hasidic Jews and the Amish get a past because they don't do anything that affects the majority in a palpable, vocal way. Same with Muslims wearing veils--that doesn't affect me. And of course, I am speaking from the perspective of an American... this may be different from Jezzies who are more familiar with these lifestyles or who live in other countries...
09/28/09
I truly appreciate your intellectual honesty.
Thank-you for that.
09/28/09
My thought is that as "liberals" we bend over backwards sometimes to prove that we're "better" than the Real Ammurrica who would castigate Muslims in particular because of their 9/11 prejudices.
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09/28/09
This pains me because of how the many Muslim friends I've had over the years have been judged for wearing the veil. Even just seeing how shocked some people are when they realize one hijab-wearing friend of mine listens to metal and wears combat boots under her long skirt fills me with disappointment. It's like they don't realize she is a person simply because of how she displays her faith.
Ok, I'm done.
09/28/09
So if it's good for the (Christmas?) goose, why isn't it good for the gander?
09/28/09
09/28/09
hmmmm
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09/28/09
I think that Mrs. Sobh has to acknowledge that the Hijab is also a symbol. Presented under this angle, I wonder if Mrs Sobh would reiterate her "Big whoop".
Touchy subject though. But interesting nonetheless.
I do agree with her point though, all women are infinitely different and infinitely similar. Big whoops all around.
09/28/09
or the 'Chinoiserie' of the mid-late 19th Century.
09/28/09
First she addressed how women had to be in the back to pray. Coming from a Christian background, I thought "well women should be able to pray wherever they want". She made the joke, "We're here to pray. When we pray we get on our hands and knees and bend over. I honestly don't want some dirty old man staring at my butt."
Then she talked about the hijabs. Many of the mosques in the US are relatively liberal and women are only required to wear them when they are are there. However, women still choose to wear them here to express their cultural identity. I don't think of it any different than my Jewish friends who would wear a yarmulke around on holidays. You can't always say the same is true around the world, but around here 90% of Muslims I've met have had more liberal in the role of women.
09/28/09
Or more than that, the Orthodox Jewish women who are out there being perfectly normal members of the working world while wearing wigs, scarves, hats, or other head coverings.
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09/28/09
I have to look at things in context. Its not my beliefs or values, but it is hers. If she feels empowered to wear it, then so be it. Its only oppression if it is being forced. I went to a women's college and there were a number of Muslim students who chose to wear it and others who didn't. There certainly wasn't anyone at a Methodist women's college forcing them to. Their parents weren't forcing them to. Yet they made the decision to because they wanted to.
And personally, I don't think that there is anything oppressive about modesty if you want to go that route. As long as personal choice is involved and you're not being forced by some external force, then I don't think it counts.
09/28/09
09/28/09
Really? I think I'd get pretty distracted if I was presented with a row of men bending over. I've heard similar justifications for covering only women, and restricting the movement and action of only women, and it has never sat well with me. It makes women responsible for mens behavior, on top of their own, and it erases female sexual desire. In a patriarchal religious culture, men would never stand for impositions similar to those placed upon women.
09/28/09
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09/04/09
It's a complicated issue, for certain, and sometimes I wish I lived in a society as secular as France or Belgium, but I don't think it's helpful for anyone to forbid girls to come to school with the scarfs on.
09/04/09
09/04/09
This actually sounds almost like a movie cliché. The hero always has to be "accidental."
09/04/09
Here's what bothers me about the veil: When I see women wearing the veil, I get the distinct impression from them that they consider me unclean and horrible for not wearing one. As if their facial expressions convey "you are dirty and beneath me. I am a pious woman of G-d and you are an unkempt heathen"
I also get this impression from women in Conservative Christian or Christian Orthodox garb, and from some Orthodox Jewish women in their extremely modest clothing and wigs.
As if my running around with my wild, thick, exposed and untamed hair is a personal affront to them. I dress rather conservatively, but my hair has a life of it's own. Some veiled and/or wigged women just make me feel uncomfortable being myself around them.
Granted, I could be misinterpreting their facial expressions. It could be they are just expecting me to hate them and put on the "bitch" face at me in order to defend themselves.
I could give specific examples, but there's just too many to note.
I live in Seattle, and take public transportation everywhere. Most of the nasty looks I've received in this context are from other bus riders.
09/04/09
I also don't trust any statements that begin, "I'm not a racist, but..."
09/04/09
However, I didn't say "I'm not a racist, but...". I said "I'm not a racist, and I'm not religious, at all."
My statements (the ones you don't trust) come straight from my heart. Whether or not you trust them doesn't invalidate them, something I think you understand when you note that you haven't lived my experience.
I am a human, complete with all the foibles and failings of one, and I'm open to being educated.
I'd really welcome a Muslim woman's - or an Orthodox Jewish woman's - perspective on my experience. Am I (and other unveiled American women) hated and feared by them? Or not? And why? or why not?
09/04/09
In general, I don't assume that the expression that a stranger on the bus is wearing has anything to do with me. I am simply not important enough for strangers to completely focus their thoughts on me and rearrange their faces to convey their judgment. It seems narcissistic to imagine otherwise. They have their own lives to think about.
09/04/09
*Addresses the room*: Um, ladies? Is there a Muslim woman representative around? Can we get an official response please?
09/04/09
Unveiled American women are not hated or feared or thought to be beneath Muslim women wearing the hijab. The only place way that could possibly come into play is in the case of women wearing very revealing clothing, which you say isn't the case with you, where I've heard comments along the lines of "I feel bad for women who have to spend their time trying to get male attention for their bodies rather than themselves." But I've heard that same comment from American women when a woman is dressed provocatively, so it's not a unique feeling of Muslim women towards non-Muslims.
These aren't crazy people. Wearing the hijab puts you in a very visible minority in this country. Women wearing it are too concerned with avoiding stares and attacks from ignorant a-holes to be worried about some random lady's wild hair.
09/04/09
I'll probably look if someone's wearing something wildly inappropriate maybe tsk tsk to myself.
My question is why would u even care what I think of your hair/clothing?
09/04/09
In an attempt to clarify, and it may fall flat:
I don't regularly assign malevolent attitudes to an entire group of people. I stated that I have a problem with the veil. I tried to explain that problem is because some (*some*) veiled women look at me like they hate me. And I wonder why that is. If I assumed "they all" had malevolence toward me, I think I'd be smart enough not to bring that up on Jezebel, and instead would be seeing a therapist.
Wearing a veil or other religious garb is an outward sign of one's beliefs. Saint Peter said women should cover their heads, his implication being that covering is an outward sign of their modesty and piety. Conversely, one would expect that Saint Peter, that old misogynist, would think a woman who doesn't cover is *not* modest and *not* pious, and thus to be reviled.
And thank you for asking for a Muslim opinion, I am interested to hear it.
09/04/09
09/04/09
And my request for the official Muslim opinion was actually sarcasm.
09/04/09
and yes, well, there are probably as many official Muslim positions on this as there are Muslims. At any rate I was happy to get the input that was offered.
09/04/09
09/04/09
You wrote: "Women wearing it are too concerned with avoiding stares..."
This makes me think. I do tend to actually look at people In my line of view when I get on the bus, or a plane, or even an elevator.
So, perhaps my tendency to do this can be seen as confrontive. I think I can learn not to internalize the looks I get in return as coming from a religious attitude toward me.
09/04/09
I've gotten that reaction from Orthodox Jewish girls. And once I was waiting in line a long time behind a group when suddenly several men from their community arrived. The girls said, Let the men in front of us!, and moved to let them into the line ahead of us.
They looked shocked and disdainful when I objected.
09/04/09
I wonder what their children are learning about living in a diverse democracy.
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09/04/09
You may wish to recall that conventions re: eye contact and meaning differ greatly among cultural groups, too. And supplement that with a reading of Sherene Razack's 'Looking White People in the Eye', particularly her comments on the politics of the gaze and interracial power relations.
09/05/09
So when I see a woman in the headscarf, and I know that tradition, I know that I am an infidel to her; and when she treats a woman who is not wearing a head scarf and is an infidel, she must, as you say, pass a judgment. I would not go to my local Catholic hospital for a reproductive issue that involved or could be construed as anti-Catholic policy; I would not go, or let my female child go to a doctor who wears a symbol on the slavery of women by patriarchs, and all the brutality that goes with it--which is the ultimate subject here, I agree. It tells me that woman accepts that world view. It is true of any woman in a religion where they are unclean, servants, property, etc. and where women must conform to male expectations and demands.
It's a complicated issue and I really do support France in its move to keep secular life secular. To me, if your imaginary friend, God or Allah or whatever it is, will hate you or condemn you because you do not wear a scarf or a veil, then you and I have amazingly different world views. I won't trust you as a doctor, lawyer, or anything else because your religious view obviously comes first, beyond the larger society. To me it's no different, as one of my black friends said, than her walking down the street wearing a slave chain around her neck. The symbol represents a basic denial of human rights.
09/05/09
If you are in a country where eye contact is the norm, then you should not give offense to people by refusing to look at them, the same way, if you are in a country where the norm is minimal eye contact, that is what you do. You make it sound as though people just can't learn a new behavior, can't adapt to their surroundings or circumstances.
09/05/09
Ahem *pushes glasses further up her nose* you wanted an official response? Here's mine.
I absolutely, positively can not care any less about what you look like, what your hair looks like and how you dress. If you are however wearing something highly unusual --like a woman in a clown costume I saw taking the bus -- I will look because of my natural curiosity.
I don't want to pull the "my best friend is Black line" but my best friend does not wear the hijab and we have been BFF since childhood.
I am Turkish. I grew up in America. I went to a Catholic High School. Graduated from University of Wisconsin. And Now I live in Australia and I work in a public school library. I knit, I have a cat and I can touch my tongue to my nose. And I wear a hijab. It upsets me when someone looks at me and passes judgement on how I look when I know I am so much more than how I look walking down the street.
09/05/09
09/05/09
I do think it's generally a bad idea to take personally the interactions we have with strangers, even when they SEEM to be directed at you.
Maybe the veiled lady on the bus hates YOU and your hair, and feels superior. Maybe she's got unruly hair beneath that veil and is feeling disgusted because she remembers her mother giving her a hard time about her hair. Maybe she's having a lousy day. Maybe she thinks your shirt is hideous.
Whatevs. Either way, it's NOT about YOU.
09/04/09
Western society seems to accept most of these customs (for others if not for ourselves) - but we get freaked out about hijab. What's up with that?
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09/04/09
[www.legalaffairs.org]
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09/04/09
Although I'm not crazy about imposed modesty restrictions to begin, with, the hijab goes beyond modesty and enters the area of obliterating the identity.
09/05/09
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09/04/09
I wonder if westerners focus so much on the veil because it's a visual difference that they can pinpoint, as a way to distance themselves from the things we have in common with the muslim world -- a sort of "your misogyny is worse than my misogyny" kind of thing. Women in the US may be abused, assaulted, raped, and discriminated against, but at least we don't make them wear scarves on their heads!
09/04/09
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09/04/09
When I was in grad school at a certain east coast university, there were a lot of muslim women students who wore hijab. And very often that hijab was a Calvin Klein or Kate Spade or Hermes scarf. Fashionable, yes, but I always wondered if that was somehow missing the point of modesty - or perhaps I'm off base and it's only supposed to be about physical modesty, not material.
09/04/09
On the other hand, some women do see the veil as a political statement as as a matter of identity, but not necessarily something that should make them as plain and dowdy as possible. Other women might veil because their family/society forces them to, so they wear bright veils to rebel. Obvs, since you were in the US, it was likely not being forced so much as wanting to be identified as a Muslim.
I actually knew a girl in college who wore the veil specifically for this reason. What was really odd is that she would occasionally go with her neck/decolletage exposed, but keep her hair covered. She explained that she wanted people to know she was Muslim, and that was that.
09/04/09
09/04/09
So, the female lead (the lady with the short haircut) is played by mona zaki.
Voice over: Hawaa (arabic name for eve). She is compassion, tenderness and (?? couldnt make this part out)
Mona zaki: I sometimes ask myself what we do with marriage
Man with cigar voice over: Help me please
Woman voice over : In order for a woman to stop being a virgin, a man must be present in her life.
Man : Do you know what a man looks like if his wife cheats on him?
2nd man yelling: I've never seen anything like this. This woman is insane.
Mona zaki voice over: I do everything I can so I don't upset you or your friends.
Woman voice over : I want someone to answer the written question.
Guy with the slipper: This country doesn't run this way.
Screaming woman: (???)
random clips, then
Mona zaki: under religious law, you may keep the baby, and the father is obligated to recognize it.
Woman talking to man: what exactly do you want?
and then more random clips.
09/04/09