I’m working on some historical research on the side, and I’ve been reading a great deal about the history of the veiling of women. Modern veiling’s roots seem to be in the early Assyrian Empire, when what had apparently been a social custom only was codified into law. A veil–head-veil only–marked a married freewoman. Unmarried girls, slaves, and temple prostitutes were not allowed to veil. So it was a mark of being a female householder, rather than any other distinction. At this time, women were allowed to hold property, to sue for divorce, were given divorce settlements, could own businesses, could engage in commerce, and could fully represent themselves or their husbands in a legal suit. (Most often, those representing their husbands were merchants’ wives who were often alone for many months at a time or had sick husbands.) The income of their household, distinct from their husband’s trade or farming, was considered to be their own, and while money was spent (in good relationships) as the family as a whole agreed, we have letters from women to their merchant husbands saying things like, “I really need a new cooking pot, so please send me my money from the textiles I sent you as soon as possible.” This is distinct from letters merely asking for more money to run a household that has faced unexpected expenses or in the face of an unexpectedly long absence. This is not an equal society, but it is a society with many rights for women.
Headcoverings have been more common for both men and women throughout history in areas of civilization than not. In many climates, they keep the sun away, preventing overheating, burns, aging, and, fundamentally, “looking low class.” Their role as a mark of status or group belonging has been very important in most cultures, from crowns of various types to professional markers (doctors, philosophers, military officers, bureaucrats, and many other different groups have had their identifying status-markers–and the veil in Assyrian society should best be seen the same way, as even a 30-year-old unmarried freewoman wouldn’t wear one) to simple class markers (the middle class Victorian woman spent an enormous amount of money on hats and gloves–as did her husband!). The veil of the nun, for instance, is an ossified class-marker from the fassions of the 1200s. It had been common since the 1000s for women to combine a veil–which covered the top of the head but not the hair, and was usually a marker of marriage–with various headbans, preferably of the most expensive materials possible. Note that it would not have been particularly immodest for an upperclass married woman to go without such a veil–merely bizarre, like trying to go shopping in bare feet today. It gradually became more and more elaborate, often turing into an incredibly complex coiffure that combined hair, an elaborately shaped hat, and various veils into an impossible-to-miss fashion statement. Nuns took the veil from some of the simplest designs of this time, and since nuns traditionally cut their hair very short as a sign of self-mortification–echoed by the tonsure of many orders of monks–they kept the veil, though usually simplifying it over time, down into the present day, even after hair-cutting lost its meaning. The strange headdress of The Flying Nun is pure silliness, but is indicates the kind of bizarre-to-later-people results this ossification of style can have.
Many try to draw a parallel between the hajib and the pre-Vatican II nun’s habit. This badly distorts their true role in modern and late pre-modern society, which should, instead, be compared to pre-1960s nurses’ uniforms and military uniforms, both of which had/have associated hats as a part of the overall presentation. When modesty or self-mortification was cited as a reason for the plainness of nun’s habits in historical documents of the Middle Ages, it is always done so in a unisex manner that is interchangeable with the language used to speak of the self-mortification and rejection of vanity of monks used during the same time period. That is, the issue at hand is not the wiles of feminity or the possible temptation that female flesh might present but an entirely unisex rejection of all fleshly things, symbolized by plain clothes and the cutting of hair for both sexes. The veil itself serves the purpose, after veils went out of style, of covering shorn (ie culturally bizarre) hair. The difference could not be greater.
Bring this down to the present day. I’ve been watching a pro-veiling documentary directed by an Islamic woman, as well as listening to sermons by Islamic clerics and reading other declarations by Islamic woemn who veil. Again and again, women give the same reason why they like the veil:
-It makes them feel safer.
-It protects them.
-They can go about more freely.
-Men give them more respect.
-Men do not harass them on the street.
-It shows religious devotion.
Notice how far down on the list “religious devotion” is. This is not an accident. It was rarely mentioned by the women interviewed, except in an abstract, Muhammed’s-first-wife-veiled sort of way.
The overwhelming message is that the major reason for wearing the veil is that it’s the only way to protect yourself from being insulted, assualted, and even possibly raped, because otherwise, you are giving men an uncontrollable temptation. Women who don’t veil are seen is, at best, dangerously ignorant of the ways of men.
My question is:
What kind of sick, disgusting, repulsive, messed-up society demands that women conceal themselves behind layers and layers of cloth in order not to be assualted by men? What kind of perverted environment must a woman use a veil in order to feel SAFE from brutalization by strangers? A woman who walked NAKED down the average American street would certainly cause a stir–and would quickly be arrested, just as a naked man would be, and most likely swiftly psychiatrically evaluated–but she would not be in fear of her life nor in fear of being raped. The idea that woman is inherently an invitation to violence and rape is revolting, and a lessening of the danger of that violence is NOT an indication of how great veiling is but how horrible the society is that puts that perverted–again I used the word–burden on women.
Is the lack of getting harrassed in the street an HONOR? A sign of RESPECT? Complete and utter bullshit. The fact that a woman is treated better (read: less like shit) when she wears the veil than when she doesn’t does not make it an honor. All it means is that men’s behavior is completely and utterly inappropriate when she does not.
“Respect” iself is a very dangerous word itself. In many of these societies that speak about “respecting” women, the result of that respect is unable to be distinguished from, say, “absolute subjugation.” Remember that respect has nothing in the world to do with justice or equality and everything to do with honor–everything that such a thing means.
Let’s take a rural town that’s enough of a backwater to be largely unaffected by various political upheavals. It might be in Albania, or it might be in Iran or Afghanistan, but wherever it is, all the men haven’t been killed in vendettas, the shah’s men never pulled off headscarves, and the Taliban never had much of an effect here.
In this town, a respectable woman like does not go out unprotected by a man because she is too respected since this would harm her honor. What this means is that a woman not only wears a hijab, but it is understood that wherever she is, the male head of her household knows her location and approves of it, implicitly extending the protection of honorableness over her.
In fact, Gulnar leaves the house as little as possible. She is so respected that her husband even does the shopping for her whenever possible, so she doesn’t have to face the possibly sullying influence of the bazaar too often. She quietly pities those widows of the town who have no grown sons, brothers, or other family under whose protection she can live. These women can have no honor, since they have no man to keep it, so they have no respect. A widow living alone invites scorn and gossip, as well she should, since she has no honor, and even assualt by men.
Gulnar’s own best friend Afifa only had two daughters, and when her husband died, she had to marry those daughter off in a hurry even though they were just fourteen because otherwise people would start to talk. A young girl without a brother or father cannot maintain her honor! It is simply impossible. Gulnar advised Afifa at the funeral that she should get her daughters husbands as soon as possible, and Afifa agreed that it was her overwhelming concern, even if the marriages wouldn’t be as good as she had hoped. Honor is most important, of course.
Gulnar’s sons show her many signs of deep honor, as does her husband, speaking to her in tones reserved for respected women. They don’t speak to her like a man, of course–such a thing would be unheard of! Instead, they revere her in her place, which she takes great pride in.
Gulnar’s husband has a car, but Gulnar has never driven it–she can’t imagine doing so. Her honor us connected to her association with her husband, brothers-in-law, and sons, and so driving around by herself would bring a level of disassociation between herself and the men that threatens her honor. Some women in the town do, of course, but Gulnar can’t help but think that their husbands don’t really care for their honor that much to let their wives drive around.
Gulnar has never been examined by a male doctor because such a thing would violate her modesty and would destroy her honor. Before a female doctor came to town, she would be treated by extending her arm, only, and taking about her symptoms. For childbirth, there were female midwives, of course, but she’s had her first physical since a female doctor set up a practice. Everyone agrees she’s not as good as the men in town, but what can one do?
Gulnar went to six years of school, off and on, which is more than most people. She actually got to attend school longer than most of her brothers, since they were needed in her father’s shop and it would be dishonorable for her to work there. One of her brothers, though, was allowed to not only finish school but was sent to the university in the city, which is twenty miles away. Gulnar has never had a reason to go there, and she never will. It is far better to stay close to home. Gulnar went to school until she was married at the age of 16. She went to exclusively female classes taught by exclusively female teachers. She had once considered becoming a teacher herself, but her hisband didn’t want her to, and she now considers his choice, as usual, to be wise. She had been shortsighted, as women often are. It was far more honorable and respectable to keep to the home as much as possible and to visit friends–with her husband’s permission–almost in secret in order to preserve the highest level of honor for herself. A woman’s glory and honor are in her family and children.
Once, Gulnar’s second daughter Amira was speaking to a boy from a neighboring family, and he suddenly grabbed her and kissed her as Amira hit him and pushed him off. Gulnar saw it from the window. Gulnar flew downstairs, grabbed her daughter, and dragged her inside. Amira cried and sobbed, saying that all she was talking about was the new baby in Hariz’s house. Gulnar had heard the end of the conversation and knew it was true, but she beat Amira until her arms were sore because Amira has no business talking to any boy and had brought it upon herself, nearly disgracing the family. After than, Amira was never allowed outside, not even to go to school, without the company of her mother, her brother, or one of her sisters, in oder to keep disgrace from coming upon the family. Amira, who was just 11, had been wearing loose Western-style dresses, but her mother now changed them to longer, more modest robes that ended an inch from the ground instead of a four inches above her ankles and that went down to her wrists. Gulnar is already making plans for her wedding–it will be good to get her married as soon as possible, not like her sister Faiqa wha was married as seventeen, in order to get her under her husband’s protection and out of the danger inherent in a being young, unmarried woman, even in her father’s house.
Gulnar believes that Western women are at least as insane as they are immodest. They cannot have respect without honor, and they disregard everything to do with honor in their daily conduct. How can a woman have repect if a man talks to her just like he would to another man? How can a woman have honor if she goes about showing her hair, her arms, and even parts of her legs, tempting men wherever she goes? She is just asking to be scorned and raped. And how can she be a respectable woman when she goes wherever she wants, when she often lives in a house without a father or brother to guard her honor?
Different areas vary to the extent that this kind of mentality is embrace, but this is a kind of crossectional representation of fairly typical attitudes and lifestyles. I’ve removed the various extremist political elements that are often an issue. In some areas, women who do not wear a headcovering of at least the proper level of modesty can even be assualted in the streets, to the cheers of onlookers. In others, women can go without any headcovering without fear of actual assualt. In some areas (and most particularly, social classes), women are more common in professional areas. In others still, women are essentially denied all education and healthcare. In some, women fairly frequently drive–and again, in others, no woman is allowed to drive under any circumstances.
But THIS is what the “great respect for women” in mainstream Islamic culture means. This is also why culturally Islamic men AND women who believe in headcovering and the associated honor-culture can very seriously say that women in the West are not respected and that veiling cultures give women dignity. When you believe that a woman without a headscarf and the protection and control of her male relations is without any sort of possible respect, these declarations make sense. But they betray a fundamentally twisted view of what honor is to a woman.
If you think I’m kidding… Islamic clerics WORLDWIDE announce, over and over, that women in the West get raped and women in Islamic countries don’t (HA!) because Western women are stupid and tempt men with their sexuality by not veiling and by not staying under the protection of men. You will hear women echo this again and again–women get raped because they tempt men. Women get raped because they do not behave modestly. Women get raped because they are not protected by men. The coverage of rape by the Western media proves that women get raped in the West all the time–of course, no sane woman would ever report a rape in many Islamic countries because being raped destroys her honor, her family’s honor, and the honor of all her female relatives and can only be brought back by her death. But never mind that. The West reports rape not because they see it as a horrendous crime against women but because women are raped all the time in the West because they are left vulnerable.
Men are just this way. That’s the way they’re made. They can’t help it. A glimspe of a feminine elbow sends them into an uncontrollable lustful frenzy, and if a woman gets raped, well, what can you expect? If she wasn’t a slut, she was at least inviting that behavior though recklessness.
And if the woman veils and still gets raped? Well, she was still asking for it, somehow. She was making eyes at the neighbor. Or something. And she has stained the honor of the family through her behavior and should die. She is most frequently murdered by her father or her own brothers–if the woman is married, by her husband, brothers-in-law, or sons. And the murderers and scarcely ever charged–if they are, that are rarely convicted, and if convictly only get a slap on the wrist.
That’s right. If you are raped, your family murders you because of your dishonor.
If you refuse to marry the man your family has chosen for you, you will be murdered for dishonoring them.
If you run away from an abuse husband, your family will murder you.
It goes to say that if you seem too forward with other men or dress immodestly, nevermind actually carry on an affiar, you are likely to be murdered by your family.
This is the honor and respect of the culture of the hijab and the burqa.
This goes to the extent that a woman who does not go out scarfed to the appropriate extent in a society in which the entire philosophy of veiling is embraced, she could be physically assualted or even killed in the streets. And the murderers will be held up as great men protecting the honor of the community.
In the United States, a mantra is that “rape isn’t about sex; it’s about power.” This is partly true and partly a lie. Sometimes, rape IS simply about power. This is most often true in the case of the serial rapist, who will likely escalate to serial murder if not caught and stopped. Sometimes, it is about humiliation of someone or some group of people, which is caught up in the power issue. But very often, it is about a sense of entitlement for having an outlet for one’s basic lust–if the outlet is not offered, it is simply taken as a right. This is the attitude that is as work in most acquainance rapes, and this is the attitude that is not only condoned but actively encouraged by the veiling/honor society of the Middle East. You’re a man. You have lusts. You see a woman. If she incites those lusts, then it is you RIGHT to slake those lusts upon her body because she had incited them in you. This attitude has become INSTITUITIONALIZED in Islamic headcovering cultures. This is a rhetoric that you will hear in no other developed nation in the world, and in few others.
This conception of male sexuality, it should be noted, is not condoned by the Koran, which permits men to have sex only with their wives and slaves acquired as war prisoners (by a close reading of the law, any non-Muslim slavewoman). However, in practice, the double standard in this area (as well as the double standards that are set out explicitly by the Koran–for example, it takes two women’s testimony in court to equal that of one man, so if a man is accused of murder on the eyewitness testimony of a woman and he says he didn’t do it, if there is a lack of other evidence, he MUST be released) cannot be more clear. Muslim men are not supposed to have sex with women other than their wives or slaves (and there are few of the latter today), but if a man rapes his neighbor’s daughter in Iraq, chances are nothing will be demanded by him or done by him by the neighbor, who will instead murder the girl who was raped. If a woman married a man against her family’s wishes, nothing will happen to the man, but the woman could likely be hunted down and murdered by her brothers. I am in no way claiming that all of the sexual-honor aspects fo dominantly Islamic societies is an inseperable part of Islam itself–merely that it is an evil part of those societies, which look to Islam for justification as a part of their social construct.
The veiling and men-as-uncontrollable-beast aspect is only a part of philosophy that goes with the culture of Eastern veiling. Another major component, closely connected with the actual wearing of the scarf, is the idea that a woman must be under the protection of a man, just as she is under the protection of the scarf, as already mentioned in Gulnar’s life above. A woman without the protection of a man is without honor. Ideally, she should remain in her house. When she goes out, she it is best to go with a male relative, but when that is not possible, it should be known that a male relative knows where she is and what she is doing, thereby providing an umbrella of protection despite his physical absence. Without this protection, even a veil is useless to maintain honor. A woman can have no honor without a man.
The other message that you hear over and over again is that women are vain. They are weak. They are foolish. Therefore, veiling curbs their natural foolishness and allows them to properly devote themselves to their families and their husbands.
Is misogyny inextricably linked to the wearing of headcoverings? Absolutely not. They’ve been worn in many different ways for almost as many reasons throughout history. My objection is not to headcoverings–I wear a hat when outdoors most of the time–nor even to gender-specific headcoverings but to the cultural stance that a headcovering is necessary to protect a woman’s virtue.
This is one reason that I will neither read not write a sheikh romance. Too many Western women disappear every year into the households of wealthy Middle Eastern, Malay, etc., men and are never heard from again, cut off from their frightened families forever. A friend of mine was friends with a model while living in the Philippines. The model was wooed and showered with gifts by a very rich Muslim prince from another country who wanted her to marry him, claiming that she would be his only wife and would continue to live a thoroughly Western lifestyle. Eventually, she married him, only to discover that she was his fourth wife (and so only a concubine), and she was soon essentially confined to the house and neglected as he pursued new love interests. My friend never knew what became of her–after a while, she stopped writing or replying to letters.
Western women who marry Middle Eastern men and remain in the US are usually quick to point out how sensational such a story is and how different fromt heir own lives. But the stories of those who follow their husbands back to their homelands can change rapidly into stories of misery and horror. Behaviors that seem quaintly chivalrous in the US can become oppressive and unbearable in a society that embraces all those values. This is not always true, but there are far too many stories of starry-eyed brides turning swiftly disillusioned and then desperate when their “sheikhs” sweep them off to their palaces in their homelands, which then turns to an absolutel, chilling silence after the husband tires of his wife’s ways–which seemed so charmingly naive when he was courting her but were now offensive and disrespectful–and forbids her from contacting her family any longer. It is wrong to romanticize such a society, and it is far more dangerous, in real terms, than your average “fantasy fulfillment” kind of book because it can be seen to be real.
There’s a particularly odd aspect to this since cultures glorified would usually condemn not only the “sheikh” books but their authors.
This kind of respect is NOT the kind of respect that women need. It is destructive and dangerous, and however “mysterious” and “exotic” the culture seems, and no matter how thoroughly the people in the culture adopt such practices, it is still WRONG. In certain parts of India, it used to be the cultural norm for women to throw themselves onto the funeral pyres of their husbands. Just because a certain number did this without any sort of coercion does NOT make suttee anything but sick and revolting. Cooperation in one’s own subjugation does not make the subjugation any more right.
