AbuMubarak
09-03-03, 02:22 PM
Muslim women are not idiots
By RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH
Thursday 6 December 2001
There is something disconcerting about being tolerated in the name of multiculturalism. As though one represents an unsavoury deviation from the wider community, always the external object, to be accepted, endured and suffered.
Is it any wonder that Muslim women do not necessarily rejoice when their right to dress in accordance with their religious conviction is granted a self-righteous assent of approval in the manner displayed by Age columnist Pamela Bone on this page on November 25?
I ask, as an Australian Muslim woman, should I respond with a sigh of relief that Bone has no problem with teachers at an Islamic school wearing hijab? How nice it is of Bone to not want to ban the hijab, and to not find the hijab offensive. About as nice as, say, a Muslim woman resolving to tolerate and try to get on with a bikini-clad woman, whose lack of dress in our religion proclaims, more eloquently than words, women's inferior status, to use Bone's words.
The hijab and burka provoke a variety of interpretations and reactions. Many perceive the Muslim woman's mode of dress as a sign of inferiority, attributing it to male oppression. Nothing could be further from the truth. The essence of Muslim belief is obedience to God - not man, woman, social norms, current trends or popular opinion. The Muslim woman who wears the hijab chooses the dress code enjoined by a genderless Creator, and is therefore immune to society's fashion dictates.
Covering one's face is not compulsory in Islam, and women who do so represent a minority among the general community of Australian Muslim women. Given the generally negative reaction of the wider community to the burka, to nonetheless wear it reflects a remarkably courageous expression of personal choice exercised by a Muslim woman.
You don't have to like such explanations. You may remain sceptical or critical in the spirit of our freedom to agree to disagree. Unfortunately, however, it is rarely as simple as that, as the dialogue of mutual understanding seems incapable of escaping the tendency to position Muslim women as a monolithic oppositional target.
How ironic this is, given that the essence of any rights-based movement is that one gives to every other human being every right that one claims for oneself.
Feminists who fervently proclaim the right for a woman to choose how to dress do so on the purported basis of empowering women with freedom and independence from male yardsticks of beauty. This is a little hard to believe, as it seems that one tyranny has merely been replaced by another - the male yardstick for acceptable dress has now been replaced by a feminist yardstick.
If feminism champions a woman's freedom of choice, then Muslim women who choose to wear the hijab or burka as a matter of personal choice, and because they wish to profess their independence from male-driven fashion dictates, are presumably model feminists.
The fact that Muslim woman who choose to wear the hijab or burka are invariably attacked for representing the antithesis to so-called feminist values demonstrates that our society promotes and protects only certain choices, and devalues and demonises others.
It also demonstrates how little credit Muslim women are attributed. Inferior status: big words those. It would suggest a certain amount of idiocy on the part of an educated and spiritually mature Muslim woman to choose to wear the hijab or cover her face in order to assume an inferior status to men. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
If there is concern about the message that Muslim women wearing the burka send out to the little girls they are teaching, then what of our concerns about the message sent out that equates personal choice and conviction with docility and pitiful submissiveness?
Contrary to popular belief, Australian Muslim women do not resist the idea of fair and open dialogue about their beliefs and practices. But we continue to wonder how long we must withstand being treated as candidates applying for an equal status with other Australian women, required to submit a resume of our faith to secure the goodwill and acceptance of other women.
You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist, said Indira Gandhi. Perhaps the problem lies not so much in a lack of tolerance. Perhaps the real problem lies in the value judgments and stereotypes embraced by those who presume a so-called right to tolerate.
Randa Abdel-Fattah is a member of the Australian Arabic Council.
__________________
By RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH
Thursday 6 December 2001
There is something disconcerting about being tolerated in the name of multiculturalism. As though one represents an unsavoury deviation from the wider community, always the external object, to be accepted, endured and suffered.
Is it any wonder that Muslim women do not necessarily rejoice when their right to dress in accordance with their religious conviction is granted a self-righteous assent of approval in the manner displayed by Age columnist Pamela Bone on this page on November 25?
I ask, as an Australian Muslim woman, should I respond with a sigh of relief that Bone has no problem with teachers at an Islamic school wearing hijab? How nice it is of Bone to not want to ban the hijab, and to not find the hijab offensive. About as nice as, say, a Muslim woman resolving to tolerate and try to get on with a bikini-clad woman, whose lack of dress in our religion proclaims, more eloquently than words, women's inferior status, to use Bone's words.
The hijab and burka provoke a variety of interpretations and reactions. Many perceive the Muslim woman's mode of dress as a sign of inferiority, attributing it to male oppression. Nothing could be further from the truth. The essence of Muslim belief is obedience to God - not man, woman, social norms, current trends or popular opinion. The Muslim woman who wears the hijab chooses the dress code enjoined by a genderless Creator, and is therefore immune to society's fashion dictates.
Covering one's face is not compulsory in Islam, and women who do so represent a minority among the general community of Australian Muslim women. Given the generally negative reaction of the wider community to the burka, to nonetheless wear it reflects a remarkably courageous expression of personal choice exercised by a Muslim woman.
You don't have to like such explanations. You may remain sceptical or critical in the spirit of our freedom to agree to disagree. Unfortunately, however, it is rarely as simple as that, as the dialogue of mutual understanding seems incapable of escaping the tendency to position Muslim women as a monolithic oppositional target.
How ironic this is, given that the essence of any rights-based movement is that one gives to every other human being every right that one claims for oneself.
Feminists who fervently proclaim the right for a woman to choose how to dress do so on the purported basis of empowering women with freedom and independence from male yardsticks of beauty. This is a little hard to believe, as it seems that one tyranny has merely been replaced by another - the male yardstick for acceptable dress has now been replaced by a feminist yardstick.
If feminism champions a woman's freedom of choice, then Muslim women who choose to wear the hijab or burka as a matter of personal choice, and because they wish to profess their independence from male-driven fashion dictates, are presumably model feminists.
The fact that Muslim woman who choose to wear the hijab or burka are invariably attacked for representing the antithesis to so-called feminist values demonstrates that our society promotes and protects only certain choices, and devalues and demonises others.
It also demonstrates how little credit Muslim women are attributed. Inferior status: big words those. It would suggest a certain amount of idiocy on the part of an educated and spiritually mature Muslim woman to choose to wear the hijab or cover her face in order to assume an inferior status to men. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
If there is concern about the message that Muslim women wearing the burka send out to the little girls they are teaching, then what of our concerns about the message sent out that equates personal choice and conviction with docility and pitiful submissiveness?
Contrary to popular belief, Australian Muslim women do not resist the idea of fair and open dialogue about their beliefs and practices. But we continue to wonder how long we must withstand being treated as candidates applying for an equal status with other Australian women, required to submit a resume of our faith to secure the goodwill and acceptance of other women.
You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist, said Indira Gandhi. Perhaps the problem lies not so much in a lack of tolerance. Perhaps the real problem lies in the value judgments and stereotypes embraced by those who presume a so-called right to tolerate.
Randa Abdel-Fattah is a member of the Australian Arabic Council.
__________________