1910 Lotsa reading

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

I went to dinner with Mensa this evening, to a vegetarian/vegan restaurant in Tivoli. I had a veggie stir fry with a coconut milk sauce and rice noodles. It was pretty good, but, sorry, the chunks of tofu in it just don't satisfy the carnivore in me.

The conversation was pretty good (there were nine of us). John was talking about an enormous snapping turtle in his pond, that he's been trying to kill, "bullets just bounce right off him". That lead to a conversation between him and the guy next to him about hunting in general, deer in particular, which spread to our end of the table. Angie and I later realized with horror that this conversation was being carried on in a vegan restaurant! I'm surprised we got out of there alive.

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I spent most of today reading comments on a British "Guardian" article. I rarely (well, almost never) read comments on online American articles, because the sheer stupidity, illiteracy, jingoism, nastiness, and posturing of the American public, or at least those who comment on articles, sicken me. British comments are worth reading, and I got pulled in.

The article itself is "Do Muslim Women Need Liberating?", by Nesrine Malik. It's simply a report of a panel discussion she'd attended. The comments were more interesting than the article. There are more than 300 now, and I read them all (you have to click on "Go to all comments" to read the early ones, which are the best. About halfway through a guy called "Liberator" joins in, and the discussion disintegrates.)

This is a comment from "Shellshock" that gave me food for thought:

I think the reason that people get so het up about the hijab and burka etc is the question of what extent they are truly exercising 'choice'. In the same way I would question a woman who 'chooses' to become a lap dancer, or to expose her body for the purpose of titillatiing men.

On what precept are women making these choices? Have cabals of women sat down and decided these are desirable things to do, or do they stem from living under a patriarchal system where a womans body is seen as a piece of meat either to be covered in order to control male desire, or to uncover to precipitate male desire. In each case the decision is made on a value system that views women through the male gaze, and not through the experience of women, nor does either practice (robing and disrobing) bring any discernible benefit to women collectively.

I see both practices, covering up and undressing to be a sexually provocative act. The covered up is acknowledging her sexuality in the same way as the undressed, the only difference is that the undressed is more honest about it. Because women who express excessive piety and obedience towards their religion are elevated over the sluts and get more brownie points (and small advances in their freedoms from the men), but at the root of their actions is to behave according to a male outlook on how women should behave in the mans world.

Many of the comments about the "choice" to wear the hijab reminded me of the Suburban St. Louis housewife who declared, in 1972, when the US women's liberation movement was going strong, that she "[didn't] need liberating, because my husband lets me do anything I want." We all sat there and stared at her, because we realized there was no way we could explain to her what was wrong with that statement. I was finding that same blindness in women who claimed that they "choose" to wear the hijab. Or who hold their daughter down for a clitorectomy.

There was a lot of discussion about how much (clothing laws, legal restrictions, honor killings, female genital mutilation, etc.) is due to Islam, and how much is cultural, independent of Islam. I learned a lot.

One thing I didn't know is that until the early '70s, there was no requirement that women be covered. It started in Egypt, of all places.

Later in the comments there's a discussion of the theory that terrorism, especially suicide bombing, is fueled by a combination of "honor killing" and male sexual frustration. If it is honorable to kill your own sister, daughter, or mother for breaking religious laws, then it's so much easier to kill infidels.

Well, that was my day.

And now I want to go out and shake some sense and pride into all those girls in minuscule skirts with their belly buttons and boobs hanging out. By whose definition is that "good"?
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