Where's the anger re: Iran to legislate women's dress codes?

[politicat]

What, is it perfectly fine and dandy for them to practice gender repression, but they don't dare engage in religious discrimination?

The furor over the religious-orientation clothing stripe rumor is appropriate -- it was a baseless rumor and a lie -- but the fact is that the law that WAS being debated is a law that forces women back into the burquah. And it may still pass.

The Globe and Mail reported it here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060519.wdressco0519/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home

The law, if passed, will tax western clothing, discourage women (how is unclear) from abandoning the burquah and pay for a "Dress Islam" advertising campaign.

Women in Iran are not allowed to work or travel without a male guardian's permission, may not be judges and their legal testimony is only half as important as a man's. Under current law, they must cover from head to toe, but younger women have been ignoring the law. The unknown quantity of the proposed law is the degree of punishment a woman would suffer for failing to comply with the law.

I am disgusted with the fact that when it was being reported as religious discrimination, everyone and their brother raced to condemn Iran, but now that it's women that are being oppressed, there's not a word from the peanut gallery.

[ismnotwasm]

1. I think the male power structure

Doesn't actually give a shit about women's oppression/suppression in ANY country. It's a great political sound bite. That's it. When the budget axe fell on organizations that provided reproductive information in third world countries I knew we were in deep shit.
http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2004/12/20/index.html

Clothes are symbolic of this sickness. Control what we wear. Control how we act. Control our bodies. Keep us on a short leash. Why liberals can't or won't see it, or outright dismiss it is extremely disturbing. There will be no outrage. Now if a Iranian woman came to this country and wanted to take her clothes OFF--Hey they'd be jumping all over the place defending her right to do that- now wouldn't they? Pisses me off.

We have fundamentalist Christians crying that they are being discriminated against in THIS country and we know whose power base they are. Religion is always good political play. Woman's issues are only convenient, and then only sometimes.
Since the big issues seeming more and more to come down to religion, I was kind of gratified to see this this morning:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12879318/

If those on the religious left start to mobilize, It's good news. I'm not religious, but many on this board are and maybe, finally political liberals will have that "spiritual" voice so important these days in politics. If this happens, feminists can come out of the "radical" shadow and start pointing these hypocrisies out with some weight.

(I just finished a book by Haynes Johnson "Sleepwalking through History, America In The Reagan Years"--Reagan and his cronies practically codified the plan for the assault on women and women's rights for modern times)

[Warpy]

2. While I consider any law that dictates what human beings put

on or in their bodies to be an invitation to failure, I do feel the need to inform all and sundry that the BURQA is a perversion of dress unique to Afghanistan and was NEVER under debate in Iran.

"Islamic dress" means long skirts, long sleeves, non fitted construction, and a head scarf. Sometimes a robe, typically called an abaya and worn through out the middle east, is worn over designer jeans and rocker t-shirts. Yes, it's oppressive, hard to move in, hot as hell in summer. However, if the MEN forming the government had just left it alone, most women there would have worn the long sleeves and a light scarf on their own. That kind of dress makes sense in the desert. I know, I live in the desert.

But you're right, the hue and cry over the fact that MEN might be identified by religious badges was obscene compared to the silence that the oppressed women there face.

[ismnotwasm]

3. Some of the Islamic clothing

Is quite beautiful to me. I like the kind of "mismatched" dress I see. I especially love some of the head scarves. If a Islamic women makes that choice to cover her hair and dress according to the codes of her religion, and that's her choice, who am I to tell her no?
I see many Muslim women in the traditional dress around where I live. I try to acknowledge them with brief eye contact and a smile. I hate to think what they have to go through being of the Islamic faith in this country. Some of them hurry by, but many of them return huge smiles. Makes me feel good.

But the taking away of choice, as always with women is the problem. I've gone on occasion to a certain Latin Mass with my brother.(To maintain good family relations, I do a lot) The women there wear the head covering (I forget what it's called)by choice. And dress conservatively.

And thank you for the Burka clarification, somewhere in the back of my head I think I knew that, but it's so easy to let common media portrayals affect your thinking. My daughter had a lot of contact with women in Burka's in Afghanistan. You don't get much more twisted than the Taliban.

[politicat]

4. See, that's just it. It's a choice.

I apologize for using the wrong descriptor. It was late, I was tired and utterly incensed, and I did not have the patience to go look up the right words. My apologies. And definitions on clothing: I do some casual work for a travel agency that does middle east and asian travel, so I actually have access to reliable information on this:
The hajib is the headcovering. It's usually a silk or silk-cotton scarf that is worn around the head and neck and covers all hair, the ears, and usually makes a bit of a visor above the eyes. In Iran, a second garment called a chador is required. It's a full half circle that descends to the feet, and must be held in place by the hands or the teeth. (It's a difficult garment, and it forces women to be either silent or literally handicapped.) The chador is worn over the hajib.

The niqab is the veil that covers the face, and is usually worn with the hijab. It may be a half (covering only the cheeks, nose and lips) or full (being a separate attachment that allows only a small slit for the eyes). The mesh grill of the burquah is usually limited to the Afghan/Pakistan region, but it is spreading, in part because for a woman in full awrah (modesty), burquahs are much easier to manage. (Being a single garment, they require less work to get into and out of, not that women get out of them much.) Niqab is also called a yashmak in areas of Turkish influence. The burquah is seeing a lot more use among Indian Muslim women as Afghani and Pakistani refugees enter the country and spread both the faith and the custom. It's not law in India, however, like it is in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The abayah/jilbab is a long, loose cloak-coat garment that covers from neck to feet, usually in black or white, though colors are allowed in some areas. Most Saudi women were the abayah and the hajib together, though about half of all women were the abayah, the hajib and the full niqab. In Saudi Arabia, only the abayah is required by law, though women without the hajib and niqab have been harassed by the morals police.

The US/British media, not wanting to confuse our poor little American Idol watching heads, calls any full body covering by the single term burquah rather than the several terms that are actually accurate. It creeps into speech even when we KNOW better. Sorry about that.

But here's my thing:
If a woman chooses, in full possession of her reason, to wear a bikini in December or a headscarf or hats and gloves or an abayah, or a burquah or the full niqab and chador, then that's her CHOICE. I wear desert-sensible clothing in the summers - white cotton overshirts and ankle length skirts, scarves and hats (and when I can find them, gloves). That's just good sense, but it's my decision, not my husband's or my faith's or my government's. Muslim women, in the US, at least, have the right and the protection of the law should they choose to wad up their scarves, robes and veils and tell their husbands or fathers to get a life and take a hike. Since they have that option, that changes the dynamic of their wearing arwah entirely.

I grew up wearing a mantilla to Mass, and I think it is a beautiful tradition for the faithful. But the rational part of me will always say that it's never acceptable as LAW. Tradition, fine. As a sign of worship, fabulous. But law? Never.

[MuseRider]

6. Thank you for the explanation

of the garments. I had no idea (not clouded by American Idol, lol) but just ignorant and not curious enough to look it all up. I had looked up some of the terms long ago and read about the chador. I had no idea even after reading about it that it required holding. Makes sense now that I think about it because you always see their hands up holding it. Duh for me.

Choice, that is the important part isn't it? I have an American aquaintence who married a man from Pakistan. They live here in Kansas and she adopted the full garb. It is beautiful but not something useful to me or anything I would choose but she was happy in it. SHE chose (at least I hope she did).

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. One of the colleges I taught at attracted a lot of ethnic Malay students

and I liked the traditional outfit that the women wore: a long cotton skirt, a long-sleeved cotton overshirt, both in colorful patterns, and sometimes with an "Aunt Jemima" scarf. It's similar to traditional West African dress, and similarly suitable to a tropical climate. they sometimes wore Western dress, but usually with a scarf.

However, Islamic fundamentalism has hit Malaysia, and some of the women students wore the abaya and hijab, which makes NO sense in a tropical climate.

[politicat]

5. See #4 in this thread.

Though, if the pictures that the tourists bring back from the region are any indication, a burquah-like garment is becoming terribly common.

As far as Iran goes, I can pretty much guess that they want to make the chador mandatory (right now the abayah and hajib are required, though there's a lot of "you can't make me" going on). In reality, that's a massive limitation of women's human rights, since the chador requires either teeth or hands to keep it on, thus either silencing women or handicapping them.

When men have to wear it, too, I'll not complain.