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So apparently this is a thing: wearing a hijab for Lent

Caperton

ICYDK: Lent is the six-week period between Ash Wednesday (the day after Mardi Gras, which is of course the last day of debauchery and excess before the start of Lent) and Easter in many wings of Christianity. It’s supposed to be a time of prayer and repentance in preparation for the Big E, and many Christians commit to fasting and/or the sacrifice of certain luxuries to better appreciate the temptation and the suffering of Jesus and his sacrifice (or something. Stories vary). This can come in the form of giving up alcohol or a favorite snack food, kicking a bad habit, praying more, doing volunteer work, or… other stuff, apparently.

Jessey Eagan, a white Christian woman living in Peoria, Illinois, told the Christian Post that she is wearing the hijab for 40 days so that she can “love other people who are friends, strangers and enemies.” Eagan has taken to documenting her journey on #40DaysOfHijab; she has also given multiple interviews to national news sites about what she’s learned so far. Eagan’s troubling attempt to promote diversity also includes using makeup to “darken” her complexion before going “out into the community.”

(Eagan has since said that she does not, in fact, intend to darken her complexion.) Eagan records her experiences over the 40 days of Lent on her blog; reactions from Muslim women have varied. Read breakdowns of the dangers and limitations of “hijab tourism” by Nashwa Khan at RH Reality Check:

Thousands of Muslim women who live in the United States wear the hijab and face discrimination because of it—yet non-Muslim women are praised and heralded for donning it for a single day or month. This approach diminishes the experiences of Muslim women and reinforces the idea that stories from their perspective are not as valuable as stories from non-marginalized people. It strips us of autonomy while not authentically showing our nuanced and multiple truths. In turn, incorrect myths or stereotypes about Muslim people are perpetuated, because we are not given the platforms to speak up for ourselves.

[…]

That said, you also do not have to wear the hijab to face oppression as a Muslim in the West. Efforts like Eagan’s effectively limit the Muslim female experience to those wearing hijab, and the hijab itself to a simple piece of cloth. In reality, the hijab is a complex and multifaceted aspect of Muslim faith that has changed meaning for many Muslims over the years.

And Ala Ahmad at the Daily Dot:

While well-meaning, these examples show that more weight is given to privileged outsiders while ignoring the voices of members of these communities who can speak first-hand to their own struggles. After Lent, Eagan will no longer be a “Muslim,” [white journalist John Howard] Griffin’s skin changed back into its former white complexion, and Banksy eventually left Gaza.

However, Muslim women’s identities aren’t an experiment, and it does them no favors to offer them solidarity while implicitly reinforcing their own marginalization.

153 thoughts on So apparently this is a thing: wearing a hijab for Lent

  1. Huh.
    It’s a complex thing, mostly because of this:

    these examples show that more weight is given to privileged outsiders while ignoring the voices of members of these communities who can speak first-hand to their own struggles.

    Is that a bad thing? You seem to think so, but I think a fair answer is “it depends.” And it happens all the time.

    Sometimes, more weight is given to others because of bias against the usual group.

    Sometimes, more weight is given to others because they are perceived as having less self-interest and therefore more objectivity. Sometimes that perception is actually true.

    Sometimes, more weight is given to outsiders because they are perceived as having more influence over OTHER outsiders, so they can do a better job at convincing other outsiders to act properly. (That perception is more often true, practically speaking: a well-connected Christian may have an easier time changing the attitudes of other Christians, as compared to a Muslim activist. And vice versa.)

    1. You missed something:

      more weight is given to privileged outsiders

      Their opinions are valued more because of their privileged position, not because of their “objectivity”.

      1. Their opinions are valued more because of their privileged position, not because of their “objectivity”.
        That’s the debate, isn’t it. I understand that’s your position; not so sure that your position is right though. Mostly because the exact same phenomenon is found among all sorts of groups in all sorts of privilege-directions. Men listen to men talking about women’s issues, sure. But surely some women prefer to listen to other women talk about men’s issues, and so on. We all bring our own sets of blinders to the party, not just the privileged folks (not to mention the fact that everyone is privileged in different ways…) Right?

        Also how much of a jerk do you [general “you”] have to be that when someone says “Please stop oppressing me!” that you’re only able to give a damn unless another privileged person says, “Hey, maybe stop oppressing these people.”

        The very normal kind of jerk who apparently makes up the vast majority of the planet? It seems like MOST people listen more to their in-groups than not and (again) it doesn’t seem like it requires privilege.

        If you want to generally rue the non-ideal morality of humanity I’m with you, but if you want to argue against the “try this as means of changing” approach you need to start with a good baseline.

        It’s like the other quote in that article, that nobody learns anything about disability from sitting in a wheelchair for a day. Except, of course, they actually do learn something, often quite a bit. For many people, only the reality of personal experience will help them gain non-trivial understanding.

        1. It’s like the other quote in that article, that nobody learns anything about disability from sitting in a wheelchair for a day. Except, of course, they actually do learn something, often quite a bit. For many people, only the reality of personal experience will help them gain non-trivial understanding.

          This is certainly true. However, this isn’t about Eagan’s personal learning, is it? It’s about the fact that people are more willing to learn from Eagan (some d-bag they don’t know who wore a hijab that one time, but is comfortably Christian and white) than from any given hijabi. They’re able to extrapolate from the hijab-wearing of some people, but not others. Hmm….

        2. Yeah, this woman’s comfortable suburban circle of friends telling her how brave she’s being isn’t much of a learning experience, even by the low standards of Black-Like-Meing.

        3. We all bring our own sets of blinders to the party, not just the privileged folks (not to mention the fact that everyone is privileged in different ways…) Right?

          Not all of those blinders are equal, though. Despite all of their potential biases as individual people, non-whites still know far more about racism than white people ever will. Whites can’t understand what they don’t experience, so I’m not ok with their voices being privileged. Whiteness by default obscures any coherent and detailed understanding of racism.

          It seems like MOST people listen more to their in-groups than not and (again) it doesn’t seem like it requires privilege.

          Whites privileging the opinions of other whites still ends up reinforcing the privileged status of whites’ opinions relative to those of non-whites, regardless of any individual attitudes towards racism or any individual motives specific to a situation.

          It seems to me that you’re trying to explain common behavior of white people in terms of an understanding that leaves out white supremacy. Even though what you’re saying does in fact apply to a small minority of situations, where an individual white person just happens to have a more accurate understanding of racism than an individual POC or where the white person’s opinion just happens to be more likely to be seen as having an effect on other whites, in general white people know very little about racism. And what they do know accurately comes solely from POC, one way or another.

        4. It seems to me that you’re trying to explain common behavior of white people

          No. W/r/t to the “we all listen to in-groups” comments, I’m discussing common behavior of PEOPLE.

          The effect of whites doing it is usually different because of differences in power structures. But the process by which people privilege the words of in-group members is, largely speaking, the same process. It’s because of communication efficiency.

          in terms of an understanding that leaves out white supremacy.

          I wouldn’t do that! It accounts for it, as above.

          Even though what you’re saying does in fact apply to a small minority of situations, where an individual white person just happens to have a more accurate understanding of racism than an individual POC

          That isn’t what I’m arguing, though I agree with the “it’s theoretically possible but extremely rare” concept.

          or where the white person’s opinion just happens to be more likely to be seen as having an effect on other whites,

          This is what I’m talking about.
          This is not an issue of “being white” though, as much as it is an issue of “listening to people in your in-group.” And that isn’t necessarily a good thing, but it is a relatively universal thing. So you cant reasonably analyze the merits of wearing hijab without accounting for this.

          in general white people know very little about racism. And what they do know accurately comes solely from POC, one way or another.

          Without disagreeing with this generally, let me ask you a series of rhetorical question:
          W/r/t racial interactions, who do you accept as the experts on what whites think? What whites believe? What whites intend? What whites want? Whether a particular white person is racist? Why whites do what they do?

          I venture a guess that the answer IS NOT “I ask white people to tell me.” And that is OK. Right? Even though whites are half (at least!) of the equation.

          That is because of COMMUNICATION.

          What is important to you is also important to your in-group (that is basically how you define your group.) That means that they focus on things you care about, and give weight to things you are interested in. They also mutually agree to brush off things which you all agree you don’t care about.

          The result is that if you talk with an in-group member about white supremacy, say, you’ll often have better communication than if you talk with a white person. Even if the words are the same.

          When white people wear the hijab and then go explain it to other white people, they benefit from that communication. They benefit from the fact that they can trust those basic assumptions of value to be similar.

          That is what makes it effective. That is also what makes it limited.

        5. To clarify:

          Obviously, the words of someone who wears a hijab on a daily basis are going to be more expert, more in depth, etc.

          They are also probably going to be less comprehensible to someone who is not in that in-group, e.g. someone who has no personal knowledge (or interest) in the complexities of it all.

        6. They are also probably going to be less comprehensible to someone who is not in that in-group, e.g. someone who has no personal knowledge (or interest) in the complexities of it all.

          What you’re talking about here is of course easy to imagine. I just don’t see how the communicative benefits of white non-Muslims wearing hijabs outweighs or renders irrelevant the fact that they’re engaging in a form of cultural appropriation of Islamic attire, from which they can only benefit at the expense of Muslim women.

          If, without this strategy you propose, white non-Muslim women have trouble understanding why there’s nothing wrong with wearing a hijab/burqah/niqab, that’s their problem and all it means is that they need to make more of an effort, as far as I’m concerned. And frankly I care far more about my fellow Muslim’s struggles than how exactly white non-Muslim women can be supportive. I mean, don’t get me wrong – I appreciate it when they actually make an effort, and I’m not going to stop them. But we can all do without their support, without establishing a more efficient means of communication.

        7. No. W/r/t to the “we all listen to in-groups” comments, I’m discussing common behavior of PEOPLE.

          The effect of whites doing it is usually different because of differences in power structures. But the process by which people privilege the words of in-group members is, largely speaking, the same process. It’s because of communication efficiency.

          Christ.

          There’s nothing more efficient about racism. This thing you are saying here, that white people are just better at talking to white people, is a FICTION created by racism. It is emphatically NOT TRUE that sitting around and circle jerking your way to agreement is more efficient. It is even MORE not true that “being white” describes an in group with any sort of communication efficiency. It is another FICTION of racism that white people share an exclusive and common culture of any sort that provides communication efficiency.

          All of these things are BULLSHIT reasons to maintain racist practices and power structures.

          tl;dr:
          White supremacy is not a byproduct of “in-group communicative efficiency”. It’s a product of racism.

        8. When white people wear the hijab and then go explain it to other white people, they benefit from that communication. They benefit from the fact that they can trust those basic assumptions of value to be similar.

          @a_lawyer you wanna know why this isn’t a question of in-group communication efficiency? Because there are white Muslims. White Muslim women. White Muslim hijabi women. I’m related to one. And you know, nobody wants to hear shit from her. Even much of her extended family is wary as fuck of her now. And her experience is not unique.

          If whiteness were in fact the key here, then white Muslims would be treated significantly better than white Christians when it comes to authority on how it feels to be a hijabi. No: the truth is that the defining factor of who gets listened to is that they be not Muslim.

    2. Also how much of a jerk do you [general “you”] have to be that when someone says “Please stop oppressing me!” that you’re only able to give a damn unless another privileged person says, “Hey, maybe stop oppressing these people.”

      1. Also how much of a jerk do you [general “you”] have to be that when someone says “Please stop oppressing me!” that you’re only able to give a damn unless another privileged person says, “Hey, maybe stop oppressing these people.”

        The world is full of jerks! I agree this particular story is problematic and kinda gross, but I also think that there’s definitely a role for privileged people to do exactly what you’re describing, because the sad reality is a lot of people don’t listen to the voices of the oppressed. Any strategy for liberation that relies on humans being universally thoughtful, selfless and/or empathetic is doomed to crash and burn.

    1. After Lent, Eagan will no longer be a “Muslim,” [white journalist John Howard] Griffin’s skin changed back into its former white complexion, and Banksy eventually left Gaza.

      Griffin was the author of that book….

    1. Oh, and on behalf of my (white) Muslim in-laws, GFY, Eagan. Even for the people who won’t listen to brown or black Muslims, there are plenty enough actually-white actual-hijabis to listen to. Maybe that’s a thing people could give up for Lent: only grabbing someone in the Jesus fandom for all their religious needs.

  4. I can see the value in non-Muslim women wearing a niqab/hijab/burkha in a place where it is banned. That seems much more like solidarity than tourism. It is somewhat similar to apocryphal story of King Christian of Denmark wearing a yellow star of David during WWII.

  5. Just read an actual interview with her. Ugh. She gets the “I have a Muslim friend who thinks this is great” in early, and it’s all downhill from there.

  7. In Sweden, a number of gentiles put on kipot for a day and then wrote articles about their experiences. I don’t feel oppressed by this experiment, and can see how it answers questions for them in an emotionally satisfying way. Should they X Y Z instead, maybe, but I would rather them do what will actually cause them to treat others better (if it does do that).

    However, what they do not account for is that on kipah wearing day they tend to act super strange and paranoid and do not know Jewish religious behaviour well enough to not make the whole thing weird. For example, a journalist put on a kipah and went to eat in a non-kosher restaurant, and reported people looked at him questioningly…

    I wonder if anything similar happened with the fake hijabi on a mission of love for all, to me there’s no way that didn’t give out weird and creepy vibes and if so that creep factor could, sadly, rub off on perceptions actual Muslims.

    Finally the uncomfortable part to me is wondering how playing a Muslim fits into a theology where you have to accept Jesus to go to heaven or reach a certain level of divine approval. Perhaps she doesn’t believe that? If she does there’s something a little odd and fake about her concern.

  8. I glanced through her blog, and I really can’t figure out what exactly her wearing a hijab is supposed to do. Since she is not living as a muslim woman, and in fact everyone she meets knows she’s not muslim, she’s not experiencing anything remotely resembling what muslim women (with or without hijab) experience. She’s being treated as a Christian woman in a costume.

    There’s simply no comparison with Black Like Me. At the time he was writing, Southern politicians and spokespeople were seriously claiming that African-Americans were being treated decently and that claims to the contrary were coming from outsiders and troublemakers. His goal was to find out first-hand and report how a person who was perceived as black would be treated in the South. African-Americans had of course reported on this already, but it would never have occurred to White America to listen to them. (Have things actually changed all that much?) So, yes, his is very much a case of the message only being taken seriously when it comes from a privileged person. But the signal he was boosting was centered on what African-Americans were suffering, not on himself.

    As far as I can tell, whatever Jessey Eagan’s intentions, the story of her hijab-wearing is being centered on her. She’s a celebrity, giving interviews, etc.

    BTW, I believe Mr. Griffin eventually died of the side-effects of the skin-darkening treatments.

    2. I agree about Black Like Me, which was published in 1961. Does it suck any less that people listened to what he said because he was white? No, it does not. But he wasn’t “playing black” so he could see how interesting or fun or cool it was. Nor did he do it to “suffer” during Lent.

  9. The jezebel article on her included quotes from a woman that confessed to not not being able to look Muslim women in the eye before meeting this woman.

    Apparently, the people she interacts with are ignorant fools. Normal, human communication was not going to b able to effectively communicate with them. I’m willing to believe this cheap gimmick is actually effective at building communication.

  10. Why do these topics always end with white people whitesplaining white intentions to poc as if poc perceptions of the white persons actions just don’t take into account how its not white people its just all people, or poc just don’t grasp intent blah blah yadda yadda? It’s not racism its this other thing.

    Yanno, we live among you and are a part of the human race too. We’ve spent a great deal of time hearing your side, catering to your side and submitting to your side so we don’t need it continually explained to us.
    Our survival very often depended on the ability to read white folks, understand human behavior and grasp intent.

    And before some of you respond with how that wasn’t your intent, consider this : I already fucking know that. Your posts are still insulting.

    Can we please get into a deeper part of this topic that doesn’t focus on
    the intentions of white folk and maybe discuss how it affects poc? Or even how the excuse of human nature is a privilege in itself since poc are usually required to rise above lizard brain thinking but white folks are excused? Or even how its human nature manifests in shit like white judges giving more weight to white prosecutors and white cops over the poc defendant?

    1. And I don’t kmow about anyone else, but I get real tired of having my voice filtered through a white megaphone in order to get other white people to understand something. It doesn’t even really work because this isn’t a new thing and by now we shouldn’t have to have white saviors do our speaking for us. Obviously it’s not that effective either.

      1. I’m pretty sick of it too. All that ends up happening is that the whites are praised for their so-called insight into the intractable “mystery” that is living in racist world as people who experience racism. And the POC who talk about the same realities of white supremacy remain either unnoticed or a target of hostility for not kowtowing to white perspective.

        Not only do they end up getting all the credit in the end, but they don’t even know nearly as much shit as they claim to know. They always conveniently ignore the limits of their own perspectives. I’ll use my own megaphone, thanks.

    2. Oh and since some white people require a white voice before they take words seriously, consider this coming from my white half.

      1. Oh my, and how. Just read through that article and all the comments.

        It made me think about relativity and inertial frames of reference. There was a lot of debate between “We need to help privileged people incrementally change their view because that’s how people change so everyone needs to be nice to them” and “We need to help marginalized people escape from being subjects of oppression immediately because the hurt is current and ongoing”

        The synthesis of the two seems to be, “Privileged people need to go off on their own and direct their own incremental slow change by engaging in spaces that provide them with the ego stroking they so desperately need”. From their frame of reference their progress will appear and feel slow and take effort. When the Privileged person makes significant self directed progress, they may revisit old sites of perpetrating oppression and appear as suddenly improved to the people there. From the marginalized person’s frame of reference the change from before to the new treatment and consideration will appear immediate, while the privileged frame of reference will see the work it took to effect that change

        tl;dr:
        Marginalized person: “I’m not going to spend a lot of effort coddling you to being a little less of a buttface”
        Privileged person: “But people NEED coddling to change!”
        Marginalized person: “Great solution. Go do that to yourself, without my help, and get back to me when you’re done.”

  11. White and non-Muslim, so I don’t want to speak over better voices on the matters of appropriation and experience.

    I’m struggling to work out how this woman justifies wearing a hijab as part of her own faith? Isn’t Lent meant to be about forsaking personal pleasure in order to focus on repentence and salvation and other Easter-related parts of Christianity (in those parts of Christianity that include Lent as part of worship)?
    Where does a hijab even come into that?

  12. Things that happen to Muslim women when they wear the hijab:

    -has garment literally torn off of her head as a prank or as an unapologetically racist act of hostility
    -is forcibly stripped because of wearing “wrong” attire
    -gets called a “towel-head” or a “terrorist”
    -stands out to racists who harass and even assault her
    -gets accused of supporting her own oppression as a woman
    -navigates the world while constantly afraid of being targeted in public
    -internalizes racist and misogynist notions of who she is and why she wears Islamic garments
    -has to go through hell and back to fight for the freedom to wear whatever she wants, a freedom that many of her white and non-Muslim “allies” never care about supporting

    So yeah, that’s why non-Muslim women shouldn’t culturally appropriate the hijab from Muslim women. They don’t know what it’s like to live as a hijabi, and no social experiment will ever help them grasp the lived reality of those Muslim women.

    1. I used to be bit phobic of anyone who wore any sort of religious based clothing, including, (actually I’d say, especially,) my Mom’s cousin and his family who were the only Orthodox Jews in our family. But also, nuns, priests, and Hare Krishnas and I probably would have felt that way about hijabi, if I had seen many or really, any, when I was younger. Fortunately I was over this phobia by the time I did encounter numerous women wearing the hijab (the summer I lived in Amsterdam,) and the only stereotype I remember forming about them was that the teenagers who wore the hijab seemed to be so much more polite than the Dutch teenagers, and i remember that when I would go to the supermarket I would always, if given the option go to a till with woman wearing some form of headscarf, just to avoid the “Anita’s” and their attitude.

      Now that I’m living in London, I also think that interacting with actual Muslim women in the hijab is clearly the best way to get a positive attitude towards them. I don’t understand how seeing a non-Muslim woman in a hijab would help, because in my experience, there really is no difference in terms of personal interaction between women who wear the hijab and women who don’t and that’s what people need to get.

      1. Now that I’m living in London, I also think that interacting with actual Muslim women in the hijab is clearly the best way to get a positive attitude towards them.

        Towards Muslim women, or the hijab? Because I’m with you on the former, but the latter remains unambiguously sexist (and cissexist, founded on essentialist arguments as it is), just like any form of female-specific clothing premised on ‘modesty.’

        I get the arguments about reappropriating the hijab/burqa from their rapey origins, but there’s really no way to make a piece of clothing exclusively for women non-problematic. The fact some women choose to wear it is no no more significant than the fact, for example, some women choose to wear makeup (including me- to be clear, this isn’t about judging women’s choices, but rather condemning patriarchy). There are all kinds of reasons individual women may choose to do it, but at the end of the day the cultural phenomenon of women (and not men) being expected to spend significant amounts of time, effort and money ‘beautifying’ themselves is fundamentally misogynistic.

        Similarly, the hijab is a manifesting of misogyny and rape culture, even if there are defensible reasons for embracing it on an individual level.

        1. manifestation*

          And incidentally, the same argument goes for plenty of other articles of gender-specific clothing; it’s not like this is limited to the hijab, or to Islam. The fact that the hijab is more often the subject of public dispute is, clearly, a political issue, and based on prejudice towards Muslims.

          That doesn’t mean it’s OK, though- just that people who criticize the hijab but aren’t willing to extend the same analysis towards (say) high school dress codes on Nebraska deserve a side-eye.

        2. Towards Muslim women, or the hijab?

          I was being literal, when I said ‘Muslim women in the hijab’, I meant towards ‘Muslim women in the hijab.’

          The young woman who works in the pharmacy I went to this morning was wearing a cute mini-dress, her makeup was similar to any other modern young woman of her age, and if I was prone to dudebro language I would have described her as ‘really hot,’ she just happened to be wearing a head scarf. I didn’t get any forced modesty at all.

        3. @FatSteve

          Tripped, fell, landed in a historically patriarchally required garment. Totes random.

        4. Tripped, fell, landed in a historically patriarchally required garment. Totes random.

          When my mother (born 1944) was in college, she took three buses to get to the New York Public Library and they wouldn’t let her in because she was wearing trousers (i.e. not a dress or a skirt.) Despite the fact that she cried and it was the middle of winter (making trousers a much more practical choice,) she was sent home. So, let’s not get all high and mighty about other cultures with “historically patriarchally required garments.”

        6. Cool story bro.

          That is your response to an incident that left my mother in tears?

          Apologies to tig tog if a giraffe alert for assholism is an over reaction. But that’s my reaction,

          1. No apologies needed, Fat Steve. The giraffe is not yet required, IMO, but I will note that very short replies to another commentor almost never contribute to furthering the discussion, and unless unambiguously supportive such comments often leave the respondee perturbed as to whether it is meant to be a cryptic allusion or a passive-aggressive jab, else why bother to respond at all?

            Broseidon, you do seem to have a habit of leaving very short and potentially ambiguous comments in response to other commentors. I suggest you develop the habit of second thoughts about the utility of such responses, unless you like having others think you are being assholish?

          2. P.S. to Steve: I’m also aware of how often and how long your own periods of automoderation were over your first few years of commenting at Feministe because of differences in commenting styles that caused just a few too many clashes, and I’m mindful of being consistent in the moderation approach here.

        7. I suggest you develop the habit of second thoughts about the utility of such responses, unless you like having others think you are being assholish?

          Okay.

          Fat Steve was saying some sort of “these women don’t look oppressed to me!” bullshit, in response to discussion about whether patriarchal traditions of feminine dress are oppressive to women and whether the hijab is part of this patriarchal oppression.

          This is such an incredibly basic topic of feminism that I made a joke about the idea that someone would “just happen” to adhere to patriarchal mores of gender presentation. The joke is that yes, one person might not be unduly influenced, but a class-wide trend is obvious evidence of structural oppression.

          In response, Fat Steve pulled out an anecdote about his crying mother to admonish me for saying that only the hijab is part of these patriarchal traditions of required gendered dress.

          Since I made no specification of that sort in that comment, and since Ludlow had specifically and eloquently addressed this point directly above, I was at a loss for what Fat Steve’s response had to do with my comment. I used the reply “cool story bro” because that’s what people sometimes say when someone tells an irrelevant story.

          Then Fat Steve got upset because I didn’t offer the righteous response to his heart-tugging story.

          Well you know what? When you’re admonishing someone for saying someone you don’t like, don’t hold your mother up in front of them to get sympathy. If you’re that sensitive about your mother, then keep her out of the discussion.

          [Content Note: description of hearing recountings of rape incidents (added by moderator following author request)]
          Also, ok, once your mom cried. Yesterday a homeless acquaintance ran into me at the pizza place and told me all about his ex-girlfriend sex-worker who gets raped all the time and his sociopathic ex-friend who he just found out is a serial rapist over my two slices of pepperoni. Cool story bro was pretty much the same thing I told him. He didn’t freak out though, he gave me a couple cigarettes.

        9. Where did he say they don’t look oppressed? I literally cannot find that in his comments. The only three points I got were:

          — People are dicks to women who are visibly Muslim and I don’t know any way to change that interaction other than to interact positively in public with them

          — Some women choose to wear a hijab for reasons that aren’t explicitly about modesty, for example, this pharmacist

          — The hijab isn’t the only visible form of looks-based oppression women face, and the West isn’t any better

          Also, from me to you, the way you handle difficult stories is incredibly shitty. I don’t know if it’s a defense mechanism because these stories are hard to hear or whether you’re a shitty person. But just an FYI.

        10. @PrettyAmiable:

          Here:

          I didn’t get any forced modesty at all.

          Also:

          , the way you handle difficult stories is incredibly shitty

          No it isn’t. People love to tell me difficult stories. They respond really well to the fact that I don’t make them responsible for my emotional reaction. When people really want to get something off their chest, they’re usually most afraid of being responsible for high energy reactions. That means negative ones but also sometimes positive ones as well. They test with something smaller, then wait to see your reaction. If it’s very neutral, they tell you more, and more. If they don’t like your reaction, they don’t comment on it, they just change the subject.

          When someone is trying to manipulate your reaction, however, that’s when they are looking for emotional investment from their listener. If they don’t like your reaction they talk about it, and they talk about what they said in great detail. They’re already using their difficult story as a tool to manipulate the world around them. It appears that they have it well in hand already.

        11. While not loving how this thread had gone, I reluctantly consign Broseidon’s point re: reacting to stories. I wouldn’t go with something as hostile/dismissive as “cool story,” but this point:

          When people really want to get something off their chest, they’re usually most afraid of being responsible for high energy reactions. That means negative ones but also sometimes positive ones as well.

          is spot on, in my experience.

        12. In response, Fat Steve pulled out an anecdote about his crying mother to admonish me for saying that only the hijab is part of these patriarchal traditions of required gendered dress.

          Since I made no specification of that sort in that comment, and since Ludlow had specifically and eloquently addressed this point directly above, I was at a loss for what Fat Steve’s response had to do with my comment. I used the reply “cool story bro” because that’s what people sometimes say when someone tells an irrelevant story.

          How is it irrelevant? I was merely saying that the dress was also a patriarchal piece of clothing forced on women, yet a woman can wear a dress.

          But let’s say it was irrelevant, how tough would it be to sa something like ‘yeah that really sucks what happened to your Mom in the 60’s but I don’t think it’s relevant.’ I would even be fine if you said I was a stupid idiot for comparing the two. But being so indifferent to my mother’s pain shows a lack of humanity and sensitivity on your part. But hey it’s your choice, you don’t have to be a nice person if you don’t want to,

        13. They’re already using their difficult story as a tool to manipulate the world around them. It appears that they have it well in hand already.

          I wasn’t using my difficult story as a tool to manipulate the world around me, If anything, I was using my world as a story to manipulate a difficult tool around me.

        14. But being so indifferent to my mother’s pain shows a lack of humanity and sensitivity on your part.

          Dude. Get a grip.

          Roughly fifty years ago, your mother was denied entry to the library, by someone who was a sexist asshole.

          Is that good?

          No.

          Do I give a shit?

          No.

          Does that demonstrate a “lack of humanity and sensitivity?”

          HELL no.

          I care about a lot of things, but that isn’t one of them. It is so minor and remote that it is literally not worth caring about. It may well have happened before your lifetime.

          The fact that you bring it up as if it is somehow super relevant, and the fact that you would actually think someone shows a lack of humanity (seriously, WTF is up with that level of hyperbole?) for failing to kowtow appropriately to the reference, is freakin’ ridiculous.

        15. The fact that you bring it up as if it is somehow super relevant, and the fact that you would actually think someone shows a lack of humanity (seriously, WTF is up with that level of hyperbole?) for failing to kowtow appropriately to the reference, is freakin’ ridiculous.

          The level of hyperbole is probably due to me suffering from a really bad strep infection since last Thursday which has drained all my energy and emotional levels. So, I can look back at the conversation and think I probably would have reacted differently.

          However, if you can’t get that it’s obviously a story that stuck with me and something that I feel very strongly about, then you are lacking in empathy (which is probably the word I would have used if I wasn’t boiling over with rage.) I explained this earlier, I don’t expect you to give a shit about what happened to my mother, but if you can’t understand why a 46 year old would be sensitive about a story he remembers his mother telling him as a child about her being in tears shows an extraordinary lack of empathy, then you do lack decency (again maybe a better word,) IMO.

          If you don’t want to treat me with the respect due any fellow human being, don’t engage me in conversation. Are you going to defend the decency of someone who has no empathy towards they’re having a direct conversation with? I don’t care if you’re at all moved by mother’s plight but how do you defend showing me zero respect and expecting me to be totally fine with carrying on an conversation with you?

        16. To avoid a derail here I moved my response to spillover. Despite my complete lack of authority to do so, I’d request that other commenters continue this discussion there if desired.

        17. I think I would just sum up by paraphrasing the film Love Story and say that certain people here believe posting on Feministe means never having to say you’re sorry.

  13. I think people are used to narratives where they can be the protagonist and through their identification with the protagonist they engage with the conflict the protagonist faces.

    In a story of white saviorism, the white reader gets to be the white hero and learn a little bit about the people of color being saved, but really learn a whole lot about how awesome they and other white people can be.

    In a story of white oppression, the white reader, being racist, has difficulty identifying with the non-white protagonist because of the primacy of racial identification in their head, so they think the story is casting them as antagonist, because the antagonists in the story are identified by their white privilege.

    But this way of relating to stories, judging it based on how well it seems to judge you, seems like a big part of white privilege. The privilege to expect all narratives to grant you and your identities room to relate and sit there navel-gazing.

    I think that’s why when people do this shtick, they also like to blog about it. If they only experienced the weird looks, and awkwardness of their unfamiliar dress and public appearance, the only story they’d see would be the story of white oppression. If they write up their experiences into a story, then they have a reflection of their own white saviourism to bring to the forefront.

    The story gets picked up by media websites and now everyone gets to decide if they’re as good as this white saviour, or even better. That’s a lot more fun than examining whether you are as bad as a white oppressor or even worse.

    1. Yes. Look how progressive white people can be after another white person tells them it’s not all sunshine and roses for poc. Forget the fact poc have been saying forever and these people ignored it, aren’t they wonderful for finally seeing some of the light and shouldn’t we focus on their great thing instead of criticism? I mean, however will they learn if their feelings aren’t considered and their backs aren’t pat and they don’t get a parade for each baby step to not being a racist douche they take? They’re the heroes here, damn it! Didn’t one of them just save the day by showing its not all sunshine and roses?!

      1. Maybe this shows certain nuances of white supremacy? White people are not only taught that they’re the best and on top, they’re taught that they’re the best and on top because they are so good at making everyone around them free and happy!

        So there’s this pervasive assumption that if we finally “beat racism”, it would look just like your current cushy liberal white progressive first world existence, just there would be no people of color complaining at you. Until that happens, just keep saying nice things about them, and you can use those words as a defense against any criticisms!

        Like this quote from the blog about this project:

        I have had a lot of hate on Twitter the last couple of days and I can’t lie, it’s tough to deal with. Bullying is awful. I am sorry if I have offended you in anyway. But at the same time, I am choosing to continue in what I am doing, because the I know that it has encouraged many Muslim and Christian women all over the world.

        “Bullying is awful”

        1. Ain’t it though? Those mean poc, hurting her feelings after she spent a whole 40 days as one of ” them”. How are they not grateful for her sacrifice, her bravery and how are they not in awe of her mighty white awesomeness?

        2. And allow me a bitter lol at ” would you non Christian folks shut the hell up? I’m trying to be your voice here and teach other Christians they should listen and respect you. I’m inspiring them om your behalf!”

        4. And now all I can hear is the song You’re The Best from then end of Karate Kid.

          LOOOL

  14. I think that’s why when people do this shtick, they also like to blog about it. If they only experienced the weird looks, and awkwardness of their unfamiliar dress and public appearance, the only story they’d see would be the story of white oppression. If they write up their experiences into a story, then they have a reflection of their own white saviourism to bring to the forefront.

    I long for a day in which white narcissism is actually distinguishable from some acceptable social science practices, but we’re not there yet.

    …does this woman not know any Muslim women she could just ask? Is that a stupid question?

    I knew a lot of Muslim girls in high school from a variety of backgrounds. I knew:

    -the girl who fought with her dad to not have to wear it
    -the girl who fought with her dad TO wear it
    -the girl who’s dad thought it was cute but weird that she wanted to wear it
    -the girl who’s family left Iran after the Islamic Revolution, and she decided to put it on much to the puzzlement of her mother and grandmother who did not wear it
    -the girl from Egypt who started wearing it upon moving to the United States
    -the twins, one who wore it, one who didn’t, but they always wore matching Red Hot Chili Peppers shirts.

    All wearing a hijab as a white Westerner will teach anybody is that white Westerners are incapable of shutting the fuck up for five minutes.

  15. I’m really really uncomfortable with the way whiteness is being repeatedly conflated with being not-Muslim in this thread. Perhaps we can all remember that race = / = religion for like five minutes in a row. Yes, this is about an obnoxious white non-Muslim douchebag deciding to accessorise the hijab for funsies and cookies, but the reactions I’m reading here seriously make me think that if a desi Christian decided to wear a hijab to prove a point y’all would be just fine with that particular appropriation.

    1. Well, we’re discussing a white, non Muslim Christian. So far, in the western world, they tend to be the ones doing this shit. If ever a desi Christian does it, post it and well think she’s a shitty Christian douchebag too. Right now though, white Christians are doing their very best to unapologetically shit on everyone not white and non Christian so they’re going to be the target of anger. Pharrell wore a headdress not long ago and I didn’t give him a pass because he’s poc and even claims NA heritage. But I can count how many poc do this on one hand. White folks? I lost count years ago.

      1. And honestly, the fact she’s white is why she feels so very entitled to speak for everyone else. And expect to be heard. And get a pass based on those good white savior intentions. And have the fact others listen to her get dismissed as human . She’s using her White voice, and only abit of her Christian voice. And it’s her white privilege letting her skate.

        1. And honestly, the fact she’s white is why she feels so very entitled to speak for everyone else. And expect to be heard. And get a pass based on those good white savior intentions. And have the fact others listen to her get dismissed as human .

          The world is not North America. I have seen desi non-Muslims pull this shit. I have seen desi non-Muslims feel exactly like this. The fact that you haven’t says more about the kinds of news sources you consume than the objective reality of the world. And I’m not objecting to shitting on shitty white Christians, I’m objecting to specifying it down to white, considering that there are in fact white Muslims. As I pointed out repeatedly on this thread, white Muslims I am related to do not receive this particular privilege, which to me suggests strongly that the operative issue here is Eagan being Christian, not white.

        3. And as for news sources, I read this site and a few NDN sites. That’s about it. If you see it, post it. I can’t comment on something I haven’t seen or heard about. That’s less about where I live and more about not having the spoons to read the never ending pile of shit in this world. I’m typically done abouthalfway tthrough the NDN sites. Sorry.

        4. Also ( i hit send by accident both times. This was supposed to be one comment) If you say it’s more religion than whiteness, then I believe it. You are in a better position to know. But don’t reduce my perspective to ignorant American, please. It
          comes from NDN experience of people like this. Intimate experience with people like this who shove into powwows, sweat lodges and anyplace else they can try to experience NDNness in order to show other white folks we’re not drunken savages etc. This is an entirely different set of folks than those who get all hippy, new age lets commune with nature. The goal is to show other white people that we’re noble n shit and they should feel bad for treating us like vermin. A subset of these people are Christian, out for Christian reasons who try to tie in similarities ( and eventually try to act as witnesses for Christ..the fuck that means) or get us to go to church to see how it’s almost the same. This woman came off as the first type, for me. If I’m wrong then I’m wrong, but its not for the reasons you just posted.

        5. I am not calling you a “stupid NDN”, so please do not put words in my mouth; certainly not racialised ones.

          I think that white privilege and Christianity definitely collide in this specific situation. I’ve also seen caste privilege be a factor in who gets to talk about Islamophobia, and frankly I’ve seen non-Islamic religious identity used in a hundred ways to co-opt Muslim issues. Therefore, no, I do not think that people would listen to Eagan as much if she were a white Muslim hijabi than if she were a white Christian – even though she still retains white privilege either way. I was not speaking to NA/white relations at all. Islamophobia is a hell of a lot more faceted and I come at it from a perspective that isn’t really shared by most people here, since my country is wildly Islamophobic and almost completely not-white. I think that focusing on white instead of non-Muslim is damn dangerous in this context because it implicitly lets POC non-Muslims off the hook, and simultaneously erases white Muslims (who have white privilege that does protect them from the worst of Islamophobia in north America, but who do not, in the vast majority of cases, possess any privilege for being Muslim).

          As to another reason I feel this is a non-Muslim thing and not a white thing… I have never seen a white person adopt some facet of Hinduism in order to “understand Hindu women’s oppression” even though 99% of white people would probably agree that Hindu women live under a misogynistic system. (They would be right, but that’s a whole other fight.) It’s always Islam (and sometimes Judaism) that gets treated like this, because they’re perceived as uniquely misogynistic. And the sheer number of people focusing on the hijab makes me think it is definitely primarily a religious thing (or people would be doing the same thing with Amish and Mennonite culture).
          I hope that clarifies my position.

        6. I get that and yes, you’re in a better position to know so I defer to your experience. What bugged me was the reason you gave for my perspective because I have a very different relationship with the western world, and in my experience this behavior comes more from whiteness while the religious part focuses more on converting us still. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize your differences in experiences.

        7. I have never seen a white person adopt some facet of Hinduism in order to “understand Hindu women’s oppression” even though 99% of white people would probably agree that Hindu women live under a misogynistic system. (They would be right, but that’s a whole other fight.)

          The hijab is a visible and distinct marker that’s instantly apparent to NON-muslims, and which isn’t linked to a particular behavior. I don’t know all that much about Hinduism: is there a similar thing there?

          It’s always Islam (and sometimes Judaism) that gets treated like this, because they’re perceived as uniquely misogynistic.

          Well, in all fairness they both (assuming you’re talking about Haredi or other super orthodox Jewish sects) have an unusually high amount of obvious subservience.

          It doesn’t mean they’re more misogynistic, but the ways in which they are misogynistic are more readily apparent to people outside the faith. That’s why they get tagged.

        8. Well, in all fairness they both (assuming you’re talking about Haredi or other super orthodox Jewish sects) have an unusually high amount of obvious subservience.

          It doesn’t mean they’re more misogynistic, but the ways in which they are misogynistic are more readily apparent to people outside the faith. That’s why they get tagged.

          By singling out Muslim cultures, all you’re doing is saying that Muslim cultures are more misogynstic. There’s no other way around this logical conclusion.

          You know what’s the reason they are more relatively apparent to people outside the faith? They’re non-Muslims, therefore privileged over Muslims. Reducing the special focus to nothing but outsider bias decontextualizes experiences of Islamophobia, which is pretty obviously Islamophobic itself as it contributes to the erasure of Muslims’ narratives of being oppressed.

      2. An example of the person I’m talking about, that Eagan reminded me of: Several years ago I went to a powwow to see my cousin dance. A white dude wearing a homemda shirt that read Indians Are People Too ( scribbled in magic marker) showed up and proceeded to lecture everyone waiting in line on how Indian culture wasn’t entertainment and we should all be ashamed. When I imformed him ( PISSILY) that my cousin was dancing, he sidled up to me and let me know he’d spent a few months living on a Navajo reservation and had been adopted so was practically an Indian himself ( my eyes rolled so far i could see out my own ass) and he has dedicated his life to educated white people on OUR oppression. Yep. Our. As in his, by adoption or association I assume. And the idiot followed me around the rest of the damn day doing some weird white version of keeping the beat to the drumming and music. Yanno…because he was an Indian and when we hear drums our souls stir and we Must Dance.

        Disgustingly enough, I’ve met many more just like him. They think they’re enlightened and its their duty to enlighten others on our behalf. And yes, other white people eat that shit up with a spoon. Then turn their sad little doe eyes to us and give us knowing looks.

        Anyway, that’s my experience with them. God forbid you criticize them, because then you’re an ungrateful Indian who doesn’t know an ally when you see one. And you must just hate white people (they understand of course, but they’re different and you must acknowledge this) And why won’t you let them help! Why are you so meeeaaan?!

        I have no idea what religion that specific guy was, but I’d put good money on him worshipping wolves. Or grass. Not the kind on your lawn.

        1. A white dude wearing a homemda shirt that read Indians Are People Too ( scribbled in magic marker) showed up and proceeded to lecture everyone waiting in line on how Indian culture wasn’t entertainment and we should all be ashamed.

          I’m getting vicarious embarrassment goosebumps just reading this story.

          This kinds reminds me of of a white American professor at my university who lectured me for half an hour on how discounting traditional Chinese mystical folk medicine in favor of ‘Western science’ was a form of ‘epistemological violence’ (I don’t know whether she realized where I was born, or whether that makes it better or worse).

        2. One day I’ll tell you about the time my uncle found some whitedude covered in mud ( and shit) who got lost on the rez because he was looking for his inner Indian spirit guide. My uncle brought him home and it gets worse from there.

    2. I’d be equally opposed to a desi non-Muslim woman appropriating the hijab – the only reason I specifically talked about white non-Muslim women is that the woman who has worn the hijab for Lent is white and non-Muslim.

      1. That’s my point exactly. Saying “white Westerners” erases both the Islamophobia faced by hijabis from non-white peoples worldwide, and the Islamophobia faced by white hijabis. I would be equally angry if I saw Hindus appropriating Muslim practices like the hijab, and I think making this a white/nonwhite issue is a pretty nuance-free and US-centric way of thinking. Is white privilege and its attendant “lalala I’m so special” thinking part of why Eagan’s doing this? Absolutely. Is white privilege the reason she’s getting this acclaim? Fuck no, or white Muslim hijabis would be given a huge voice in media and representation, and the only time they’re acknowledged is when they’re on air to apologise for some complete stranger’s terrorism (if that).

        2. You know, mac, pheeno did specify that she was talking about her experiences “in the western world, [where white people] tend to be the ones doing this shit.” So a lot of us here may indeed tend to be US/Canada-centric in our discussions, but pheeno expressly disclaimed any universal applicability of her generalization, and expressly qualified it. So I don’t think it’s really fair to fault her for something she didn’t do.

        3. As a Muslim myself, I don’t think that white Muslims and Muslims of color have the same experiences of Islamophobia. I may be way off here but IMO the white Muslims I have known among family and peers benefit from whiteness to varying degrees, at least relative to Muslims of color.

          When my (white) mom was a Muslim, she definitely faced a lot of misogynist Islamophobia. But she wasn’t treated nearly as badly as my desi Muslim grandmother, who was constantly vilified and called “repulsive” by both white non-Muslims and white Muslims. I’ve also noticed that white Muslims have far more visibility as “good Muslims” and “intelligent Muslims”. And white Muslims, particularly white converts to Islam, still have some degree of personal attachment to white cultures that Muslim POC generally don’t share.

          Again, it’s possible that I’m totally wrong about this, and I really don’t want to trivialize the very real Islamophobia that oppresses white Muslims. I just don’t see how white privilege isn’t to some extent an aspect of white Muslim experiences in the world.

        4. I don’t think white and non-white Muslims experience the same level of Islamophobia, no. I think that white privilege kicks in quite hard when it comes to how family and institutions treat white Muslims, for the most part. White privilege is a hell of a power boost and this area is no exception. I’m not debating for a second that white Muslims are treated better than non-white ones.

          However, when it comes to who gets to be an authority on the hijabi experience, it is notably not white Muslim women who get the book deals and the fancy interviews. Every. Single. Book. Deal. I have seen about white people wearing hijab (that takes the “we must understand them” angle instead of “omg MUSLIM ABUSERS ARE MUSLIMS WHO ABUSE” angle) has been about a Christian woman. There’s multiple patterns of power here, and I think the wrong one is being given primacy, personally. Where are all the books by white hijabis about wearing hijab? Where are the white hijabis on national television, talking about their religion, and not from a perspective of being abused and leaving Islam (because I have seen THAT)? I think there’s definitely more at play here, and it’s dynamics that I recognise from India as well, with the bullshit propping up of ex-Muslim women as THE authority on Islam’s treatment of women.

        5. However, when it comes to who gets to be an authority on the hijabi experience, it is notably not white Muslim women who get the book deals and the fancy interviews.

          Ok, that makes sense. I can definitely see how the ways in which Muslim identities are erased can lead to white Muslim women being seen as less of an authority on the experience of wearing the hijab.

    3. I’m sorry Mac. I fumbled around for terminology for a good ten minutes before settling on “white Westerners,” only because nothing else quite fit/there’s someone being erased by every term I came up with. Your points are well-taken.

    4. if a desi Christian decided to wear a hijab to prove a point y’all would be just fine with that particular appropriation.

      I 100% would not be OK with this, sorry if my language choices gave that impression. I would, however, consider myself vastly less qualified to comment on the nuances of that scenario for a variety of reasons.

    5. Oops! You are right! I have more to think about now.

      My first impressions make me wonder if Christian isn’t coded as white for a lot of white Christians in America. So this lady is kinda double white because she looks white AND acts white, so when she acts a little non-white and makes some non-white friends, spectators can be like “What a contrast!!! Such communication across difference.”

      If she were white and Muslim, which is coded as brown for a lot of people, she’s already presenting as a racialized contrast, and wearing the hijab doesn’t have the same effect.

      Now if a white American Muslim went to a predominantly brown Muslim country and wrote all about “Being a white American Muslim woman in Afghanistan”, she might get some coverage because the racialized contrasts are big enough.

      1. “My first impressions make me wonder if Christian isn’t coded as white for a lot of white Christians in America”

        True this is why Santa and Jesus are almost always white outside of minority spaces.

  16. I’m not a Christian. But I am curious about this phrase:

    many Christians commit to fasting and/or the sacrifice of certain luxuries to better appreciate the temptation and the suffering of Jesus and his sacrifice (or something. Stories vary).

    which I read as flippant and dismissive. I acknowledge this could be “just me” reading it that way. In case I am not wrong in my reading of the phrase, why are these practices being dismissed/treated flippantly/not taken seriously? Are only some religions’ practices deemed “serious”?

    If I’m wrong, I apologize in advance and you can just ignore me.

    1. FWIW hattie, as a grumpy ex-catholic, it read in my head as the same irreverence we use to gloss over doctrinal differences in casual situations that don’t need a full-on theological discussion, but I don’t know the author’s intent at all, and I’m probably biased towards the interpretation that sounds most like what I would do myself.

    2. Flippant, definitely, because that’s my way. But not dismissive. As a practicing Episcopalian (raised Catholic), I have great appreciation for the idea of the Lenten sacrifice. But if you ask any five people within the catholic tradition why we’re asked to give things up for Lent, you’ll get five slightly different answers. (Personally, I’ve always given a bit of a side-eye to the whole “understanding Jesus’s suffering” thing. Because giving up alcohol for six weeks will totally help me identify with a guy who we’re told was essentially tortured to death. It’s like if a friend is talking about the side effects of chemo, and I’m all, “Remember last August, when I drank that entire pitcher of margaritas after work? The next day, I thought I was going to vom all. Morning. So I totally get what you’re talking about.”)

      Incidentally, I also did an unexpected amount of research for such a tiny blurb to see if there really were any branches of Christianity that actually had Lenten traditions that dovetailed with Eagan’s project here, and while I did find a bunch more positions on the “why do we sacrifice” thing, I didn’t find anything that would call for cultural appropriation/blogging. Most of what I’ve found says that when you’re making your sacrifice, you’re supposed to do it in secret and not seek praise or attention because of it, but again, mileage varies on the specifics of Lenten sacrifice.

    3. Well, I am just interested in why Christianity gets the flippant dismissal, but not Islam? Is it because Christians are privileged over Muslims? NOT TROLLING

      I personally despise all organized religions.

  17. From the Spillover thread, pursuant to the moderators’ directive to bring the hijab discussion back to this thread:

    I said to Broseidon:

    But as Mr. White Asshole Savior of Muslim Women, it’s OK for you to insist that every single woman in a hijab wears it as a result of patriarchal oppression. Because you know better than Muslim women themselves.

    Broseidon responded to me:

    Aren’t most of the things we do the result of patriarchal oppression? Because we function under patriarchy? Isn’t that basic feminism 101?

    Aren’t standards of dress that apply only to women and offer physical encumbrance automatically suspect as well?

    Heels, sheitels, skirts, pants with no pockets, hijabs, burqas, lipstick, eyeliner, false eyelashes, mascara, foundation, long hair, stockings, spanx, etc. etc.

    All of these things are for women, and all of them limit the wearer in some way that their for-men counterpart does not. For most of these, the “for-men” counterpart is “nothing”.

    I said:

    Perhaps your feminism needs to go beyond 101 level? And perhaps you should stop presuming to speak for women?

    Ludlow22 said:

    Aren’t standards of dress that apply only to women and offer physical encumbrance automatically suspect as well?

    I certainly think so. Any gender-specific sartorial expectations/norms/requirements are problematic.

    Perhaps your feminism needs to go beyond 101 level?

    I get that it’s a tricky line, because anti-hijab rhetoric is so often just a tool of prejudice against Muslims, but it is a symptom of patriarchy, and its origins are tied to a rape-culture-enabling concept of ‘modesty.’

    As long as people are equally clear that this applies to unequal dress codes in high school, or expectations re: body hair, or whatever, then I think it’s self-evident that the hijab/niqab/burka are fundamentally oppressive.

    And I said:

    The fact that the hijab is patriarchal in origin — something I didn’t dispute — does not mean that every single time a Muslim woman wears one is a reflection of patriarchy. Which seems to be Broseidon’s assumption, and the basis for his attack on Fat Steve.

    Broseidon also seems to believe that every time a woman wears heels or skirts constitutes a reflection of patriarchal oppression. Also incredibly simplistic, in my opinion. (Especially since heels started out as a male article of attire. Just look at the famous portrait of Louis XIV. And both skirts and stockings, of course, were originally worn by both men and women in many cultures.) It seems to me, in fact, that Broseidon’s arguments aren’t so different from those made by TERFs against trans women.

    1. For an interesting, important, Muslim-centered, identified and feminist rereading of hejab as something far more complex than a piece of clothing intended to enforce women’s modesty, check out Fatima Mernissi’s The Veil and the Male Elite, in particular the chapter called “The Hijab, The Veil.”

      I am in no way qualified to do more than point people to Mernissi’s book, but if you don’t already know it or Mernissi’s argument—perhaps especially if you are non-Muslim—and you want to find out how much you don’t fully understand the meaning of hijab within Islam, it is worth reading. (Mernissi’s book is quite old by now, and I know that a lot more has been written since it was published, but it is the book that I know, and reading it taught me just how ignorant I was, and so I am referring to it here.)

      This is not to dispute that the way hijab is taught, practiced, and enforced in many places and on many levels is oppressive; but it is to point out another level of ignorance on the part of people who practice hijab tourism.

    2. Aaaah. Calling someone a “TERF” because she pointed out that dress and adornment restricted to women is misogynist.

      Sorry. It is. Even if Louis XVASGJJIOU wore high heels for a few years because he was short, the fact remains that the following items:

      Heels, sheitels, skirts, pants with no pockets, hijabs, burqas, lipstick, eyeliner, false eyelashes, mascara, foundation, long hair, stockings, spanx, etc. etc.

      are not designed “for men.”

      All of these things are for women, and all of them limit the wearer in some way that their for-men counterpart does not. For most of these, the “for-men” counterpart is “nothing”.

      1. Calling someone a “TERF” because she pointed out that dress and adornment restricted to women is misogynist.

        I didn’t call the person in question a TERF; he happens to be trans-friendly. And he’s a guy, not a “she.”

        In any event, misogynist/patriarchal in origin does not mean misogynist in practice 100% of the time. Just like hijabs.

        2. Well, I use “she” as the unoversl pronoun, having been subjected to a lifetime of exclusion by the English language.

          Also, no matter how or where heels orignated, the fact remains that TODAY, and for all my life, they are a tool of the patriarchy, meant for women to wear and hobble themselves. Yes, I used to wear them. Yes, having grown up in patriarchy, I adhered to it in many ways.

          It’s still a shit system, no matter any woman’s reason for conforming. Part of the reason it’s such a shit system is that for women, there is no escape from it. No matter how much we tell ourselves that clothing, adornment, religious restrictions, the color pink, and other “women”-assigned attributes are our “choice.”

    3. Heels, sheitels, skirts, pants with no pockets, hijabs, burqas, lipstick, eyeliner, false eyelashes, mascara, foundation, long hair, stockings, spanx, etc. etc

      I disagree Donna.

      All of these things including the hijab are a reflection of the patriarchy. Without the patriarchy one gender wouldn’t be expected or coerced into wearing restricting clothes.

      1. All I’m trying to do is point out that every time someone wears a hijab (or one of the other mentioned articles of clothing) it doesn’t mean they’re being actively oppressed by the patriarchy, and need some non-Muslim person (in the case of the hijab) to speak for them about how oppressed they are, or (in places like France) even pass laws against wearing it. I understand that people’s free choices are constrained by the society we live in, but sometimes people take that argument to absurd extents. Wearing a skirt is not necessarily an anti-feminist act.

        1. The response to this is best illustrated by two extremes:

          Gloria Steinem stops by a mosque one day, wanders in, decides to convert, and decides to start wearing a hijab around NYC as a means of demonstrating her respect for her new-found religion. She says she wants to and is doing it by choice.

          Jane Doelives in a fundamentalist Islamic state where non-covered women are often punished. She is raised by a fundamentalist Muslim family, turned 18 yesterday, lives at home, and is wearing a hijab. She also says she wants to and is doing it by choice.

          You have three basic options:
          A) Treat them both as “free choice” since they’re both adults.

          B) Insert your own sensibilities into the mix. Many people would probably conclude that Gloria is acting “freely,” but Jane is not. This is a problem, though: you have to act like you know better than them what they think. You’re replacing one type of oversight with another, and claiming status as judge.

          c) Conclude that you don’t have to consider their innermost desires either way because the fundamental aspects are a problem irrespective of the motivations of the person wearing it.

          Yes, you may be unreasonably condemning Gloria–or Jane, for that matter, if her choice was actually “free.” But free people don’t have a right to have their choices unchallenged. Your opinion doesn’t remove their freedom to do as they choose. And it saves you from the implicit commentary and judgment on their innermost thought processes.

          I think the third option is the most ethical choice, for that reason. It may sometimes result in over-condemnation, but so be it.

        2. I think the third option is the most ethical choice, for that reason. It may sometimes result in over-condemnation, but so be it.

          That’s because someone like you never considers:

          d) Mind your own fucking business.

        3. you don’t have to consider their innermost desires either way because the fundamental aspects are a problem irrespective of the motivations of the person wearing it.

          You don’t have to consider their innermost desires, in fact you don’t have to consider their feelings at all…if you’re an inconsiderate jerk.

        4. That’s because someone like you never considers:

          d) Mind your own fucking business.

          So feminist analysis of patriarchal norms is just nosiness?

        5. So feminist analysis of patriarchal norms women’s individual personal choices is just nosiness?

          There, corrected that for you.

          and, um, yes,

        6. Wearing particular gendered clothes (butch, femme, and whatnot) is misogynistic, but only in the sense that every single gendered cultural signifier is constructed by the totality of patriarchy and intersecting oppressions. Which I believe is trivial; women and all of that which is associated with them are both defined in relation with men and masculinity, because patriarchy creates women as objects of men. It’s not difficult to show how, say, a particular garment associated with women and worn by women has its roots in misogynistic history.

          When someone singles out a particular signifier, such as the hijab, as an example of a gendered cultural signifier that’s a “problematic and misogynistic article of clothing” shaped by Islamic beliefs and practices, they need to actually make a convincing case as to why the garment has to be known as particularly misogynistic, deserving of special attention. The truth is that the only difference between traditional Muslimah garments and non-Muslim women’s garments specific to all other cultures and styles is simply that the former are Islamic in origin and therefore shaped by Islamic cultures – be it aesthetically or symbolically or whatever. And both kinds of garments are equally misogynistic, in the sense of being, like all other gendered cultural signifiers, products of patriarchy.

          In other words, if you single out Muslimah women wearing traditional attire as an example of harsher misogyny relative to non-Muslim women’s attire (traditional or otherwise), then you’re basically saying that Muslim cultures are inherently more patriarchal than non-Muslim cultures with respect to fashion standards. Which is Islamophobic nonsense, I hope you’ll agree. It also has the effect of silencing the voices of Muslimahs in traditional attire. It erases the variance of opinions among Muslim men and women regarding the rules of women’s attire, reducing the narratives of Muslim women and girls to just one narrative of them being passive victims who only wore hijabs and burqahs and niqabs and so on out of being forced to do so. When hijabis say that they wear the hijab by their own volition, they mean that wear it on their own terms and not those of Muslim men. And if you want to make any effort at all to be supportive of Muslims, you should never apply a non-Muslim savior approach to analyzing them.

        7. And to be clear, by singling out Muslim women’s clothing, all you’re really doing is exaggerating to the extent that wearing something like a hijab becomes seen, in any context, as just as misogynistic as a man blaming a woman for rape. Just because many ways in which the wearing of the hijab has been legally enforced comes from particular conservative Islamic legal philosophies that are patriarchal, doesn’t mean that a woman who supports the wearing of the hijab as a choice is automatically supportive of that kind of legal enforcement.

        8. In other words, if you single out Muslimah women wearing traditional attire as an example of harsher misogyny relative to non-Muslim women’s attire (traditional or otherwise), then you’re basically saying that Muslim cultures are inherently more patriarchal than non-Muslim cultures with respect to fashion standards. Which is Islamophobic nonsense, I hope you’ll agree.

          Yes, with the caveat that there are specific Muslim cultures/countries with extraordinarily (and as far as I know, uniquely) misogynistic laws/norms surrounding fashion. Saudi Arabia’s religious police are often tremendously violent against women who don’t cover their face, for example.

          Also, I’d argue religion in general is prone to being particularly misogynistic, and the more influence religion has on government, the more misogynistic said government is likely to be (witness the result of Christian influence on legislatures here in the US). the Muslim world has a generally high degree of religious involvement with politics- for example, 17 of the 21 countries that require government officials to be a member of a specific religion are Muslim.

        9. Yes, with the caveat that there are specific Muslim cultures/countries with extraordinarily (and as far as I know, uniquely) misogynistic laws/norms surrounding fashion.

          Misogynistic fashion laws/norms are everywhere. They’re just manifested differently depending on social context. And certainly women in the US face all kinds of violent fashion policing at the hands of both law enforcement and citizens. While women who refuse to wear the hijab are punished by the mutaween for being immodest, hijabis in the US are punished by law enforcement for being towel-headed, terrorist women who need to be subjugated. Neither sounds more merciful to me, and that’s just one example. The punishment may be in the form of either actions in accordance with law enforcement roles or acts committed by misogynist, racist cops who don’t like to see the “evil” kinds of women and want to teach them a lesson or two for existing. In fact, as someone who has been to the Middle East, I’m way more scared of the cops here because of the sheer dominance of white people in US law enforcement.

          Saudi Arabia’s religious police are often tremendously violent against women who don’t cover their face, for example.

          Law enforcement isn’t any more misogynistic there than it is here. Cops here, as well as everywhere else, harass, assault, murder and rape women – particularly women of color, disabled women, poor/lower-class women, trans women, queer women, and sex workers – so often, with such impunity, that it’s no longer surprising for me to hear about a police officer (male or female) being a violent misogynist. Some of them are unlucky enough to be held accountable for their acts, and I know that misogynistic violence isn’t technically legal for cops here to commit. But does that legality even matter when, outlawed or not, almost none of the abusive conduct by cops actually gets them in trouble?

        10. I have to say, having grown up somewhere with all kinds of religiously-motivated legal persecution, I have very little patience with American liberals who think they’re being progressive when they argue that the ‘living in the US is just as bad when it comes to X.’ Of course oppression along sex/gender/racial/religious lines in the US is a brutal reality; nobody here is arguing that isn’t the case. But when you claim nowhere else in the world is worse, along any axis, you need to check your privilege.

          For example; atheists are incredibly distrusted in the US. Oppression against atheists is absolutely a lived reality, for me and plenty of my friends. I’ve been violently assaulted for being an atheist, and I’ve had my complaints to authority figures been discounted because, by stating I was an atheist, I was insulting religious people’s deeply held beliefs, and ‘what did I expect?’

          And yet? In the US, I can’t be imprisoned and then executed for my lack of religious belief. And if if someone complained about atheists facing the death penalty in Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates or Yemen, and I responded “yeah, well, the US is mean to atheists too,” I wouldn’t be pushing back against Islamaphobia or assumptions of US superiority, I’d be a privileged, self-centered faux-progressive.

        11. But does that legality even matter when, outlawed or not, almost none of the abusive conduct by cops actually gets them in trouble?

          As a matter of principle: yes, it really, really does. Legality doesn’t mean much in terms of what happens day to day, but it is in fact a Statement on what a society feels and doesn’t feel comfortable legitimising.

          To take examples that have affected people around me: I feel India is substantially more unsafe now that it has outlawed same-sex relations, because it demarcates homophobic acts as explicitly acceptable. I feel that no amount of being side-eyed or harassed for being non-Brahmin and on public transit has the same impact as being told one legally can’t ride public transit because of one’s caste. Having to stand up for my friends so they could visit the local temple, and dealing with the harassment and anger of the high-caste people that followed, was in no way comparable to the days in which we could all have been legally dragged before the village council and beaten, and my friends raped and/or murdered, for doing exactly that. Knowing that parts of Madras can be damn unsafe for women after dark was a whole other kettle of fish than those two months they seriously discussed mandatory curfews for women. I’m pretty sure my friends who ran away (from a literal mob with pitchforks) and got married back in 2012, despite being of different castes, are pretty damn glad that while it’s still socially dangerous to have an inter-caste marriage, at least they won’t be legally returned to their abusive, violent families by the cops for having broken the law. It sure is nice that my grandmother got to not get legally flung on my grandfather’s funeral pyre when he died back in the 1970s, even though his family treated her like shit for years afterwards and stole all her money and land! I really appreciate not being forcibly institutionalised and given shock treatments for being bisexual, even though I’m far from safe from homophobia.

          This is literally just what is actually in my own personal experience.

          tl;dr if you’re going to seriously suggest that “we don’t punish cops who violate [law meant to protect innocents]” has exactly the same social and legal impact as “punishing innocents is required by law”, you’re being naive to the point of stupidity, and ahistorical to the point of hilariousness. I don’t think legal protections mean that everything is puppies and sunshine and that nobody ever suffers from people violating laws without consequence, but goddamn, I think they tend to make for a better standard of living than legal oppressions, that’s for sure.

        12. Law enforcement isn’t any more misogynistic there than it is here.

          I assume you’re an American who’s lived here your entire life? Because statements like this are utterly ignorant.

          For example: does the way the US investigates/ prosecutes claims of rape suck? Yes. But In Saudi Arabia, marital and statutory rape aren’t illegal at all. Rape victims are typically sentenced to equally or harsher punishments than their rapists. Women’s testimony is legally worth half that of a man.

          So when you say “as a woman in the US, I’m faced with exactly the same level of misogyny in the legal system as Saudi women,” you’re denying your privilege in an incredibly offensive manner.

        13. Ok, I see what both of you are getting at here. It’s not unreasonable for one to say that the misogynistic laws in one place can potentially lead to better/worse conditions of life for women relative to other places, legally speaking. With explicitly misogynist laws comes, as mac pointed out, increased visibility of women targeted by those laws and therefore increased enforcement of those laws. I’m sorry for implying otherwise and talking over others, and I don’t want to erase mac’s experiences. Whether or not some experiences of misogyny are worse in India as a result of certain legalities and illegalities, is something that only someone who actually has the relevant background can say for sure.

          The main thing I’m still not comfortable with in this thread is the subtle implication that certain POC societies situated in the Global South – in this case some Muslim societies in the Middle East – are worse than Western societies elsewhere, and more specifically the implication that such a claim is only ever made without a racist impact. (To be clear, I’m not accusing mac of saying such a thing.) It’s racist in the sense that it implies that certain Muslim societies are more misogynist, as well as racist in the sense that it ignores the ways in which countless women outside of those Muslim societies still face strong persecution – legally and extra-legally – despite formal legal differences.

          Even though experiences of women can differ according to what kinds of life conditions arise from certain laws addressing women, and those experiences may be better or worse, that doesn’t hint at a greater degree of being patriarchal. Laws often correlate with social norms, but the norms, more often than not, remain in spite of the laws that otherwise lead to better conditions of life for women. I hope I’m making sense here.

        14. It may be helpful for me to condense what I want to say here:

          When someone says that, for example, a Muslim society is more patriarchal than a non-Muslim society due to certain legal specificities that uniquely affect women in the former, they are basically implying that (at least) Muslim men, the upholders and enforcers of patriarchy, are more misogynist than non-Muslim men. I think that one can hold this view without denying the realities of Muslimahs who live under brutal laws that greatly worsen their living conditions relative to how they live without those laws.

        15. The main thing I’m still not comfortable with in this thread is the subtle implication that certain POC societies situated in the Global South – in this case some Muslim societies in the Middle East – are worse than Western societies elsewhere

          It’s not a subtle implication. I’ll come right out and say it – I think (generally) Saudi Arabia is worse for women than the US. I think Turkey is (generally) better for women than India. I think Pakistan is (generally) better for trans people than Sweden. I think Dubai is (generally) worse for migrant workers than Canada. These are not some wishy-washy “who can even tell?” shrug-inducing things – you can literally wind up in jail in SA for driving as a woman, but not in the US. You can literally be ordered by a judge to marry your rapist in India, but not in Turkey. Pakistan doesn’t require trans people to forcibly get sterilised before they can change their official paperwork. And so on and so forth. This shit is measurable – in body counts, in median incomes, in legal rights and social acceptance of individual freedoms, in rights to employment and freedom of religion; Muslim societies wind up somewhere on the scale just the same as the rest of us. And for you to suggest that it’s somehow gauche or racist to judge Muslim societies because reasons is kind of stupid; Muslim-majority societies are not the only ones I judge, and be damned if I’m going to sit here and let some USian lecture at me about how US women are exactly as persecuted as women everywhere else. It’s offensive as hell, to be honest, to claim that “100% of women are not allowed to divorce their rapist husbands in the Philippines” is indicative of exactly as much social misogyny as “judges are reluctant to believe marital rape cases in the United States”. Judicial misogyny doesn’t develop spontaneously like some kind of grody Pokemon. It is in fact indicative of social misogyny, and your insistence on separating cause from effect is weirdly anti-rational.

          Would it be offensive if I said ALL Muslim societies are INHERENTLY more patriarchal than Western ones? Yep. It would also be inaccurate as fuck. Speaking as an AFAB type human, I’d live in Turkey over Ireland any day. Rather live in Pakistan than Romania. Etc etc. However, to say that the statement “[given Muslim society] is [better/worse] than [given non-Muslim society] in [particular aspect of civil rights] where [particular minority in question] is concerned” is racist? That’s pretty much just bizarre. And I say this as someone who (unlike you) has grown up in one of those POC societies in that Global South you’re all over defending. I do not see how pretending that India has the same – exactly the same – level of misogyny as Canada improves any Indian woman’s life (mine included).

          When someone says that, for example, a Muslim society is more patriarchal than a non-Muslim society due to certain legal specificities that uniquely affect women in the former, they are basically implying that (at least) Muslim men, the upholders and enforcers of patriarchy, are more misogynist than non-Muslim men.

          I think that SOME Muslim societies are more misogynistic than others. I think that SOME Muslim men are more misogynistic than others. I also think that SOME Muslim societies are less misogynistic than others, and that SOME Muslim men are less misogynistic than others. Nuance: it’s a good thing. And I’m not going to pretend that every single Muslim person and society out there is a freakin’ angel of liberty and whatever, and that Saudi Arabia is somehow as awesome for women as Canada or Sweden, in order to not be accused of being prejudiced against Muslims and the Global South by someone who’s from the United Goddamn States.

        16. And I say this as someone who (unlike you) has grown up in one of those POC societies in that Global South you’re all over defending.

          This. I don’t know if I articulated it well in my post, but there’s something really distasteful about an American woman insisting that as a class, American women have it just as bad as any other women, in any other place. Worse is defending that self-centered privilege by accusing women who actually are from the Global South of being prejudiced against their own countries, for not agreeing that Americans have it just as bad. Just… stop.

          It’s not a perfect analogy but it reminds me of this ultra-progressive guy I knew in school who would disrupt conferences on global poverty with a protest that essentially boiled down to “my student loans are really high and I make minimum wage, why aren’t you talking about people like me.” I mean, yeah, student loans are ridiculously exploitative, and yeah, the minimum wage is way too low, but come on.

          I think Pakistan is (generally) better for trans people than Sweden.

          Off-topic, but more people should know about this. Pakistan isn’t perfect on trans* rights by any means, but you can get a state ID matching your either gender identity or ‘other,’ plus trans* individuals are given preference for government positions, which is a damn sight more progressive than most US municipalities.

        17. Off-topic, but more people should know about this. Pakistan isn’t perfect on trans* rights by any means, but you can get a state ID matching your either gender identity or ‘other,’ plus trans* individuals are given preference for government positions, which is a damn sight more progressive than most US municipalities.

          Pakistan, Nepal and Argentina are currently in the forefront of trans rights afaict (that’s one Muslim, one Hindu and one Catholic country, and 3/3 in the Global South, for anyone keeping count). All of which are more progressive than the US (or the UK or much of Europe – have you SEEN that godawful marriage bill????)

        18. Fat Steve
          April 3, 2015 at 4:42 pm | Permalink
          you don’t have to consider their innermost desires either way because the fundamental aspects are a problem irrespective of the motivations of the person wearing it.

          You don’t have to consider their innermost desires, in fact you don’t have to consider their feelings at all…if you’re an inconsiderate jerk.

          Heh. For someone who can’t take it, you sure do like to sling it. not that i’m a giraffe-summoning type, but…. odd.

          Anyway.

          Unsurprisingly, you’re missing the point.

          If you take your logic straight up: “don’t criticize women’s personal choices” then you end up not criticizing half of the planet or (unless you can think of some reason to exclude men) not really criticizing anyone.

          That is, to put it mildly, a very poor form of social analysis.

          More reasonable to to recognize that someone may be making a choice, or being coerced, or–more likely–falling somewhere between those poles. So you have to look at the actions. At which point you don’t really care about the personal motivations of the people.

          You can do that, of course. You probably do, right? Folks can support things when done for the “right” reasons and dislike them when done for the “wrong” reasons. They just don’t realize that they’re inserting their own morality to a much greater degree than if they just judge actions.

          Aaliyah says:
          The main thing I’m still not comfortable with in this thread is the subtle implication that certain POC societies situated in the Global South – in this case some Muslim societies in the Middle East – are worse than Western societies elsewhere,

          They are. I’m sorry that makes you uncomfortable.

          First of all it would be incorrect to call this “racist,” since a society is not a race and this has nothing to do with individuals. Just averages. Stick someone in SA from birth–me included–and they are likely to absorb the bad parts. Stick them in Sweden and they’re likely to end up differently; same with the US or anywhere else.

          but

          When someone says that, for example, a Muslim society is more patriarchal than a non-Muslim society due to certain legal specificities that uniquely affect women in the former, they are basically implying that (at least) Muslim men, the upholders and enforcers of patriarchy, are more misogynist than non-Muslim men

          mostly has to do with fundamentalism. Highly religious fundamentalists, generally speaking, are pretty whacked out. Large groups of fundamentalists tend to do bad shit to everyone.

          It just so happens that a lot of Muslim countries have unusually high concentrations of fundamentalist Muslims AND ALSO unusually low concentrations of openly-competing non-fundamentalists or alternate religions. Which tends to be at least a bit self-sustaining, since the fundamentalists make it difficult for non-fundamentalists/alternates to come to power.

          Is this related to Islam? I don’t know: maybe. It seems possible that Islam may be one of those religions that seems to inherently encourage a higher degree of fundamentalism (another example seems to be the Mormon church.) Or it may just be bad luck.

          1. First of all it would be incorrect to call this “racist,” since a society is not a race and this has nothing to do with individuals.

            Just a general note on how much I detest goalpost-shifting on whether derogatory stereotypes based on religious affiliation are or are not “racism” – it’s only one step away from the disingenuity deployed by the “races are not scientifically real anyway therefore racism doesn’t exist” crowd. Most people deduce the religion of others based on “racial” signifiers such as skin/hair/eye colour and culturally distinctive clothing, and the stereotypes engaged whether negative or positive tend to cluster around perceived “race”. “Race” is also a word that has changed its usage over time – there are plenty of writings which speak of the Irish race versus the English race for instance, and plenty much older extolling the virtues of the Roman race and even the Christian race. The fact that the definition of “race” is fuzzy doesn’t mean that the definition of “racism” is fuzzy – anyone who is pointing at a culturally distinct group they’re not a member of and generalising about them is treading the borders of that territory, so take a great deal of care with your arguments, please.

        19. It seems possible that Islam may be one of those religions that seems to inherently encourage a higher degree of fundamentalism

          You’re hilariously wrong. Check back in once you’ve read one (1) book about the history of Christianity, or Hindu fundamentalism, or Buddhist fundamentalism, or or or…

        20. TW: sexual assault, abuse

          The US is not progressive. Just because it has official legal protections (AKA conditional privileges reserved for privileged women in this country) that don’t exist in places like Saudi Arabia doesn’t actually mean it’s more progressive and less misogynistic. I’m glad that there are women in India and Saudi Arabia and so on who are benefiting from legal reform or certain legal permissions in the US, and it’s obviously not wrong for them to be grateful, but that doesn’t change the fact that the US isn’t any less misogynistic – it just has some forms of misogyny manifested in different ways. Contrary to popular belief, quite a few women don’t actually have any access to legal recourse, and without such access, those “protections” don’t mean anything for them.

          Black and Native women, and to a lesser – but still significant – extent, other women of color who are attacked by white men with impunity lack that access, due to our genocidal government deliberately never holding those men accountable or even giving them a slap on the wrist unless those dudes happen to be really unlucky.

          Poor and homeless women who get raped and abused by husbands and boyfriends and so on don’t have that access either, due to lacking among other things money that would help them access legal resources in any way and the institutional privilege that gives class-privileged women advantage when seeking legal and financial and housing accommodations. And that’s on top of their already extremely limited or non-existent access to vital resources like food and potable water and shelter and health insurance.

          Nor do we trans women, raped, abused and murdered by angry transmisogynistic cis people who receive more sympathy for engaging in “self-defense” against our inconvenient and intolerable existence than our own suffering, have any way to use the law to our advantage unless we’re lucky or privileged. I have middle-class and white-passing privilege as well as privilege for not being a sex worker, so there is a lot I’m shielded from and always will be. But it’s impossible for me to count the friends who are trans women and haven’t been raped and abused with impunity by cis men and women, and even with my privileges I’m still vulnerable to transmisogynistic violence without legal recourse. I live with the expectation that either I or one of my friends will be sexually assaulted again, and like before unable to fight back legally.

          All of this and more is even worse when the perpetrators of this misogyny are cops, marginalized or not. No one holds cops accountable (at least not the white male ones, though they’re still in a comfy legal position as cops) for their violence except people in higher positions of power, and even then only actually do so when it becomes too difficult and costly to cover up all of the awful shit that cops do – with their permission in the first place. I know poor trans women who were raped by cops and threatened with assault charges if they resisted the rapes in any way.

          If anyone can give me an example of an actual privilege that USian women have over women in a country like Saudi Arabia, then I’ll reconsider my words. But otherwise, I’m going to stick to what I’m saying about this country.

        21. I have my latest comment in moderation due to its length. If anyone wants to respond to it (if it comes out of the mod queue), go ahead. I’m done with this thread and I don’t have the wherewithal to keep arguing.

        22. You’re hilariously wrong. Check back in once you’ve read one (1) book about the history of Christianity, or Hindu fundamentalism, or Buddhist fundamentalism, or or or…

          This.

          The issue in much (certainly not all) of the Muslim world isn’t that Islam is an unusually problematic religion, it’s that for a variety of historical reasons- many of them tied to European colonialism- Islam is deeply ingrained with political structures. Secular societies are generally better societies to live in, and most of the societies that happen to be predominantly Muslim, also happen to be relatively non-secular.

          I could get into a long history of 20th century political Islamic movements and their roots in the struggle against colonialism and the imposition of Western ‘modernity,’ but that’s probably a longer conversation.

        23. If you need more proof of that, just look at what happens to women’s/LGBT rights in places where Christians are able to amass sufficient political power to enact their theological agenda. Like, say, state legislatures all over the US.

        24. Just look at what happens to women’s/LGBT rights in places where Christians are able to amass sufficient political power to enact their theological agenda. Like, say, state legislatures all over the US.

          Well, first, how do they get that political power? Weren’t people arguing “free choice” in this very thread?

          I ask because it turns out that if you look at presidential elections as an example, TONS of women (who remain a numerical majority in the US) end up voting for candidates with relatively anti-women viewpoints. Makes no sense to me, but…

          And even then, the laws tend not to target people for discrimination per se, but merely to reduce the degree to which people can call on the government to protect them from private discrimination by other people.

          That isn’t good, of course, but it is not really equivalent to formal government discrimination–or worse yet, the use of government police power to compel discrimination.

        25. If anyone can give me an example of an actual privilege that USian women have over women in a country like Saudi Arabia, then I’ll reconsider my words.

          Women are not legally imprisoned for driving alone in the United States.

          Atheist women do not face the death penalty for being atheists in the United States.

          Women are not sent to jail for consensual adultery in the United States.

          It is possible for US women to take a man to court for rape without also risking being sentenced to jail time (whether or not he goes free being a different matter).

          Next.

          I’m glad that there are women in India and Saudi Arabia and so on who are benefiting from legal reform or certain legal permissions in the US

          Okay, wow, that’s deeply disingenuous. All of my Indian examples were specifically about how legal protections have in fact, you know, protected people (imperfectly, but a hit-and-miss 50% effective legal protection still means 50% fewer dead bodies than 100% effective legal oppression) entirely within the country of protection. I said doodlysquish about Indian women in North America. You could maybe try not thinking about the US for one entire sentence.

          And at no point, ftr, am I saying that the US is some paradise of glory and freedom – I am well aware of black and Native women’s oppressions in the US, and I don’t freakin’ appreciate being condescended to on that by you. I’m pointing out that while people are being abused by flawed [system of legal protection] left right and centre, it is at least better than a goddamn LACK of a system, or worse, a system that has specifically and openly been set in place to abuse. If you’re going to use black people as a talking point, then I might point out the difference between the current (racist, abusive, but with legal protections) system and the former (slaveholding, legally oppressive) system. Like fuck, I do not think black people in Ferguson are all happy sunshine, and I think that they are being horribly abused by a bunch of racists, but I also don’t think they’re being subjected to forcible unanaesthetised surgery for medical research and having their babies used for alligator bait. Nuance, once again, is your friend.

        26. The fact that you can list bad things that happen in the US isn’t an argument that nowhere else do worse things happen with greater regularity. Your argument is exactly as ignorant and privileged as people who claim that because sometimes white people get beaten up by the cops too, racism isn’t a thing.

          I’m glad that there are women in India and Saudi Arabia and so on who are benefiting from legal reform or certain legal permissions in the US,

          Stop fucking condescending to the two people on this thread who actually are from the countries you’re talking about. Jesus Christ, it’s not always about you.

          If anyone can give me an example of an actual privilege that USian women have over women in a country like Saudi Arabia, then I’ll reconsider my words.

          Driving. Not being sentenced to jail, flogging, or execution for being raped. Not being executed for adultery. Being allowed to open a bank account, divorce, go to college, travel out of the country, or take a job without the permission of a male guardian. Being allowed to have life-saving medical procedures without the permission of a male guardian (and no, the fact that abortion restrictions exist in the US does not mean the US is just as dangerous for women’s health as a country where women routinely die because the doctors can’t find a male family member to give permission for any surgery in time to save their life). Being allowed to stay married even if their brother or father decides they want to force them to be divorced. Not being legally married at eight years old. Being allowed to appear in public with a niquab.

          But otherwise, I’m going to stick to what I’m saying about this country.

          I don’t even know how to fucking to this piece of unmitigated privileged [overly personalised descriptors snipped by moderators] bullshit. We need a giraffe here.

          [thank you for sending a giraffe alert ~ mods]

        27. [overly personalised descriptors snipped by moderators]

          I realize how irritating having moderation second guessed must be (and I’m especially sorry because I know there’s been a lot of that going around) but the words I chose weren’t gendered, or discriminatory in any other way; they were an expression of revulsion at someone’s infuriating, repeated refusal to check their privilege. I find that moderation decision a little frustrating as a result.

          Calling people assholes for misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism etc. seems to be OK, but when it’s aggressive, persistent, and unapologetic first world privilege in the form of condescending lecturing towards women from the actual global south, it’s over the line?

          1. If you’d used the word asshole it wouldn’t have been moderated, FYI. Take another look at the words I snipped and think on the differences.

        28. Not flouncing- I’ll be back- but I’m going to step away from this blog for a while. Feeling unhealthily angry and frustrated. I’ll read/respond to anything after this when I come back.

        29. Heh. For someone who can’t take it, you sure do like to sling it. not that i’m a giraffe-summoning type, but…. odd.

          Anyway.

          Unsurprisingly, you’re missing the point.

          If you take your logic straight up: “don’t criticize women’s personal choices” then you end up not criticizing half of the planet or (unless you can think of some reason to exclude men) not really criticizing anyone.

          You (specifically) used the term ‘you’ (generally) in the quote “you don’t have to consider their innermost desires” and that is how I used it, not as an attack on you (specifically.) So, whilst I think it’s inaccurate to label my argument as an ad hominem or personal attack, although if it makes you feel better, it’s fine with me.

          And my logic straight up is ‘don’t impose yourself on anyone’s personal choices if they don’t hurt anyone.’ Which means not imposing yourself on the entire planet’s personal coices (unless they directly harm someone)

        30. Aaliyah, I know you’ve said that you won’t engage further in the conversation, but it would still seem to me that out of all the non-U.S. countries in the world, you picked one of the worst ones, in Saudi Arabia, to support your argument. The fact that only X% (with X being some number quite a bit < 100) of women in the USA are able to take advantage of all the theoretical legal rights and protections they should have here is still better than a place where 0% can, because those rights and protections don't exist in the first place. As both mac and ludlow have pointed out.

          I also know you've said many times here how much you hate the USA, but as far as I know it's the only country you've ever lived in, so that hatred — as justified as it may be, for all the reasons you've so often stated — isn't necessarily a basis for assuming that any given other country (in the Islamic world or otherwise) is "better" for women.

          You also seem to forget that you and I could not exist as we do in Saudi Arabia, because (to the best of my understanding) legal transition is impossible there. (See http://www.wafagal.com/2012/09/guest-post-life-of-transsexual-in-saudi.html.) The fact that a country is part of the Islamic world doesn't mean that it's "bad" for trans people (as ludlow pointed out about Pakistan), but again, Saudi Arabia is a terrible example. So yes, the USA is better for trans women than Saudi Arabia.

          Of course, I also couldn't exist there as a Jewish woman, at least openly; there are no Jews living in Saudi Arabia and the open practice of any religion other than Islam is not possible.

        31. I know I said I wouldn’t talk in this thread any more, but having seen the latest responses I want to apologize for being incredibly dismissive and narrow-minded. It’s clear that a woman who lives in a country where her right to drive, for instance, is legally protected has a greater access to resources than a woman who lives in a country where she doesn’t have such a legal protection and is instead punished for driving. And that would mean that the former has privilege over the latter.

          It was foolish of me to insist that there is no possibility of privilege that arises from specific legal freedoms. I don’t think that the most marginalized women in this country actually benefit from those freedoms, because ever since the beginning of this state their rights have been persistently denied. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for less marginalized women to benefit from legal protections that don’t exist where they previously lived and/or those new legal protections where they currently live.

          My reason for jumping at people was that something touched my nerve. I’ve had many conversations in the past with people who downplay what happens to countless women in the US and who also emphasize that POC societies are more misogynistic than Western societies in order to push an explicitly racist, Islamophobic agenda. I was strongly getting that feeling from a_lawyer when he was talking about the hijab deserving of being singled out as misogynistic, so when I saw other people seemingly support the notion that it’s not unreasonable to single out Muslim societies as more misogynistic, I got upset. I went way too far and became completely oblivious, stepping on people in the process with perspectives I was barely acknowledging. And I’m very sorry that I not only caused this mess, but also ended up being hurtful and super condescending. I’m sorry to mac and ludlow specifically, for talking over them.

        32. To address this:

          If you’re going to use black people as a talking point, then I might point out the difference between the current (racist, abusive, but with legal protections) system and the former (slaveholding, legally oppressive) system. Like fuck, I do not think black people in Ferguson are all happy sunshine, and I think that they are being horribly abused by a bunch of racists, but I also don’t think they’re being subjected to forcible unanaesthetised surgery for medical research and having their babies used for alligator bait.

          Slavery is still legal in this country, within the prison industrial complex. It did not die with the abolition of slavery in US history that liberal apologists continue to see as the actual end of slavery – had slavery been actually abolished, it would be a devastating blow to the economy due to the economic necessity of slave labor that began with the foundation of this settler state. So it only makes sense that slavery would be reformulated so as to avoid that kind of severe loss. The Constitution itself permits the enslavement of individuals as a punitive practice.

          And although Black people technically have rights equal to those of people of all other races, antiblackness remains as strong and brutal as ever in this country. Situations such as those in Ferguson are the norm and not the exception in the US. It’s just that many instances of entire police departments being violently anti-Black aren’t given much exposure in the media and often aren’t known at all except by the Black people who live under the violence. Just because there are more legal protections for them now doesn’t really alter the reality of ongoing genocide of Black people. They are still exploited and murdered and abused and enslaved on a massive scale like they always have ever since antiblackness manifested in this part of the world. And many Black women are also still coerced into medical operations such as sterilization, as well as other forms of reproductive violence against Black women. Just because it’s technically illegal now doesn’t mean that anyone who is in the position of doing that doesn’t still have enough institutional power to get away with it. Society functions as it does, through official legalities and through tolerated illegalities. Anti-Black genocide remains with or without laws that formally support it.

        33. Ok, calmed down a bit. Let me try to put this in less emotional terms.

          To sum it up simply, Aaliyah, you’re continually repeating the same fundamental logical error. You’re acting as if the statement:

          1) X is bad

          is a counterargument to:

          2) X is not as bad as Y.

          Yes, anti-black racism exists in the United States. No, it is not as bad as slavery was. The fact that you think a prolonged description current anti-black racism is even vaguely relevant to Maccavity’s point that slavery was worse, is indicative of a worldview with absolutely zero room for nuance.

          Please, please allow some shades of grey into your black and white absolutism.

        34. Just because there are more legal protections for them now doesn’t really alter the reality of ongoing genocide of Black people.

          I mean, this is just flat-out wrong. If you really think that the end of slavery, or the Civil Rights movement, did absolutely nothing to alter the lived experiences of black people in the US, I think you’re erasing the massive amount of work that black Americans have done to do exactly that.

          I’m not black, so I don’t want to overstep, but I actually think the suggestion that the lived experiences of black people in 2015 are literally as bad as they were under chattel slavery is kinda… racist? Or at least patronizing? I’d certainly feel like it was if you were talking about anti-Asian racism.

          Or, to use one of my own identities as an analogy, as a woman who sometimes dates other women, I experience homophobia. But even within my lifetime, that experience has changed for the better. It’s not better for everyone, it’s not perfect, it’s still dependent on other intersectional identities, anti-gay hate crimes still happen, but the US in 2015 is a better place to be bi than it was in 1980, and definitely better than 1880.

          Please, please don’t respond with an extended lecture about how homophobia still exists; if you don’t understand why that’s not helpful, see my above post.

        35. If you really think that the end of slavery, or the Civil Rights movement, did absolutely nothing to alter the lived experiences of black people in the US, I think you’re erasing the massive amount of work that black Americans have done to do exactly that.

          I’m not black, so I don’t want to overstep, but I actually think the suggestion that the lived experiences of black people in 2015 are literally as bad as they were under chattel slavery is kinda… racist? Or at least patronizing? I’d certainly feel like it was if you were talking about anti-Asian racism.

          Of course those are major events of Black revolt that have shaped this country and the lives of Black people within it. I didn’t say their revolts were useless or meaningless, and even if I did I would be speaking from the completely wrong place anyway. But today this country has been at least just as genocidal against Black people as it was during the trans-atlantic slave trades, and it continues to profit from that genocide. All that has changed, fundamentally, is how specific forms of antiblackness manifest in society and its institutions.

          A good example can be found in the first article I linked to, which argues that the incarceration of Black people is a continuation of, not an improvement upon, plantation slavery. I suggest you read it and consider reading more about the prison industrial complex as analyzed by many Black writers and activists. Here’s a PDF you might be interested in that’s relevant.

        36. @Aaliyah:

          Nor do we trans women, raped, abused and murdered by angry transmisogynistic cis people who receive more sympathy for engaging in “self-defense” against our inconvenient and intolerable existence than our own suffering, have any way to use the law to our advantage unless we’re lucky or privileged.

          Can you please be honest and acknowledge that it is MEN who are responsible for this rape, abuse, and murder?

        37. @Aaliyah I appreciate the apology and the clarification. I have a lot to think about re: your statements on anti-black racism, though, as my knee-jerk reaction is still to disbelieve.

          @hattie

          Can you please be honest and acknowledge that it is MEN who are responsible for this rape, abuse, and murder?

          Hell no. Cis women are regularly responsible for beating trans women in bathrooms. Cis women do in fact sexually abuse people (I know you don’t want to think it but I’ve lived it) and it stands to reason that trans people of whatever gender are disproportionately the targets of cis women who rape and abuse. This isn’t about just men; the defense of cissexism comes from all sides.

          Sorry if I’m speaking up in Aaliyah’s place, but I also recognise that trans women talking about abusive cis women get disproportionately raged on, so here’s the AFAB chiming that, once again, HELL NO.

        38. tinfoil hattie, feel free to check out the latest spillover thread for my full response. Shorter response to your question: nope.

          Sorry if I’m speaking up in Aaliyah’s place, but I also recognise that trans women talking about abusive cis women get disproportionately raged on, so here’s the AFAB chiming that, once again, HELL NO.

          No worries – it saves me the extra effort.

        39. Can you please be honest and acknowledge that it is MEN who are responsible for this rape, abuse, and murder?

          Jesus, do we really have to re-litigate the existence of cis* privilege here?

      2. The coercion is the point, though, not the items itself. These conversations would be much more productive if we (the general we, not picking on anyone) could focus on the compulsion part as opposed to any individual items of apparel/grooming.

        1. Bingo. Because for one thing, the “individual items” are too numerous to list.

  18. As a Muslim woman, I have absolutely no problem with this story. This woman is respectful and well-intentioned. That’s all I need to know.

    The veil was an article of clothing that predated Islam. Many women in pre-Islamic Arabia wore some variation of it. Muslims don’t have a monopoly over the practice of wearing scarves over one’s head.

    But an obvious if not redundant point. Not all Muslim women wear the hijab. Many either struggle with it, or simply believe it’s not a necessary component of their religious faith. I don’t wear one. My sister does. As long as we’re treated the same, that’s all we need. No need to get bogged down in debates over white privilege.

  19. Since Aaliyah brought up anti blackness in the United States it is also worth mentioning that Arabs have their own tradition of anti blackness as well including the Arab slave trade which existed before the Europeans and depending on who’s numbers you go by killed a significant number of Africans. You also have Sudan where the Arab majority has been waging a war against its indigenious African population for quite some time now. And than in the Gulf countries such as Kuwait you have african women being sold into slavery http://financialjuneteenth.com/african-women-sold-into-slavery-in-kuwait-as-domestic-workers/ Make no mistake when it comes to the treatment of Africans niether Arabs or Europeans have a great record.

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