Even in the liberal West, it is an offence for women to go half naked revealing their whole breasts at public places, in educational institutes, at the churches and other places of worship? It is against public decency. There are restrictions on dress even in Europe, is my contention. So it is in Muslim countries. The difference is only in degree.
Absolute freedom is non-existent in any culture. Being social animals, men and women have animal magnetism and sex appeal. One can never deny the fact that when a young man looking at a woman revealing a major part of her firm, round, shapely and bulging breasts gets sexually excited and would have train of quite often lewd thoughts in his mind.
And in Islam we say, let men and women dress modestly not revealing more than what is necessary. This helps both to restrict their erotica, their sex urge. The following is a verse from the Muslim Holy Book called the QURAN, Quote,
“Tell believing men to lower their look and tell believing women to lower their gaze so that they will guard their modesty” this is a shariah law. Is it too much for Europeans to accept this?
We are not asking for the moon. As the French have fundamental rights, so do others? As it is the fundamental right of a European non-Muslim woman to reveal as much of her beauty as she likes, a Muslim woman has equal fundamental right to cover as much as she wants to cover.
Why does it bother some? It is simple prejudice and bias and hatred of other people’s culture. Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe as G.B.Shaw said Islam may be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today.
Princeton scholar Joan Scott has a really great book called "the Politics of the Veil" (2007). In her fifth and last chapter on sexuality, she writes, in my opinion, brilliantly:
"There is, then, a persistent contradiction in French political theory between political equality and sexual difference. Politicians and republican theorists have dealt with this contradiction by covering it over, [pun] by insisting that equality is possible while elevating the differences between the sexes to a distinctive cultural character trait - Ozouf's "singularite francaise." As if to prove that women cannot be abstracted from their sex (men, of course, can be), there is great emphasis on the visibility and openness of seductive play between women and men, and especially on the public display (and sexual desirability for men) of women's bodies. The demonstrable proof of women's difference has to be out there for all to see, at once a confirmation of the need for different treatment of them and a denial of the problem that sex poses for republican political theory. We might say then that. paradoxically, the objectification of women's sexuality serves to veil a constitutive contradiction of French republicanism. This is what I mean by the psychology of denial.
Islamic jurists deal with sexual difference in a way that avoid the contradiction of French republicanism by acknowledging directly that sex and sexuality pose problems (for society, for politics) that must be addressed and managed. The systems of address and management vary (neither the Taliban nor the ayatollahs of Iran represent all of Islam), and they may not seem acceptable to Western observers, but we do not have to accept them to understand what the dynamic is and why it might be so upsetting to French republicans. Modern dress, represented by the headscarf or veil for women and loose clothing for men, is a way of recognizing the potentially volatile and disruptive effects of sexual relations between women and men, driven by impulses, Hammoudi says, "that are a source of continuity, but also of merciless dangers and conflicts." [57] Modest dress declares that sexual relations are off-limits in public places. Some Muslim feminists say this actually liberates them, but whether it does or not, or whether, indeed, every woman who wears a headscarf understands it symbolism in this way, the veil signals the acceptance of sexuality and even its celebration, but only under proper circumstances - that is, in private, within the family. This is a psychology not of denial but of recognition."
Even in the liberal West, it is an offence for women to go half naked revealing their whole breasts at public places, in educational institutes, at the churches and other places of worship? It is against public decency. There are restrictions on dress even in Europe, is my contention. So it is in Muslim countries. The difference is only in degree.
ReplyDeleteAbsolute freedom is non-existent in any culture. Being social animals, men and women have animal magnetism and sex appeal. One can never deny the fact that when a young man looking at a woman revealing a major part of her firm, round, shapely and bulging breasts gets sexually excited and would have train of quite often lewd thoughts in his mind.
And in Islam we say, let men and women dress modestly not revealing more than what is necessary. This helps both to restrict their erotica, their sex urge. The following is a verse from the Muslim Holy Book called the QURAN, Quote,
“Tell believing men to lower their look and tell believing women to lower their gaze so that they will guard their modesty” this is a shariah law. Is it too much for Europeans to accept this?
We are not asking for the moon. As the French have fundamental rights, so do others? As it is the fundamental right of a European non-Muslim woman to reveal as much of her beauty as she likes, a Muslim woman has equal fundamental right to cover as much as she wants to cover.
Why does it bother some? It is simple prejudice and bias and hatred of other people’s culture. Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe as G.B.Shaw said Islam may be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today.
I agree. Very well put.
ReplyDeletePrinceton scholar Joan Scott has a really great book called "the Politics of the Veil" (2007). In her fifth and last chapter on sexuality, she writes, in my opinion, brilliantly:
"There is, then, a persistent contradiction in French political theory between political equality and sexual difference. Politicians and republican theorists have dealt with this contradiction by covering it over, [pun] by insisting that equality is possible while elevating the differences between the sexes to a distinctive cultural character trait - Ozouf's "singularite francaise." As if to prove that women cannot be abstracted from their sex (men, of course, can be), there is great emphasis on the visibility and openness of seductive play between women and men, and especially on the public display (and sexual desirability for men) of women's bodies. The demonstrable proof of women's difference has to be out there for all to see, at once a confirmation of the need for different treatment of them and a denial of the problem that sex poses for republican political theory. We might say then that. paradoxically, the objectification of women's sexuality serves to veil a constitutive contradiction of French republicanism. This is what I mean by the psychology of denial.
Islamic jurists deal with sexual difference in a way that avoid the contradiction of French republicanism by acknowledging directly that sex and sexuality pose problems (for society, for politics) that must be addressed and managed. The systems of address and management vary (neither the Taliban nor the ayatollahs of Iran represent all of Islam), and they may not seem acceptable to Western observers, but we do not have to accept them to understand what the dynamic is and why it might be so upsetting to French republicans. Modern dress, represented by the headscarf or veil for women and loose clothing for men, is a way of recognizing the potentially volatile and disruptive effects of sexual relations between women and men, driven by impulses, Hammoudi says, "that are a source of continuity, but also of merciless dangers and conflicts." [57] Modest dress declares that sexual relations are off-limits in public places. Some Muslim feminists say this actually liberates them, but whether it does or not, or whether, indeed, every woman who wears a headscarf understands it symbolism in this way, the veil signals the acceptance of sexuality and even its celebration, but only under proper circumstances - that is, in private, within the family. This is a psychology not of denial but of recognition."
-pg. 170-1
The introduction of the book is available here: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i8497.html
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