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rfmcdonald. . . from the BBC. I find that the opinions of Rachida Ziouche, Alice Schwarzer, and Binnaz Toprak still approximate my views most closely.
Also, the website of Ni putes Ni soumises, a group of banlieusards--including French Muslim women--opposed to the hijab.
I don't know why I feel so emotionally involved in this debate. Perhaps it's because of the fact that, if conservative Christianities were still anywhere near as effective in enforcing their hegemony over society that they did a generation ago, my sexual orientation would have made my life a living hell. (Assuming I didn't break and kill myself. That would be a mercy, I think.) For me to have any kind of functioning life--never mind a happy life--the old-time religion of my grandparents' era had to die. It was better that it died of apathy rather than active hostility--there's much less suffering in the former case than in the latter, cf the Soviet Union--but good that it's dead, I'm afraid I have to say.
(And to think that I used to sincerely and enthusiastically attend Sunday School.)
I don't want to have to worry about any other hegemonic religion or ideology, run by bastards with nothing better to do than to enforce whatever hierarchies they want, ever being allowed to threaten people who don't want to belong to the community run by said religion or ideology or traditional culture. People have to be able to opt out.
My concern on this subject is particularly for minor children, as distinct from adults who are capable of making decisions of their own on this subject. What, exactly, would it feel like for a girl to be told that in order to be a good person she has to cover her body entirely, unlike her brothers, or her father? What does it mean? (Read here for one perspective, not sympathetic to the proposed ban.) The assumption behind the necessity of the veil seems to be that the female body is uniquely dangerous, whether because of what it exposed does to others, or because of what it exposes females themselves to. The sin of Eve carried onto all of her daughters, forever and ever, and so on. (That, or a proprietary nature towards the female body on the part of men.)
Religions and traditional cultures, by their very conservative natures, seek to organize society according to their visions of how things ought to be. Inasmuch as this goes, I'm definitely hostile towards legitimating any traditions which (say) keep minor children confined because they're girls, or send them off to be reeducated at church camps into heterosexuality, or makes them clean the house because they're mixed-race and so good labourers if inferior beings. Hell, I'm hostile to the legitimation of any ideology which favours punishing children--or, for that matter, adults--because of innate characteristics which a) are beyond anyone's control, including their own and b) aren't immoral at all.
I'm not sure how coherent my argument is, mind. I do believe, though, that people should have the right to opt out of hegemonic visions which are personally threatening. I believe that the state, as a neutral enabler, should not support the expression of these hegemonic visions in the institutions includnig under its aegis, that it should create a space for free expression. It should be possible, if you're a woman, not to physically isolate yourself from the surrounding world; it should be possible, if you're not straight, to be able to expect to date and love; it should be possible, if your physiognomy differs from whatever the local norm is, to be an equal.
If the practitioners of traditions which hold that these groups should retreat to positions of permanent inferiority are offended that their victims are escaping, well. They can happily commit anatomically impossible acts on themselves. By and large, we've broken the hegemonic power of the Christian churches and their associated traditions, after all. People have generally profited from it. Surely we should do the same to other religions and their associated traditions, simply out of our obligation to help people trapped in those cultures opt out?
And yet. Even as I'm on the verge of praising the energetic actions of successive radical French republics as templates for us moderns concerned with the question of how to force a recalcitrant and reactionary hegemonic religion to accept that it is no longer hegemonic, there is the fact that the hijab is voluntarily worn by many women, without specific pressure to do so, as a simple emblem of their membership in a particular group. In this respect, it's entirely harmless, its forcible suppression not only a crime but a mistake.
I think I'll avoid this debate as much as possible. It's an issue that can never be resolved satisfactorily, and my sympathies are too profoundly engaged at a certain very sensitive emotional level for my judgement to be objective. Or, at least, objective enough for my tastes.
Also, the website of Ni putes Ni soumises, a group of banlieusards--including French Muslim women--opposed to the hijab.
I don't know why I feel so emotionally involved in this debate. Perhaps it's because of the fact that, if conservative Christianities were still anywhere near as effective in enforcing their hegemony over society that they did a generation ago, my sexual orientation would have made my life a living hell. (Assuming I didn't break and kill myself. That would be a mercy, I think.) For me to have any kind of functioning life--never mind a happy life--the old-time religion of my grandparents' era had to die. It was better that it died of apathy rather than active hostility--there's much less suffering in the former case than in the latter, cf the Soviet Union--but good that it's dead, I'm afraid I have to say.
(And to think that I used to sincerely and enthusiastically attend Sunday School.)
I don't want to have to worry about any other hegemonic religion or ideology, run by bastards with nothing better to do than to enforce whatever hierarchies they want, ever being allowed to threaten people who don't want to belong to the community run by said religion or ideology or traditional culture. People have to be able to opt out.
My concern on this subject is particularly for minor children, as distinct from adults who are capable of making decisions of their own on this subject. What, exactly, would it feel like for a girl to be told that in order to be a good person she has to cover her body entirely, unlike her brothers, or her father? What does it mean? (Read here for one perspective, not sympathetic to the proposed ban.) The assumption behind the necessity of the veil seems to be that the female body is uniquely dangerous, whether because of what it exposed does to others, or because of what it exposes females themselves to. The sin of Eve carried onto all of her daughters, forever and ever, and so on. (That, or a proprietary nature towards the female body on the part of men.)
Religions and traditional cultures, by their very conservative natures, seek to organize society according to their visions of how things ought to be. Inasmuch as this goes, I'm definitely hostile towards legitimating any traditions which (say) keep minor children confined because they're girls, or send them off to be reeducated at church camps into heterosexuality, or makes them clean the house because they're mixed-race and so good labourers if inferior beings. Hell, I'm hostile to the legitimation of any ideology which favours punishing children--or, for that matter, adults--because of innate characteristics which a) are beyond anyone's control, including their own and b) aren't immoral at all.
I'm not sure how coherent my argument is, mind. I do believe, though, that people should have the right to opt out of hegemonic visions which are personally threatening. I believe that the state, as a neutral enabler, should not support the expression of these hegemonic visions in the institutions includnig under its aegis, that it should create a space for free expression. It should be possible, if you're a woman, not to physically isolate yourself from the surrounding world; it should be possible, if you're not straight, to be able to expect to date and love; it should be possible, if your physiognomy differs from whatever the local norm is, to be an equal.
If the practitioners of traditions which hold that these groups should retreat to positions of permanent inferiority are offended that their victims are escaping, well. They can happily commit anatomically impossible acts on themselves. By and large, we've broken the hegemonic power of the Christian churches and their associated traditions, after all. People have generally profited from it. Surely we should do the same to other religions and their associated traditions, simply out of our obligation to help people trapped in those cultures opt out?
And yet. Even as I'm on the verge of praising the energetic actions of successive radical French republics as templates for us moderns concerned with the question of how to force a recalcitrant and reactionary hegemonic religion to accept that it is no longer hegemonic, there is the fact that the hijab is voluntarily worn by many women, without specific pressure to do so, as a simple emblem of their membership in a particular group. In this respect, it's entirely harmless, its forcible suppression not only a crime but a mistake.
I think I'll avoid this debate as much as possible. It's an issue that can never be resolved satisfactorily, and my sympathies are too profoundly engaged at a certain very sensitive emotional level for my judgement to be objective. Or, at least, objective enough for my tastes.
