to address garrett dash nelson’s assertion that “Whoever’s feeling offended by working out in the presence of men needs to confront that first-order feeling of offense with a second-order understanding of integrability into La Plus Grande universal life”…
what does it mean to demand this???
feeling empowered to demand “integrability” is a kind of privilege.
and the demand is a kind of violence.
“offense” is not the proper word. the muslim women i know who might desire women-only work-out time (and this does not describe every muslim i know, let alone every muslim woman at harvard, let alone every muslim woman…it’s hard to imagine that the 1/8 of the world’s population that is the population of muslim women could be that homogenous) would not be “offended by working out in the presence of men.” “offense” is trivial. one is offended by a distasteful joke. “offense” is not “pain.”
undergirding nelson’s analysis, wells’ article, and the comments of many who posted on wells’ article, there exists an implicit disparity between the “offense” and the action. the action–pursuing women-only gym time–seems like an overreaction, pathologically so. a rational individual does not systematically pursue institutional change because s/he is offended. through the phrase “offended by working out in the presence of men,” the women who have pursued this policy are implicitly made to appear excessively sensitive, unfair in their demands, needy.
rather, i imagine that they might feel something much more acute than offended.
i do not say this because i am a muslim woman. i am not. but i do feel obligated to say what i know.
empathy is required here.
a woman i lived with briefly was a very observant practitioner of Islam. one time a man, a friend of mine, opened the door to our room when her head, neck and shoulders were uncovered. she reacted quickly and passionately, simultaneously demanding he leave (courteously) and grabbing something with which to cover herself. she followed up later by telling me about a particularly psychologically distressing moment when she was in the bathroom after showering, wearing only a towel, and a man walked in. he thought nothing of it. even made smalltalk with her, while her deep sense of moral and religious obligation was being violated by him, albeit unknowingly.
women throughout the muslim world make declarations about who they are and what they believe through their decision to cover or not cover themselves when in the presence of men. pamela taylor, an american, feminist muslim covers herself both as a statement of her muslimness, and as a way of protecting herself from sexual objectification. she also describes how different muslim women have employed the veil to make their own meanings. the hijab (veil) has been and meant different things at different times and places and continues to fluctuate in meaning, as taylor describes. it has been and continues to be a symbol of resistance (to westernness, sexual objectification) as well as an expression of a certain kind of goodness–one that centers women’s modesty. in a recent gallup poll, 8,000 muslim women from eight countries were interviewed, face-to-face. and while “a strong majority of Muslim women believe they should have the right to vote without influence, work outside the home and serve in the highest levels of government,” they did not consider themselves oppressed. in fact their main concerns were over other issues facing muslim countries: “a lack of unity among Muslim nations, violent extremism, and political and economic corruption.”
my roommate’s need to cover herself when in the presence of a man cannot be made sense of within the hegemonic western context. within this context a woman who feels intensely that she must shield her body from men’s eyes is read as squeamish, prudish, or perhaps most frequently, simply ashamed of her unsightly thighs. she is, in a word, “silly.” she is irrational. sick. this is precisely how many who commented on nicholas wells’ article interpreted these women’s expressed desire for women-only work-out time:
Mark
Some people do not feel comfortable working out with other people around. I am one of those. However, I will not demand that my gym make a “me only” set of hours to accomodate my comfort level. These 6 ladies need to get over themselves. Workout at home if you don’t feel comfortable showing some skin around other people. When the few control the many, that is when there is no longer a democracy.
Kenny
Well me and my ugly fat buddies want our own dedicated time to workout so that the ladies can’t see how white our fat legs really are and how much we swear just by walking around the gym. We thank these 6 girls for motivating us to fight for our right to workout without feeling insecure around the hot girls on campus.
but my roommate and others who share her passionately expressed need to be covered in the presence of men are not sick or silly. they are simply trying to live the lives that work for/make sense to/seem righteous to them.
i imagine there would be quite an uproar if HUDS decided tomorrow to stop providing vegetarian options. after all, vegetarian “specialty” foods like tofu, seitan, soy milk etc. are expensive, and it’s just easier, as well as cost effective, to make one soup instead of two, one entree instead of two. after all, vegetarians choose to be vegetarian, and they could leave their vegetarianism at harvard’s door if they wanted. they are not allergic to meat. and if they still insist on being vegetarian, then hell, let them eat salad and cereal three times a day. why should the majority make “concessions” to a minority whose refusal to eat meat derives from their particular “beliefs” or dare i say it, discomfort alone?
to the vegetarians out there (and i have been one for 11 years), would it not hurt for harvard (the administration, student body, various staffs) to misconstrue your ideologically informed choices vis-a-vis food as petty, unworthy of accommodation or notice, and implicitly, as pathological and wrong???
and if this hurts, it can be nothing next to the hurt a woman might feel whose campus does not allow her to practice what she sees as the dictums of her religion, for whatever reasons she feels compelled to follow those dictums.
when a people unified by a common moment of interpellation choose to step forward, knowing they walk into an avalanche of hate, misunderstanding, misrepresentation, ill will, otherization and pathologization, saying “our needs have not been met”…there is an imperative to listen.
i find it hard to conceive of any group of institutionally disempowered people that would make such a stand without the strongest conviction that something must change.
this is what is meant by the word “plea.” a plea comes from hardship, from being pushed. one never pleads for the fun of it. nor does one ever plead for something trite. a plea comes from one who is disempowered, and is directed to those who hold the power to change her situation.
this plea comes from an outraged muslim woman, blogging in response to david horowitz’s “Islamo-fascist Awareness Week“:
Every person of integrity, every peace loving and harmony seeking human; should set their prejudice (that was picked up from Hollywood and tabloid newspapers) aside and to try to answer the simple question: why do one quarter of the world chose Islam as a faith?
Is it not worth real investigations and honest research?To summarize, from a Muslim woman’s standpoint; our real oppression comes not from Islam, but rather from those who wage war against our people in the name of “democracy”, “liberation”, and spreading “civilised” values, while not only ignoring our feelings and opinions but also murdering our beloved ones, and destroying all that is dear in our lives.
To believe in God or not believe, to have a faith or not is not the issue, it will forever be matter of disagreement, it is the individual’s choice of how he/ she perceive the world; but what is of crucial importance for the survival of our world is: are we able to learn to live together -as compassionate human beings- with those differences by putting into practice our high principles of tolerance and respect of those who chose a different view of the world.
Finally, I call upon all truth and justice seekers, freedom hunters and peace lovers to exercise their right of FREEDOM of THOUGHT and investigate, examine, and explore this mystifying religion, and please do not think that I am proselytising, in fact this word sickens me…
All I am asking is: for the sake of a better future of our world, people need to educate themselves about the Islam, and not be afraid of KNOWLEDGE and AWAR[E]NESS.
who is going to decide what this “universal life” looks like? whose values are going to be valued? who has the power to make these decisions? to impose these decisions? and who will suffer for it?
2 responses so far ↓
en_dash // March 12, 2008 at 9:05 am |
I still don’t understand why protecting some people’s antimodern sensibilities is OK while we both agree it’s not for others. For example: if we’re going to plumb the unknowable ground that separates ‘offense’ from ‘pain’, it’s perfectly possible to suggest that a Christian fundamentalist feels pain at the sight of homosexual marriage or behavior, observing it, as he does, an invocation against God and morality. Yet we both would ask him to subsume that pain under our mutual desire to level out and equalize the privileges of modern life. Or, a secular example: who’s not to say that white suburbanites felt ‘pain’ at the premise of allowing black children into their neighborhoods and schools? Should we accommodate their desire to avoid this pain? Obviously not.
I don’t want to suggest that the entire world is rational and that society had it basically right around 1800 when they decided to pursue the Enlightenment. But when we get into issues of ‘pain’ or ‘feeling’, we’re on extremely difficult ground for public policy. On what argumentative frame do we distinguish between the pain felt by a Muslim woman who truly believes she cannot be unveiled near a man, the pain felt by a Christian who truly believes that homosexuality is a sin against God, or the pain felt by a white homeowner who feels that blacks degrade his way of life? It’s hard to impute anything more than just arbitrarily ‘taking sides’, and, in that case, nobody can be more correct than the other.
finluiniel // March 12, 2008 at 8:26 pm |
modernity, insofar as it is considered something desirable, is western hegemony, which i do not endorse.
and even on the level of “modern” or “antimodern”…a woman’s decision to cover herself (as i explained in my post) cannot be so easily categorized as repressive. rather, it can be empowering, or even, not really that big a deal (as it is to the billions of muslim women who cover themselves).
pain is ABSOLUTELY the ground we need to occupy when thinking about public policy. pain does not signal the need for immediate and uncritical change, it signals the need to LISTEN. it signals the need for dialogue. if a group of people is hurting, and the redress of their hurt hurts no one else…then what exactly is the problem? unless you subscribe to the paternalistic view that you simply know better than they do, what is Good, and appropriate, for whatever reason.
how does a woman deciding to cover herself hurt you? the women who initially fought for this change all agreed that their purpose was not to take rights away from men, or impose on anyone else, and in fact, that there should be accommodations made such that men could still be able to work out during the women-only-hours but elsewhere. their purpose was to make space for themselves to live without taking or imposing. now, you can argue that they have “imposed”…but that was not the objective, and it remains quite feasible that all people may be accommodated in this case with a little bit of dialogue and thoughtful consideration. no biggie.
what is the difference between the pain of a muslim woman who feels she must betray her beliefs and cede control of her body in order to live on her campus and the pain of a white suburban homeowner who has to live next to a black person?
i do hope that you can see the profound, substantive difference between these things.
the muslim does not violate the ability to live of the men before whom she appears covered. should the white homeowner seek redress of his/her pain, that redress would result in violating, imposing upon, coercing another–the black neighbor. the person who believes homosexuality is a sin against God AND takes action to create change that would limit the freedom of/criminalize/create as second class citizens/pathologize gay, lesbian and transgender people similarly violates the ability to live of the persons who cause him/her pain, and in turn, creates pain in those people…and pain MUCH MORE ACUTE and CRIPPLING than his/her own. quite literally. in being human, we have to negotiate with other humans and respect the humanness of other humans.
feminists the world round are taking stands on issues they feel are important (and these issues OFTEN do not coincide with a western feminist agenda). when people feel oppressed, they tend to do something about it. for some muslim women, the veil symbolizes repression, for others, empowerment, for others, simply a testament of faith. the last thing muslim women need is for Western hands to rip their veils off FOR them. that’s violation. not liberation.