Again, another article examines the continued practice of veiling muslim women without pointing out the connection between those women who are fortunate enough to choose to wear the veil, and the millions of women around the world who have no choice in the matter. Because the author herself chose to wear a Hijab for a period of time, this is understandable. But I am still waiting for the article that highlights the moral dilemma inherently posed to free women who choose to honor and promote a system - currently in widespread use - which oppresses women elsewhere around the world.

All forms of veiling have the consequence of separating the veiled from open society. Where the practice is socially or legally required on punishment of death, this is most explicit. But as the author points out, in open societies, it too can be a way to draw a line between oneself and society at large. The only "openings" that veiling creates are those between women who have adopted the veil - thus creating a boundary between the small group and society. In the big picture, veiling is a defensive form of closing oneself off from at least part of the world, manifested physically.

The practice of veiling represents a violent and unfair agreement between the sexes. In exchange for not being mocked\outcast\assaulted\raped­\killed, women agree to live without certain rights and priveleges and wear a form of clothing which mutes their identity. Other societies have responded to gender issues by evolving into women's rights movements, and spreading the understanding that males need to simply control themselves. Veiling, in societal terms, represents a surrender of this issue by women, who as a group have resigned themselves to shelter themselves as a means to avoiding male violence, rather than take a stand against it.

Of course it is different in societies that have incorporated principles of equality between the sexes. The identity politics of veiling ("My choice to wear the veil represents my individualism") only works in countries where the practice is not the norm. Of course it makes one unique here, where veiling is a minority practice and can be a way to carve out one's own social niche. Only in a free society could veiling be used as a form of identity expression, rather than identity repression.

It is ethically irresponsible to import a practice which represents nothing less than physical oppression in most places, rebrand it as a matter of choice, and ignore the larger implications of the institution. But then again, it may not be so surprising. After all, that's what veiling is designed to do; keep the concerns of females out of sight and out of mind.

jwschmidt:

It is ethically irresponsible to import a practice which represents nothing less than physical oppression in most places, rebrand it as a matter of choice, and ignore the larger implications of the institution. But then again, it may not be so surprising. After all, that's what veiling is designed to do; keep the concerns of females out of sight and out of mind.

Excellent point and well said!

do you have issues with other orthodox practices that people do in this country? like the Amish, Quakers, Hasidic Jews, Sikhs, etc.? I am not saying it's the same thing. I understand that your point has to do with female oppression in other countries. But other cultures also have provisions for their treatment of women that might be considered "oppressive" and "unfair" by western society and i'm curious what you think of those.

The hijab and the attitude of and towards women that it represents differs only in degree from the attitude of very observant Orthodox Jewish women, who wear long skirts, long sleeved garments and wigs because Jewish law requires modest dress, or from the attitude expressed by traditional Amish female dress. People who wear what they consider to be God's uniform do it to mark a distinction between themselves and unbelievers.

I would not care to live as a hasid in Brooklyn or as an Amish in Lancaster County, but one of the freedoms the First Amendment guarantees is the freedom to build your own ghetto in your head and wall yourself off from American society -- as long as you keep the peace and obey the law.

Useem's point is that in this country, as opposed to homogenous Muslim societies, that kind of religious identity is something that you can walk away from if you choose. American culture encourages that kind of individualism. American law makes it good by refusing to recognize or enforce an individual's religious obligations to faith or family.

From her first name I suspect Useem is a convert to Islam. She sounds like the Muslim equivalent of what an Irish friend of mine calls a "cafeteria Catholic," selecting from the teachings of her religion what suits her individually and declining the rest. The daugher of Muslim immigrant parents, raised in an immigrant community, would probably have higher psychological boundaries, but the attractive power of American opportunity will eventually erode the power of tradition.

what dictates "higher psychological boundaries"? I disagree with your implication that it is an environment based thing. There are those who intrinsically question their upbringing and those who do not. What gives people these different characteristics? That I can't define, but history has proven that there are many exceptions to all the psychological "rules". This shows me that it's not really about how you are raised (although some can be trained to have a lower psychological boundary as well as a higher one, i suppose), but more about what drives you individually as a person.

Hi there, you've made some great points, but what I wanted to point out in my article is exactly that: American religious and cultural freedom results in a very different expression of Islamic identity. As I alluded to in the article, when I lived in the Persian Gulf, I saw that the "individual choice" conception was very American -- and I did not like the socially enforced sex-segregation and hijab.

deduction:

what dictates "higher psychological boundaries"? I disagree with your implication that it is an environment based thing. There are those who intrinsically question their upbringing and those who do not. What gives people these different characteristics? That I can't define, but history has proven that there are many exceptions to all the psychological "rules". This shows me that it's not really about how you are raised (although some can be trained to have a lower psychological boundary as well as a higher one, i suppose), but more about what drives you individually as a person.

First, to respond to your initial post, Deduction, yes I do take issue with various forms of dress in this country that may represent oppression and may not be islamic. I simply point out the islamic case because that was what the article was about, and because I consider it to be - by far - the most egregious example in terms of the number of people involved and the depth of the oppression in other countries.

Regarding your above quote, I think its a bit silly to say that one's environment has no effect over an individual's ability to be critical of their culture. If you can be killed for doing so, then it certainly would effect your opinions.

To wear a veil in a country where everyone looks at you because you are different for doing so is the polar opposite of wearing a veil in a country where you would be looked at strangely (or worse) if you did not. Social norms effect people's perceptions, and I'm not really sure how you could make a plausible arguement against that fact.

I am indeed a convert, but I deliberately interviewed and highlighted a number of women in my article who were raised as Muslim by Muslim immigrant or non-immigrant parents. So for the woman in the lead, for example, the choice to wear the scarf was a radical break from the nonobservant Islam her parents practiced -- and it was a radical break when she removed the scarf years later. So that's the point: American individualism is very much a part of American Islam.

I would point out that headscarves are in fact optional in many predominantly Islamic nations. One should not assume that all Muslim nations are like the Gulf States or Afganistan.

Good article by the way, and thanks for stopping by the fray to discuss it.

Thom

Thank you, Ms. Useem, for your response. I greatly appreciate it, and I see the distinction you were making in the article. I suppose I took issue with the fact that I saw that distinction as being glossed over for the sake of rote social commentary.

To me, any discussion of the Hijab in a free society begs the question: how do free women who practice a form of veiling square their personal choice of expression with the fact that it is a tacit endorsement of an oppressive system?

I think there has been a lot of discussion on veiling, but this question gets tiptoed around. I think it is THE question for women who excercise that choice. I find the lack of examination of this issue somewhat dissapointing, because it tends to get replaced with talk about how "interesting" it is how women make these choices in this country. In my view, it should focus on how "complicated" or "contradictory" it is that they defend their doing so as a matter of choice; a concept that has been largely foreign to the institution of veiling for thousands of years.

Here's another way of looking at it.

A version of this discussion could be boiled down to whether one believes that a free society will have a greater effect on a traditional institution than vice-versa. Optimistically, as veiling is introduced to America, our free society-values will overpower the oppressive baggage that the practice carries with it... you might say we could socially "liberate" the use of the veil.

On the other hand, many people worry that veiling will inevetably bring with it the oppressive ideas that it promotes elsewhere. I am not of this opinion, but nor am I willing to write of the possibility that this may be the prevailing trend.

How to set our minds at east and determine which way the pendulum swings? It all comes down to my above question, and how Muslim American women collectively answer it. I have been frustrated because what I have been hearing is that the concept of "choice" has been used as both the means and the end of the discussion.

Why do women here wear the veil? Because they choose to, I am told. Why do they choose? Because they are free.

These may be personally satisfying answers, but they seem absent of the self-reflection necessary to understand that the relationship between veiling and freedom is in fact a two-way street. The fact that a woman is free may be why she chooses to veil herself in America, just as the fact that a woman is not free may be why she has no choice to veil herself elsewhere.

Thus, to dwell on matters of personal choice and not confront the larger issues is to neglect the process by which the practice of wearing the veil can be fully assimilated into a free society.

If you live in an insulated community where everyone is like one another, religious values and family obligation are strong, most of the people you see are proud of who and what they are, and you have been taught that the outside world is threatening and despises you, it takes an effort not only of imagination but of will to want to leave it for the possibilities of American life, and you will pay a price in alienation and guilt if you do. That's been the American immigrant experience since the first Irish Catholics got off the boat.

....though most of us don't see it for a long time after the actual wedding...:)

Ms Schmidt, you propose a false dichotomy with biased terminology intended to elevate your moral and intellectual position.

'Free vs oppressive system' is such an example. As I have mentioned elsewhere here on the Fray, true "freedom" is beyond human reach- it is a utopic ideal. It would arguably be more accurate to call the matter of wearing clothing a 'liberty'. Calling a 'liberty' a "freedom" is a misleading misnomer born of ideological rhetoric.

In reality, there are consequences for every action, or inaction. Life is the consequence in which all the living are enslaved to continual chains of consequences for action and inaction, both with positive and negative outcomes. Humans have struggled with the burden of this weight since the beginning. And mankind has turned for guidance to deal with the burden of this life to their Creator.

Islam is the last response of the Creator to mankind in which He provided the systems by which mankind can organize and govern his/her affairs in order to maintain peace, justice, purity of the human being, relieving much of the burden of life in which mankind otherwise suffers oppression, conflict, degradation.

The Western world, if you will, never experienced or adopted Islam. In fact one could say the Western world inhibited and obstructed the awareness and message of Islam. Instead, the Western World struggled with Christianity. Because of the inherit doctrinal conflicts with reality, Christianity and the Christian conceptualization of revelation, of God, of God's system for mankind, the West determined a compromise. Instead of asking whether there was a Creator to whom mankind should submit or not, the compromise would be: whether there is a Creator or not, mankind will determine his own system for governance and public affairs. All matters pertaining to the Creator would be relegated to individual and private matters.

On this basis, the Western world designated 'the people' as the sovereign and authority. And 'the people' essentially are empowered to determine their affairs as they like, including wearing whichever clothing or lack of clothing they so choose. In America, the matter of attire is delegated to lower municipalities to determine. And each municipality is essentially empowered to make its own regulations regarding attire, though within state and federal constitutional principles. Here in Florida, there have been efforts by women in Daytona to be topless in public and on their own property. However, this was rejected by the judicial branch based on the recognized right of the municipality to enforce a standard of 'decency' based on the moral code of the public.

Islam does not adopt this compromise. Islam recognizes that there is a Creator and the Creator provides mankind with systems by which to govern his/her society's affairs. And no man or woman, or collective of men and women, can overrule or supercede the Creator as the sovereign Legislator. Islam does recognize the authority rests with the people, as well, the people have the authority to interpret the text of the revelation of the Creator and to determine administrative and regulatory methods to implement the Creator's legislation.

Essentially, the matter is no human is truly "free". True "freedom" escapes all of us. And every individual is confined to be merely an element of a larger set, a child within a family, a nieghbor within a neighborhood, an employee within a profession, an individual within a society.

In an effort to device its own system, the Western world chose to make the individual the center of the society and around which the systems of the society would be designed.

Thus, the individual's right supercedes the custom of the family. As well, the individual's choice of dress also supercedes the 'honor' and authority of the family. In fact, the family has no authority or right over the individual.

Islam recognizes the individual NOT as the center of the society, but as a component of the society who shares rights within the family; and the family is the critical pillar of the society.

'Free vs oppressive system' is such an example. As I have mentioned elsewhere here on the Fray, true "freedom" is beyond human reach- it is a utopic ideal. It would arguably be more accurate to call the matter of wearing clothing a 'liberty'. Calling a 'liberty' a "freedom" is a misleading misnomer born of ideological rhetoric.

In reality, there are consequences for every action, or inaction. Life is the consequence in which all the living are enslaved to continual chains of consequences for action and inaction, both with positive and negative outcomes. Humans have struggled with the burden of this weight since the beginning. And mankind has turned for guidance to deal with the burden of this life to their Creator.

Islam is the last response of the Creator to mankind in which He provided the systems by which mankind can organize and govern his/her affairs in order to maintain peace, justice, purity of the human being, relieving much of the burden of life in which mankind otherwise suffers oppression, conflict, degradation.

The Western world, if you will, never experienced or adopted Islam. In fact one could say the Western world inhibited and obstructed the awareness and message of Islam. Instead, the Western World struggled with Christianity. Because of the inherit doctrinal conflicts with reality, Christianity and the Christian conceptualization of revelation, of God, of God's system for mankind, the West determined a compromise. Instead of asking whether there was a Creator to whom mankind should submit or not, the compromise would be: whether there is a Creator or not, mankind will determine his own system for governance and public affairs. All matters pertaining to the Creator would be relegated to individual and private matters.

On this basis, the Western world designated 'the people' as the sovereign and authority. And 'the people' essentially are empowered to determine their affairs as they like, including wearing whichever clothing or lack of clothing they so choose. In America, the matter of attire is delegated to lower municipalities to determine. And each municipality is essentially empowered to make its own regulations regarding attire, though within state and federal constitutional principles. Here in Florida, there have been efforts by women in Daytona to be topless in public and on their own property. However, this was rejected by the judicial branch based on the recognized right of the municipality to enforce a standard of 'decency' based on the moral code of the public.

Islam does not adopt this compromise. Islam recognizes that there is a Creator and the Creator provides mankind with systems by which to govern his/her society's affairs. And no man or woman, or collective of men and women, can overrule or supercede the Creator as the sovereign Legislator. Islam does recognize the authority rests with the people, as well, the people have the authority to interpret the text of the revelation of the Creator and to determine administrative and regulatory methods to implement the Creator's legislation.

Essentially, the matter is no human is truly "free". True "freedom" escapes all of us. And every individual is confined to be merely an element of a larger set, a child within a family, a nieghbor within a neighborhood, an employee within a profession, an individual within a society.

In an effort to device its own system, the Western world chose to make the individual the center of the society and around which the systems of the society would be designed.

Thus, the individual's right supercedes the custom of the family. As well, the individual's choice of dress also supercedes the 'honor' and authority of the family. In fact, the family has no authority or right over the individual.

Islam recognizes the individual NOT as the center of the society, but as a component of the society who shares rights within the family; and the family is the critical pillar of the society.