On Obama, Hijab, and Women
When President Obama uttered the words “women’s rights” during his speech at Cairo University last week, my ears perked up. The fact that a US president is putting women’s rights up there on the international agenda — on par with peace in the Middle East, no less — is indeed historic. That he has the guts to say to a room full of Egyptian men that women’s rights in the Muslim world are a topic that needs addressing, was quite a thrill. The fact that there was some applause after he made that opening statement, “the sixth issue that I want to address is women’s rights,” was absolutely startling. Signs of change, perhaps.
But when Obama started to outline the details of his vision for women’s rights in the Muslim world, that’s when I started to bristle. Because although issues of education and literacy are obviously vital, these issues barely skim the surface of what Muslim women have to face. But more than that, Obama’s underlying philosophy guiding his approach, one that is nestled in the cultural relativism that tells people to look the other way when women are hurt in the name of religion, signals a very troubling trend in gender, religion and politics.
I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal.
So first of all, what view that a woman who covers her hair is less equal? With all due respect, as someone who has been studying and writing about women and religion for some time, I can honestly say, what the hell is he talking about?
What I think he may be referring to is the claim made primarily by religious people that liberal feminists are condescending towards women who choose a traditional lifestyle. I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s talking about. But even if that’s the case, it’s a bungled statement. Liberal feminists do not look down on women who cover their hair, but see the cultural demands placed upon women’s bodies as wrong and unfair, and a violation of democratic principles. A woman can certainly choose to cover her hair, but the type of rhetoric that accompanies religious demands for female body cover are often very damaging for women’s freedom, health and overall well-being.
Obama continued in the next sentence:
But I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality. And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more likely to be prosperous.
Okay, I don’t entirely understand this either. What is he trying to say? The first sentence was condemning people in “the west” who see hijab-clad women as inferior. Now the “but” we were expecting was not an exploration of how hijab can humiliate women, but about the importance of education. Did I miss something? What’s the connection? His message seems clear: Okay guys, you can keep the hijab but make sure your girls get an education. And with that he skipped right over an entire world of issues around women’s body in religion.
I wonder, why bring did he up hijab in his opening if he wasn’t going to talk about it at all? I think he was just trying to score points with those who disagree with liberal feminists. He was trying to say, okay, I hear your point. Those liberal feminists can be really mean and offensive to you. So forget that — let’s talk about education. The inferred, unspoken sentence in between is where he talks, man to man as it were, about those annoying liberal feminists.
In case the thousands of Egyptian men in the audience did not hear clearly enough that Obama was trying to say, “Hey, I hear you guys,” he made himself perfectly clear in the next sentence:
Now let me be clear, issues of women’s equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, we’ve seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead. Meanwhile, the struggle for women’s equality continues in many aspects of American life and in countries around the world.
Did Obama just say that Muslim countries are better to women than the US?! Are we to understand that since the late Benazir Bhutto was head of Pakistan and Hillary Clinton recently suffered a sexism-filled loss in America, that women are better off under Islam?
Let’s talk about this for a moment.
What about the fact that in Saudi Arabia women cannot drive?
Or that the first four women in history were only last month elected to parliament in Kuwait?
Or that according to rankings of the International Parliamentary Union, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman are ranked LAST in the world because they have ZERO women in government? And that they are followed closely by Yemen, Bahrain and Lebanon?
Actually, Egypt, the country in which the hall full of men applauded at “women’s rights”, there are a total of 8 women out of 442 representatives in the upper parliament — a total of 1.8% representation. Egypt, in fact, ranks 134 in the world in terms of gender and politics. That’s pretty low. Even compared to America’s ranking at 73. Sure, Mr. Obama, you have plenty of work to do. But let’s face it, the Muslim world has even more work to do.
And we’re just talking about democracy and basic rights. We haven’t even gotten to honor killings, genital cutting, polygamy or child brides.
Dutch-Muslim activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, interviewed by Jeb Golinkin for the New Majority, said as follows:
President Obama’s speech didn’t do much for Muslim women. He defended their rights in Western countries to wear the hijab. He didn’t touch on Muslim women being confined, being forced into marriages or being victims of honor killings: These traditions and principles in the Koran and in Islam are being practiced in the West. He didn’t address that. I think he was just appeasing the Muslim world because …they have these notions that Muslim women in Western countries are not allowed to wear the headscarf or cover themselves. I mean you can wear whatever you want in the United States.
In other words, Obama’s post-modernist, relativist stance offers protection for those who wish to oppress women. That is their way. It is their culture. Let them do it.
Obama is ultimately a man talking to men about women. Women are still objects and outsiders. And women’s freedom is the price to pay for improving relations between men in America and the Arab world.
Hirsi Ali continued:
In Egypt where he spoke, women who do not wear their veil in public are subjected to very obscene remarks on the street and even sexual assault. Nowadays, even if they are covered they become victims of the same things: That is, in public, in Egypt, as a woman, you run 80% of the time the risk of being assaulted simply because you are a woman walking down the street. They are forced into marriages; their testimony in countries where Sharia is law is just half of that of a man. They can be divorced with no rights. They need guardians, a married guardian or they cannot sign any legal papers. The President simply did not address Sharia or Islamic law in relation to women.
Obama, then, ignored the really important issues like women’s basic rights and safety. He did it in order to make nice with a room full of Arab men. Once again, women’s rights, even when given lip service, are relegated to last. As Phyllis Chesler wrote, “I fear that President Obama does not understand the difference between a free choice and a forced choice; the difference between womens’ human rights and the subordination of women in the name of religion.” Indeed.
June 10th, 2009 at 5:39 am
Actually, I thought that the last part of Obama’s speech (on women’s rights, education, and globalization) was the most startling and interesting part of his speech. It was a dramatic challenge to the Islamic world with a view to the future. Economies built upon oil wealth have not advanced with respect to technology and education, and thus they are doomed to fall even farther and farther behind in the future [unspoken: when alternative energies will make serious inroads into the energy market]. UNLESS — they can tap into the immense promise of 50% of their potential workforce/brain trust. This was not a message meant to make the men in the audience feel better, it was directed at every woman sitting home watching television, and every leader in the Muslim world. You are getting left behind, and you better change your attitude towards women if you are to have any hope of catching up!
Regarding Obama’s take on the Hijab:
Obama: “I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal.”
I don’t believe this was a critique of liberal feminists. It was clearly a reference to France and the ban within French public schools of anyone wearing the hijab. This was a burning issue in the Islamic world a few years ago and continues to attract a great deal of media coverage. What Obama was saying is that the American attitude towards religion with tolerance for all forms of religious expression is far more compatible with Islamic sensibilities than France’s anti-parochialism stance. (I.e. The Stars and Stripes are a more natural ally than your traditional ally, Le Tricoleur] But, if I’m not mistaken, Obama also did make a point that the Hijab should be worn BY CHOICE. (I was riding in the car while listening to the speech so I’m not 100% sure that this “choice” remark was about hijab or other traditional gender differentiation in Islamic society.) In either case, I don’t believe it was simply pandering to a male audience, it was also setting out challenges to Islamic society.
[Interesting side note -- one of the startling revelations I had in reading Azar Nafisi's "Reading Lolita in Teheran" was that the imposition of the hijab as law in Iran was extremely difficult on religious women. Many had made the choice to take on the hijab after years of soul-searching. Many found that choice... (Elana... I know you're going to go through the roof on this one) empowering. Now their decision was rendered void of all religious content. The hijab was no longer a symbol of religious commitment, it was the prison garb of every Iranian woman.]
Elana, you are 100% correct in your general critique. Obama did not take on the vast injustices and inequality facing women in Islamic society. He didn’t even mention them!!! But he did set out a course for gradual educational and economic empowerment of women within a very traditional society where, until now, such sort of talk was anathema. These are baby steps for sure, but think of how the women’s rights movement started in the west: education first, suffrage next, rights last (and we’re still waiting for the full realization of those rights.)
Last, I want to comment about what you wrote:
“Obama is ultimately a man talking to men about women. Women are still objects and outsiders.”
I’ll have to talk to Michelle about this one. Maybe she can straighten her husband out!!!
June 10th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Elli
Haven’t gone through the roof yet, though I’d love to hear how your conversation with Michelle went.
BTW — even if Barack treats his wife with respect, care, and dignity, the fact is, he is still president and she is a private citizen, noted more much for her fashion choices and her arms than her politics. She wasn’t elected, she has no power, she has no say. They would not have filled the auditorium for her. She is really irrelevant here. I stand by what I said that it’s men talking to men about women…
But I’m going backwards. I want to respond to some of your earlier arguments.
I can detect a theme here about small steps and appreciating the gesture even if it doesn’t go all the way. Reminiscent of your comments on the maharat issue. It’s a valid perspective, and optimistic. I admire the optimism, even if it’s hard for me to share the headspace.
Certainly the idea that “education” is the beginning of a feminist revolution is common — it’s a theme in Tamar El-Or’s book, “Next Year I will Know More” about religious zionist young women. She checks that assumption — does education of women lead to feminist revolution. At the end, she finds that it’s not entirely accurate, esp for religious women. Just because women learn, doesn’t mean they end up deconstructing the system. In fact, religious feminist women are an enigma that way. El-Or argues that religious women are the only group in which ownership of knowledge does not lead to revolution or deconstructing the patriarchal system but about taking ownership of it.
Take for example the yoatzot nida (a subject I am going to be writing a post on one of these days). Here are women supposedly learning and all that, but (a) insisting on their own that they are NOT actually making their own independent decisions on halakha and (b) not really challenging any of the “accepted” practices around mikva and women’s body, and just internalizing the male-rabbinic gaze on the body. I would even say these women have become the eyes of the rabbis on women. Not only is this not a step forward for women, but it’s a same-old-same-old in the guise of change, as if we’ve made a huge leap by giving women “education” — but it turns out to that “education” means teaching them how to look at women’s bodies the way rabbinic men have looked at women’s bodies for 3000 years. Hardly progressive. Moving backwards and calling it “education” and “good for women” — that makes it even worse. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. Or, to be a bit cruel, it makes the yoaztot nidda a bit like Kapos, you know, kind of pretending to be “one of us” and really representing the enemy view.
So learning and education is all well and good, but when it comes to religious women, “learning” does not necessarily lead to real change. Sometimes it’s just perpetuating the same old patriarchy, now preached by women.
It’s possible that Obama’s message was “practical”, you know, make use of 50% of your population. Or perhaps he felt that education was a “safer” topic than say, addressing honor killings and all that. Either way, he let women down, really. Gave women lip service in a sort of cowardly way. Served his own agenda, not that of women.
e
June 10th, 2009 at 8:51 am
LOOK WHAT I FOUND: French women reacting to the hijab thing:
http://www.macaudailytimesnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28469&Itemid=33
Feminists attack Obama over Islamic veil
Saturday, 06 June 2009
French feminists attacked US President Barack Obama’s defence of the Islamic veil yesterday, accusing him of dealing a blow to the rights of millions of women in order to appease religious sentiment.
Obama was due to arrive in Paris later in the day, after a Middle East tour in which he gave a speech in which he accused countries like France of hiding “hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.”
France bans girls and young women from wearing Muslim headscarves in state schools, and women’s rights campaigners here see its widespread and sometimes compulsory use in the Islamic world as an abuse of women’s rights.
One French women’s rights group, Ni Putes Ni Soumises (”Neither whores, nor submissives”), said: “Reducing the dialogue between civilisations to a dialogue between religions is once again to instrumentalise women.
“By attacking secularism and defending the veil, the President of the United States [...] has hurt the struggle of millions of women, some of whom pay with their lives every day to escape fundamentalist violence,” it said.
Anne Saugier, president of the International Women’s Rights League that was founded by Simone de Beauvoir, accused Obama of seeking to reconcile the United States with Muslims “on the backs of women.”
“What a slap in the face for those women in Algeria, Iran and Afghanistan who died in atrocious conditions for having refused to wear what they consider the most radical sign of their oppression and segregation,” she said.
Wearing some variety of headdress – whether a scarf over the hair, a veil or face mask or a full length “burqua” – is compulsory in some Muslim majority countries and common among Muslim communities in others.
It is considered by some a sign of women’s subjugation and repression, and banned in some public institutions in some countries, but in his speech in Cairo on Thursday, Obama went out of his way to defend it on three occasions.
“It is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit – for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear,” he said.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Elana I definitely agree with you. I don’t think he was talking about US feminists though. I think he was trying to ‘make nice’ with the Arab male world:
1. Education for women can be taken in many ways and I’m sure that when an Arab man ‘educates’ his daughter in matters of the household, religious adherence, and women’s modesty he nodded in agreement to Obama’s words on educating women.
2. When he said “Meanwhile, the struggle for women’s equality continues in many aspects of American life and in countries around the world” he was really saying ‘don’t worry if this takes time just do a little and you will be like everyone else…’
3. He really should have mentioned the issue of honor killings, forced female circumcision, child brides etc. These are much uglier concerns than if someone wears a hijab.
June 14th, 2009 at 10:49 am
I have to agree with this article though it saddens me to say so.
I find the comment about women and learning to be even more fascinating, and would love to read anything else you have to say about that.
June 16th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Hi Elana,
I have just a couple of thoughts:
1. The whole “cultural relativism” thing as it applies to Obama: I think he is a politician and is moving very methodically and deliberately towards his goals while relying on his political instincts. It’s hard to say now, but it may very well be that as time goes by, he will demand more and be less “relativistic”. Although I can see why his attitudes towards the Middle East in particular are frequently being parsed as relativistic, I am optimistic that this is just a manifestation of a deliberate political approach and not a worldview.
2. I take issue with the closing comment in your response to Elli: “…he let women down, really. Gave women lip service in a sort of cowardly way. Served his own agenda, not that of women.” I think it’s a baby step, to be sure, but it is a step. When was the last time an American president went straight to the Arab world and made *any* public statement, let alone one defending women’s rights? And to be honest, I don’t see how this serves his agenda; if he wanted to “connect” with the Arab world, talking about women’s rights is certainly not the way to do so. I really think he deserves some credit here. True, he could’ve gone even further, but that carried the serious risk of completely alienating his audience and defeating the entire purpose of the historic outreach effort. It’s one thing to be an idealist but it must be tempered with pragmatism.
3. IMO the hijab comment is being blown out of proportion. It clearly bothers the Muslim world that Muslim women are not allowed to wear the hijab in France, so he made reference to it. He is reaching out to his audience and empathizing. I’m sorry that French feminists were upset, but really, placating French feminists is probably not high on Obama’s agenda at the moment…
4. Regarding education: Education has always been a double-edged sword. Recognition of this fact has been cited in many Jewish sources over the centuries, whereby such education sometimes leads Jews away from observance rather than towards it. Nevertheless, though I haven’t read the book whose research you cited, the educational imbalance in the Muslim world is significantly greater than in the Jewish religious world, and reading between the lines, it sounds like that research did support the general notion that education is empowering, though I imagine it does depend a great deal on how they’re being educated… Still, why not start with that? Good for Obama for broaching it.
BTW, love the blog. Great entry about your hubbie. I’m sure he’ll be properly embarrassed when he finds out about it…