to find this toy disturbing?

[Booboostoo]

DM bought DD (17 months) a happyland fun fair set which was such good fun I was looking through their other toys online for Christmas inspiration when I found this

www.elc.co.uk/HappyLand-Khaleeji-Family/134473,default,pd.html

I really liked the fact that the fun fair set came with little people from all races, but I find this toy disturbing. Aside from the burkas, what's with the men sitting on thrones and the women tending donkeys?

DP is trying to rile me over it, so I have come to MN jury for some sanity.

They don't seem very happy, for happy land.

Where's the Xbox 360? That would cheer them up.

nailak I think I said very clearly in my first posts that I have no problem with women who chose to wear whatever they chose to wear, but that realistically many of the women who do wear this dress have no choice. Let me ask you the following about countries where women wear their national costume for their entire lives:

• can they go out alone, i.e. unaccompanied by a man?
• can they go out after dark?
• do they have the same educational opportunities as men?
• do they have the same employment rights as men? are these protected in law?
• do they have the same legal rights as men in divorce, child custody and inheritance?
• do they have the same legal rights as men to protect them from arbitrary arrest and prosecution?
• are they allowed to drive?
• is there a minimum age for marriage and is it enforced?

The answers to these questions in countries like Iran, Yemen, Kuwait, and others are grim.

This family are in Khaleeji clothes. While Iranian women can dress similarly, the men don't - therefore it is clearly not an Iranian family.

Kuwait has been doing fairly well on women's rights. Seems a bit unfair to include it in your list - bearing in mind that all of the countries in the Arab world started emancipating women, to the extent they have started, a long time after the UK, can't we celebrate those who are getting there rather than writing them all off as on a par with somewhere like Afghanistan?

Booboo, as you said in your OP: This is a toy. Your DC can choose to put it in an Action Man tank or on a Transformer if she wishes. Or smother it under a pile of Teddy bears. Or try to eat it.

Some people choose to dress in abaya and dishdasha, some dont, some have it imposed upon them. Some religious sects do not allow women to wear trousers. Would you be disturbed by toy representations of women in skirts?

This isn't actually about the toy, is it Booboo? It is about the fact that this toy reminds you of a religious culture you don't like. I don't like that religious culture either, but I don't actually think that any child playing with this toy would or could know any of the things you list just above (about employment, education, etc.)...

In fact, I'd say that there is a strong argument in favour of making sure that little girls play with plastic figures of women in hijabs/abaya, because they are absolutely guaranteed (especially if they have an involved, passionate, gender-aware mum like you) to make those plastic figures climb trees, fight dragons, drive fire engines, sit around drinking tea being waited on by men, marry kings and rule the world, build houses, teach in school, be pirates, fight pirates, etc. etc etc... And if their childhood experience tells them women in hijabs/abaya can do all this, then they are much more likely to believe and insist that they should still be able to do all this when they enter the real, grown-up world :)

i agree you arenbu
it is strange going abit too far culturl

desertgirl I have no problem with encouraging those countries that are moving in the right direction. It's very sad that other countries, e.g. Egypt, seem to be taking backward steps at the same time.

flow4 yes I agree with a lot of what you say. My problem is with an extremist version of a religion that makes this mode of dress a requirement, for all the wrong reasons, and denies women basic human rights. I think it would be great if toys standardly included people of all races, appearances, abilities, lifestyles and modes of dress. I would have no problem with a woman in an abaya working as a fireofficer, that would be great to see. I don't have a problem with the choice to wear an abaya, just the lack of choice and all that means for women around the world.

its funny you mention Egypt, coz my husband is going there for business and just mentioned how he is worried that people in Egypt don't like dealing with people who have long beards....

it seems exactly the opposite of what you just said

I think we all have an issue with lack of choice for women, but I don't understand why seeing a toy with a woman in abayah would offend you and make you think the women in the toy are being denied rights or being forced or whatever, anymore then the traditional rose cottage where the mum is depicted as staying at home and the dad as going to work would make you worry about woman's rights.

This is surely an issue with the depiction of women in toys and not the dress the women in the toy are wearing?

nailak here is a really worrying report from Egypt exactly on the matter of dress for women AND it affects both Muslim and Christian women

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/29/egypt-women-cover-up-coptic

For the fourth time (I think) I am not offended by the toy.

It is exactly an issue with the depiction of women in toys. This form of dress is not a national costume. The kilt is a national costume, people wear it on some days but not on others, non-Scotish people can wear it, Scotish people can chose not to wear it, the law has nothing to say on whether you wear it or not. The abaya and related forms of dress are not morally neutral like the kilt, they are symbols of a particular attitude towards women, one which makes it OBLIGATORY for them to be covered up when in public and one which goes hand in hand with all sorts of other repressive attitudes towards women in many countries around the world. This attitude is not shared by all people, or by all Muslims or by all women who chose to wear this form of dress, but it is present in such a huge number of people that it is associated with the dress. Sometimes items become symbols and this is not a random symbol, this is part of the idea that women's bodies should not be seen in public which does not apply to men's bodies in equal messure.

don't let your children watch The Sound Of Music - it has lots of women covered up - hair and everything ...all in the name of religion

Um...yes YABU. Blatantly BU

We have ELC in the ME too you know!

You won't be buying these salt and pepper pots then? www.timeoutdubai.com/gallery/27593-shopping-area-guide-bastakiya?image=4

gordy exactly, if it was a toy with a nun in it would it represent the same things?

Anyway I think the toy is amazing, I wasn't aware of it before, I have put it up on my fb and a few groups, and a lot of people are now planning on buying it in the sales myself included, so thanks for the link :)

But in the Gulf states it's more-or-less obligatory for men to be covered up when in public too - yes, they risk unemployment rather than direr consequences if they don't, but it is still an extremely strong cultural explanation.

I just don't see how you can feel it would be "great" to have a real woman in an abaya working in a real fire station but terrible and shouldn't-be-allowed to have a toy woman in an abaya available for a child to stick into a toy fire station.

expectation, not explanation

just look at these poor oppressed women

Booboo, it is hard to say it isn't a form of national dress. Covering most of the body in this region almost certainly predates Islam, and has very sensible reasoning behind it (like a lot of the apparently bizarre religious laws; in the Middle East in the early days of both Judaism and Islam, the likelihood of getting sick from eating pork was very high). If you look at old photos of the Bedouin who inhabited the Arabian peninsular (eg here, they are very 'covered'. That is because the climate here can be appalling; and in those days there was no escape into air conditioned buildings. When a sandstorm gets up, if you are out in it, tiny particles of sand get under your eyelids, in your mouth, your ears, your nose - and that is in town. In the desert, you don't need there to be a sandstorm, just a wind will whip up enough sand to exfoliate you nicely! so you would have wanted fabric around the face that could be held across it, or wrapped around as much of it as was practical, when the weather required.

The styles were a bit different (elderly women here wore a scarf on their head that then sort of wrapped round their body and ends in points at maybe knee length, not the abaya of today; and you can see differences in the picture above to today's dishdasha (aka thobe) - but they have the same roots - and if you deny today's inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula the right to refer to the clothes they actually wear as their national dress what would you give them instead?

There really are a lot of differences between the countries that form the Islamic world, and I'm not sure it's helpful to blur the distinctions between them.

I'm not sure I'm making sense at all; I just feel you're taking a valid concern and linking it to a symbol (the clothes) that doesn't always have any connection with that concern. I suspect it may seem as though people are belittling the concern; I don't think they are; just disagreeing as to whether there is a real link with the particular outfit worn by the female inhabitants of this rather peculiar house!

I think the main difference between nuns in the Western world and women covering their hair living in Arab Emirates is that they can theoretically decide not to be a nun at any time and walk down the street without their hair covered without risked arrest/abuse.

Another really interesting post, desertgirl :)

Booboo, can I ask... Do you also ban Barbie? Because frankly, I think she is a much more oppressive representation of women than your Happy Land woman. Seriously I do. Scaled up to 'human' size, Barbie would have a 20 inch waist, would fall over because her feet were too small, and would be so underweight that she'd stop having periods. Give me an abaya any day.

I do like the quotation in this blog:
"To see the gender oppression in someone else?s culture while being blissfully blind to it in your own is the worst sort of ethnocentrism. It is not merely judging another culture by the standards of your own, but judging another culture by standards which even your own fails to meet. Barbie, the Bikini, and the Burqa each represent the power of a patriarchal society to control women?s bodies. Is one better or worse than the other?"

Mayanala, I promise you I walk down the streets of the United Arab Emirates virtually every day of my life without my hair covered, and have at no point seen any sign of arrest or abuse.

thanks flow, for both lots of flowers! much appreciated!

exactly Desertgirl - a lot of assumptions being bandied about as fact ...again!

flow4, I completely agree...

Good post.

This thread has just triggered a memory...

I lived in Singapore for a year when I was 20/21... One day, I walked past a high school where a group of girls were playing netball. They were Muslim girls, and wearing full hijab with long sleeves, and half niqab head-dresses (faces not covered). It was about 34C and I was dripping sweat in my cotton t-shirt.

I had been a keen netball player myself at school (in England). We had a PE kit that included a short shirt that barely covered our bottoms, and usually it was about 5-10C when we played netball, and our thighs turned mottled blue :(

So, in both countries, girls were being expected to play netball in costumes that were pretty ridiculous, and totally inappropriate to the local climate. And it struck me: the clothing wasn't anything to do with the sport at all: it was about social control of young women.