Is Jack Straw a racist for requesting that women remove their veils?

[magicfarawaytree]

just watching the news. didnt personally think he had done anything terrible in asking.

Monkeytrousers, I'm totally with you.

Ruth Jelly now calling on moderate Muslims...they seem to be oblivious to the fact that the people most at risk from Islamic fundamentalism are Muslims.

Actually, one of my biggest problems about veiling comes from my long association with feminism. Women should be allowed to wear whatever the danm well want. However, my problem comes with male attitudes to veiled women.

I work with adolescent males, most of whom are muslim and come from a community where women are normally veiled. These boys have internalised some quite horrifying attitudes towards women. For example, from the muslim boys I get a constant stream of low grade sexual comments. I don't get this from the non moslem boys, the veiled female teachers don't get it either.

It's always a bit of a running joke at work that these lads don't take anything a woman says seriously. We don't think they realise it, but the will constantly check with a male anything a female tells them. And don't even get me started on talking to their parents! Many of the fathers won't even address a comment to me or look me in the eye. I have to have a male with me when talking to them and they will ignore anything I say until it is repeated by my colleague.

Has this got anything to do with the veil? I think it certainly has something to do with the subservient role of women in their culture. This subservience is manifest in veiling and as someone who has been a bit of a full on feminist ever since I realised that the world is biased towards men, it offends me.

Women should be able to wear what they want, but I object to the way veiling perpetuates the impression of women as silent, invisible beings who need to be protected. While this is the case, men will never need to grow up and take responsibility for themselves. It's just so much easier for them to blame their bad behaviour on women isn't it?

Dino, I dont think veiled women find it easier to talk to others beacuse they wear a veil. I cant speak from my own experience as I dont wear one but have just asked my friend who honestly hasnt ever thought about it. To her wearing her veil is the same as it would be for some of us to walk around with clothes, this is how she feels comfortable & she really cant see what the problem is. She did however say that since this nonsence has now become such a hot topic she is going to actually make the effort to speak to non musilm women so that they can SEE beyond how she dresses to the person she is. She honestly had not considered that she is not approachable as she has always been happy to stand and chat at the school gates. She also intrestingly said her DH doesnt like her wearing the veil but to her he has no say it as its her body!!!

Slug, I am sorry to read about how you get treated at work & it is unaccetable. In Islam men are taught to respect women, comments of the nature you describe are not permitted in Islam and are not based or founded in religion but culture & misconceptions about the role of a women.

In fact as muslims we know that our prophet( pbuh) in fact worked for his wife ( who was his boss)& when he went away he asked his companions to revert to his wife for final say on some matters.He encouraged women to pursue knowledge. Women are equal to men in Allah's eyes & unfortuantley this is sometimes overlooked by some people and picked up by the media to hold out that Islam is the culprit when it is not.

I know 100s of muslim men ( have very large family) and I dont know one of them who would fall in the sterotype that they have been given in the media or portrayed by the minority. My DH with who I had a arranged marriage ( my choice) is the best thing that ever happened to me, he has always sided with me & is probably more considerate then most european men.

I would agree with those who suggest that there is a lot of ignorance among Muslims about the status of women but this is more down to cultural than religious teachings and you will find this attitude more among the uneducated. And this problem does need to be addressed IMO.

My Egyptian Arabic lecture always used to say that the same men who refuse to educate their daughters are the ones who want their wives to only see a lady doctor.

Islam teaches us that the "search for knowledge is a sacred duty imposed upon every Muslim" - every Muslim, man and woman.

Sana, my point is if you never see women being powerful in your culture, then it becomes very difficult to deal with one that has power over you. Yes I know the prophet worked for his first wife, many of my colleagues are working moslem women too. However, these lads have internalised attitudes to women. They cannot deal with women who are not veiled or subservient. It's not their fault, they've just not been brought up in a culture that treats women equally.

Before we get into a discussion about the relative equality of women in Islam, I'm referring to their culture. Islam informs it, but dosen't define it totally. However, how can you aregue that women are equal if their word is worth half a man's in a court of law. What about inheritence rights? Women in Pakistan are currently dealing with a system that demands 4 male witnesses to their rape before a conviction can be made. Any woman without these 4 witnesses can be charged with adultery. That is not equal! These poor women..damned if they do report it, damned if they don't. These are the internalised images of women that my students carry every day. They know they have power over women simply because they have a y chromosome and in their culture that gives them a superior position in life.

Whatever the ideal of Islam, the reality is that the veil perpetuates the position of women as frail, needing of men's protection, subservient and inferior. If islam really was equal, why aren't men veiled from women's lustful gaze?

There are some astonishingly brilliant women out here - heading the health authority, settingup the biggest financial services company etc and the queen (sheika) is driving education and cultural change in a way that Betty Windsor could never do. These ladies tend not to wear the veil and until now I haven't wondered about that but maybe they see the veil as restricting them in some way in these very high profile public roles. Certainly you rarely see photos of veiled women out here while unveiled women are seen in the papers and on TV.

On the other hand theres an American lady over here who does wear the veil (the 100% one) because she feels her opinions and intellect get respect that way. Which doesn't seem a million miles from me always wearing a plain black trouser suit for meetings because that way no one is thinking about what I'm wearing as its just DULL...

the need for four witnesses is in the case of consensual sex, if the pair are committing adultery. This is a gross deviation of Islamic law actually. It is supposed to prevent women from wrongly being accused of playing around. But this law has been taken completely and utterly out of context.

There was a woman who was raped during the time of the Prophet (pbuh), and she was not required to produce any witnesses, she was told the sin was not her's and the perpetrator was dealt with according to the terms of Islam.

This pisses me off actually because people look at the way women are treated in places like Pakistan and anounce well this shariah law is evil. It's not shariah law at all.

And this is why I think that more female scholars are required with a great urgency. So women will know what their true position is

Slug

I think you make a very valid point here. I am a teacher and it is very difficult to teach muslim boys because they ignore me - I am a woman after all. They are rude to me as well - in the end they fail their course, which isn't brilliant for me or for them, but may be if they paid more attention to me this wouldn't happen. I also work with a muslim man who does some teaching for me. He is incredible! He won't have anything to do with me at all, or any of my female colleagues - in fact I get real hate overtones from him because I am his "boss" I suppose. What do we do about this? I find him totally impossible to work with - he is very racist too towards the black students, which I am not particularly happy with.

That's curious figroll. Because I remember when in college, a lecturer told me that about twenty years ago the indian children, were the ones who were the best behaved and polite, and hardworking....she said unlike now when they're exactly like if not more so rude than the white kids.

I'd say they've integrated pretty well, I seriously doubt that your gender has anything to do with it. Unless these kids pass with flying colours in subjects taught them by male teachers...do they???

Must be because I am such a crap teacher then.

figroll I doubt it, there are kids in the world who think it's fun to spend the day ignoring their teachers/being disruptive...then when they go out in the real world they utterly regret it(I hope).

I know one, the last I heard he was doing really badly and addicted to drugs, which was extremely sad, as he was very bright.....

Ok help me here then fuzzy and saadia because I've read the thread and I've thought hard about what has been said but I can't get away from the fact that I feel alienated by and nervous of women in veils. It's a feeling and it comes from my heart and not my head. I've spent a lifetime crushing the emotions and overruling them with the pinko, lefty ideals with which I was brought up and wondering if I'm a bad person for having them almost as if I have a guilty secret.

I feel really grateful to Jack Straw for opening this debate because I realise it's not just me. There are loads and loads of people who feel uncomfortable with this for all sorts of reasons. there is a culture clash here however you look at it.

When I heard my then 3 year old dd expressing her fear I was in conflict. She's not a racist, nor should she take on the responsibility of seeking to aquaint herself with these women in order to allay her fears. She's a kid scared of the women who look like a ravens flying through the park (her words).

On the face of it people should be allowed to wear what they like. Of course. However, clothes don't exist in a vacuum. They make statements about belief systems and serve as signals to the way we communicate with each other.

It has been said before but I'll say again, I wouldn't dream of wearing a bikini in Kabul because I'd be minded of its effect on the people living there.

So I can't, in all concience, drive my children's natural and understandable reactions back underground as mine were driven underground, because I believe such emotions will find a way out eventually.

I'm not normally a fan of Jack Straw but I think he's made a brilliant move here by forcing discussion. Whatever the outcome at least we'll all know each other better, and that's got to be good news.

blu im not sure about your dutch comment, my dp is dutch and i dont speak a word of the language so when we are in holland of course i speak english in the street as does dd,no one has ever said anything usually as soon as they realise i am english they will chat in english to me

before i get jumped on i dont expect them to speak english to me and i am learning dutch out of respect to his family im the foreigner so i should fit in with them not the other way round

No, but part of their 'citizenship act' is about only speaking Dutch in the street.

I daresay it is very selectively applied - and perhaps only applies to 'citizens'. When I went to the Netherlands people were (thankfully!) most helpful in speaking to me in perfect english!

Great post Spidermama.

its not just abroad that non muslim women get abuse from muslim men

as a student i lived in an area that was mainly asian and on more than one occasion i was spat out and called a whore etc coz of the way i was dressed! it was 1990 and the fashions were mini skirts and hotpants which i wore with thick tights and dr marten boots!! not very sluttish imo!!

there is also a case of double standards does anyone remember the saudi princess who was publically beheaded? you dont see men getting their heads chopped off or stoned etc because they have had sex outside of marriage!

but it is not just muslim men that see women as second class citizens in a previous job i came into contact with a lot of orthodox jews and the men will not aknowledge non jewish women and were just down right rude! come to think of it some of the women werent much better

although the arabs and jews supposedly hate each other they have the one thing in common they see female cabin crew as not better than prostitutes and treat them like dirt.

Thanks Sana, that's interesting. [smmile]

Oops

reading this thread, all I can say is

Oh
my
goodness!

figroll - how can that happen?

Figroll, I know exactly what you mean. I've encountered that attitude often. The male students, to some extent, can be excused their behaviour because, in my experience, it's unconscious and a product of their upbringing. One of our jobs as teachers is to teach our students how to behave in polite society, otherwise they will have difficulty in getting a job. With them it's a constant process of pulling them up about their behaviour and pointing out that respect is a two way thing. If they choose to act like children then I treat them like children.

However, the male teacher is another subject altogether. He's an adult and should know better. I'd have a word with Human Resources and the union about him. He's overstepped the bounds of acceptable professional behaviour.