Wearing a hijab in Iran

[CanadianJohn]

Top women chess players are threatening to boycott the world championship in Iran because they will be forced to wear hijabs.

Female Grandmasters will risk arrest if they do not cover up to compete in the strict Middle Eastern country due to host the knock-out tournament next year.

There is a variety of opinion:

• when in Rome, do as the Romans do
• if you don't like it, don't go
• complain to the governing body (FIDE)

I'm wondering what posters on this board think.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3814137/World-chess-uproar-women-told-play-year-s-world-championships-Iran-wearing-hijabs.html#ixzz4LiUB7wzz

TBH I'm still depressed about seeing a CHILD in full on burka yesterday. A child! No taller than my 6 year old. I had no words at all just drove past with my mouth gaping.

"I just can't get that excited about wearing a headscarf in a country where NOT to wear a headscarf is the equivalent of walking down a street naked."

How about:

"I just can't get that excited about a person with black skin getting arrested in a white neighbourhood in a country where a black person BEING in a white neighbourhood is the equivalent of a trespassing crime in the UK"

I hate it. We should never seek to normalise the idea that control of a man's sexual urges is the responsibility of the nearest women.

I love those pictures Hairy. I'd seen them before and was going to link to them in this thread but you beat me to it. It's so important to remember that these "customs" or "cultural traditions" aren't set in stone. They are political. And there are brave women who have resisted them.

A hijab shouldn't be necesssary for modest dress. Women in Europe traditionally wore hats or bonnets before leaving the house too up until about 60 years ago. Going out of the house bareheaded was considered low-class for men and women. Working men wore flat caps.

So I say Iran should let international participants dress appropriately for their own culture in keeping with modesty laws - a hat or beanie or bandana should suffice with long-sleeved clothes. No need to impose hijab at all. I really resent the implication that normal Western dress is inherently immodest. There are lots of ways to dress modestly without following an Islamic dress code.

The woman ought to be complaining to the ruling body that decided Iran was a sensible choice.

Having said that I have covered my head when in Iran, although in Tehran no one is going to cause a problem if, as a foreigner, you don't.

The young woman of Tehran barely cover their hair and adopt a relaxed approach to ankle/wrist length clothing.

I'm always conflicted about travelling to countries which restrict women's freedom - the women I met in Tehran feel it's really important that westerners visit to see the real city, which is a million miles from the way it's portrayed in the press. They believe that will ultimately lead to more freedoms.

Whispering that's not my experience of Iran.

I didn't see any female bare heads, even in Teheran, although there I did see an inch or two of hair.

Elsewhere no hair was seen at all, and I was stopped by the police when my scarf slipped an inch and told to sort myself out.

"by the way love, as a woman do bare in mind that if you want to do well you better learn to do as you're told or just not come to the competitions, okay babe."

For years South Africa was rightly banned from competing in international sporting competitions due to them treating one section of their society unfairly, why should countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia be included when they are doing the same to half their population?

Because in this case it's only lowly women who are being treated as second class citizens, and we don't really count as human, so fuck all those female chess players, they don't matter. They can make the choice to be treated as unclean and be forced to cover, or give up years of hard work and talent, so they have a choice, innit?

by the way love, as a woman do bare in mind that if you want to do well you better learn to do as you're told or just not come to the competitions, okay babe.

Nailed it

Surely there's a discrimination claim to be made under the chess ruling body. I'm going to look at the rules.

Ok maybe I can't navigate the website but FIDE don't seem to have any rules on discrimination. A search for 'discrimination' picked up only one hit, and it wasn't about women.

Whispering that's not my experience of Iran

Ok but it is mine of Tehran

Why is the competition being held in such a misogynistic country? Because no one on the governing body gives a shit about the women competitors

Why is Iran / Saudi / other not subject to the sort of sanctions that the world imposed on South Africa? Because we are scared of them; because we already have certain trade sanctions in place; because oil

The regime in Iran is primitive, misogynistic...just plain knuckledragging and yet we are honouring them with the world chess championship

its stupid and embarassing

Before women were forced to wear the veil in Iran, they were often forced NOT to wear the veil. Its not a step backwards, it's just a step in another equally bad direction. We should be against anyone who imposes restrictions on what women wear.

But that means we need to acknowledge that there are issues in our own culture too. Many other threads here acknowledge the misogyny in UK society - important to remember that here too when some people are saying such competitions shouldn't be held in a misogynistic country. Whoever is without sin should cast the first stone!

And in terms of dress code, the burkini bans in France seem just as bad to me as the hijab requirements in Iran. Yet I can't imagine anyone suggesting a boycott of a competition in France, even if it was a beach volleyball competition!

Women - know your place! Nigel Short thinks men are hard-wired to be better chess players than women. Perhaps this view is widespread in the male chess community and they're just getting their own back by choosing Iran.

Fluffy towel: no. Headcovering of women is a symbol of the oppressive belief that women are responsible for controlling the sexual urges of men and men are not responsible for their own self control.

Whereas the French requirement to bare your body on the beach is a symbol of the oppressive belief that men should be able to ogle at womens' bodies regardless of the woman's wishes. Not so different.

Nigel Short thinks men are hard-wired to be better chess players than women. Perhaps this view is widespread in the male chess community and they're just getting their own back by choosing Iran

could well be a factor imo!

men often use male dominated activities/area's of life as a way to express and affirm their masculinity.
When women start to 'infiltrate' a previously male dominated area then (for some of the men) it starts to lose it's association with masculinity and has less value as a tool for making them feel manly.

You don't have to bare your body. I think the rule is something to do with religious affiliation or extreme religious affiliation. You can wear a t shirt and jeans, or a sun suit. Where did you get the idea that you have to bare your body? Very different indeed.

That is basically the effect of it though isn't it. Thats why you get reports of police forcing women to remove their clothes.

And even if there aren't many laws about clothing here, there is the expectation that women will wear very little to the beach/swimming pool, and will wear tight fitting clothes, and generally try to look pretty and or sexy. (Unless of course they are 'too old', when they are expected to dress modestly.) Just because they are expectations rather than laws doesn't make the culture significantly less oppressive.

The French government have no such rule, don't be silly. Some local gvts imposed the burkini ban, there was a massiveoverreaction from white liberals outcry and the central gvt in Paris swiftly ruled it unlawful.

So it's irrelevant.

No, that is not basically the effect of it, and at least one of those reports was a set up.

Since when was expectation the same as a law which implies that men are not responsible for controlling their own sexual urges?

It's fucking massively less oppressive. It's not even at another end of the same scale. You can't seriously be making an equivalence between clothing strictures on women in the UK and those in Iran?

For your info too, it wasn't just 'men telling women what to wear' in France. Lots of people in favour of burkha and burkhini bans are women. Lots and lots. It's a cultural, secular thing, and in France, a nationalist protectionism thing.