Letters to the Editor
Amity
Published Letters: 1114 Editor's Choice: 106
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Wear whatever you want, but...
[Read the article: Does freedom to veil hurt women?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Some of the quotes from these people in the Turkish government made me laugh. It will be a cold day in hell when anyone in Turkey is able to get away with systematically forcing anyone to wear "traditional" clothing. This is a country that banned the fez for generations out of massive, popular cultural anxiety about the mere reminder of more "backward" times. That concern hasn't lessened any now that Turkey is asking for admission into the EU.
Yes, there are doubtless devout and even fundamentalist Muslims who want to see more burqas and veils and so on. That doesn't mean that Turkey's secular population is going to suddenly roll over and somehow "regress."
Here in the US we don't tell women what they can or can't wear in public, and women are certainly in no danger of all becoming devout Mormons just because there are some women who exercise their right to cover themselves from neck to ankle on a hot summer day. (And on the other end of the spectrum, it's worth noting that in some parts of the country it's even legal for women to go topless, though women in those areas virtually never do — does that make them self-oppressing?)
So let Turkish women decide what Turkish women will wear. Clothing is a universal form of mediation between private and public life, between the individual and the communal, and not even in the freest societies on earth are people somehow excused from having to negotiate those questions on a daily basis.
That said, there is a difference between being in public life and being a public figure. If being completely veiled is a way to enjoy the protection afforded by anonymity, it cannot simultaneously be acceptable for women who wish their identities to be known and recognized, at least on the terms which we take for granted in the West (and to which Turkey at least nominally subscribes). How do you verify the identity of someone testifying in court if they're wearing something that is expressly intended to completely obscure their identifying features?
That's not to say that a hard line against the burqa is necessary for the functioning of a modern secular state — imagine, for example, courts staffed entirely by women so as to make it possible to conduct legitimate legal processes without violating the privacy of women who wish to be veiled. Of course, that would require a massive investment in the education and training of women in jurisprudence, law, journalism, stenography, law enforcement, security, and so on — adherence to tradition becoming the ultimate engine for affirmative action and women's empowerment.
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WarLord on clothing and disempowerment
[Read the article: Does freedom to veil hurt women?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks for your response. You said:
I would argue that the idea of women volunteering for this veiling is a charade and miasma that distracts us from the larger issues of the place of theocrasy in a secular society.
One question this raises for me is simply what it means to talk about theocracy in a secular society. A society which is essentially secular cannot coexist with theocracy — the one is literally and exactly the refutation of the other.
Clearly Turkey today is not a theocracy, despite the theocratic yearnings of some of its citizens, any more than is the United States despite a comparable countercurrent. So are you saying that you see the burqa in public life as literally inducing the transformation to theocracy by its mere existence? Surely there would have to be some other mechanism in place for that to happen — and surely if that mechanism did exist in Turkish life today, Turkey would already be a formally Muslim state. So given its absence, what difference does the veil make?
As for the question of oppression, isn't it a far greater oppression to take away another competent adult's power to make decisions for herself, even if you disagree with the values she's embracing by making those decisions?
Should we in America go after the Amish for subjecting themselves to an antiquated, sexist, ignorant existence? Even if they say they prefer it, and their funny hats, horses and buggies and sex roles and so on?
From what I can see, the danger posed by traditional Islam to the Ataturkist project is overstated — in fact it may be overshadowed by the broader danger posed by repression.
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jebldmm on mutilation, and when a choice is not a choice
[Read the article: Does freedom to veil hurt women?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So how about "female genital mutiliation"?
You don't actually seem like a troll, though it's not clear to me how you can't see the difference between putting on a robe and having one's clitoris cut out.
But since you asked, lack of adult consent to irreversible, egregious bodily harm with extreme, permanent impact on basic human fulfillment whose sole avowed purpose is literal sexual control is — no — not on the same level as deciding what to wear in the morning. Even if your mother will accuse you of being a whore if she doesn't like the choice you make.
Veils are not a choice, regardless of what the women who wear them believe.
"Lack of a veil is not a choice, regardless of what the women who don't wear them believe."
Therein lies the untenable contradiction at the heart of the "false consciousness" paradigm. Didn't feminism get over it a couple of waves ago?