May 2011 
Year 17    No.157
Gender Justice


Should I be suffocated? 0

Imprisoning women in a veil to restrain men

BY SHAZIA NAWAZ

We all know that the burkha does not have its roots in religion. Religion only asks women to dress modestly. So where did the burkha or veil come from? Why do so many women in the world cover their faces?

The burkha is a mobile jail invented by men to hide the women they “love”. If love were really involved, I could accept it. It would make the jail a little more acceptable in a twisted kind of way. But what kind of man would keep a person he loves in a jail? No, the burkha is more a jail to keep in the women they “own”.

Brainwashing begins at a very early age: When you are told that you have to hide yourself from men. It is ‘piety’ to hide your face. You are also taught to fear men. From a very early age you are told that men are dangerous and should not be trusted. Your father and your brother are the only ones you can trust. As someone so eloquently put it the other day, “in Pakistan, women are told that men are wolves and women are sheep” and due to this teaching, most men do indeed start acting like wolves and women as sheep.

Our men say that women should cover up so that we do not have ‘thoughts’ about them: Thoughts of harming women and thoughts of raping them. So they want to put me in a mobile jail just so their minds stay clean?! What twisted logic! And does this really stop their ‘thoughts’? In the real world, they don’t care if you are in a burkha, they will harass you anyway. Covering my face never protected me from street harassment.

When we lived in one of Pakistan’s smaller cities, either my father or brother had to accompany us whenever we left the house. If they didn’t, despite all the layers of clothes we wore, men on the street would yell taunts, follow us and even try to rub up against us as we passed by. This is the very reason why women cannot go out alone and always have to have a male relative with them. Men have to protect their women from other men in Pakistan, and in all Muslim countries.

When we moved to a bigger city, Lahore, and got rid of the big chadar, sexual harassment, believe it or not, was less. The men there were used to women who walked around with their heads and faces uncovered. They were more educated and their own sisters and mothers had more freedom as well.

Coming to the USA and witnessing the behaviour of the men on the street was an amazing experience. I can walk around wearing whatever I want. No one dares to harass me. This tells me that it is not the burkha which keeps the dangerous men away; it is the mind-set of a society and the implementation of its laws that keep women safe in any country.

I first experienced the touch of a cool breeze against my skin on a beautiful beach in Hawaii and it was wonderful. Men rob women even of their basic right to enjoy nice weather by putting them in a tent called the burkha. It is dark in there and it is hot in there. Should I be suffocated just so you do not have ‘thoughts’ about me?

Doctors consider ‘thoughts’ a god-made, healthy phenomenon. Acting on your thoughts without the other person’s consent would put you in jail for 10-20 years in any civilised country.

It is difficult for a man from an oppressed society to understand that in a free world, men do indeed learn to control their ‘thoughts’ and they do not blame women for it. When it comes to France and the burkha ban, the argument that ‘women should be allowed to wear whatever they want to wear and that is freedom’ does not work. Every society has to have a dress code and limitation to freedom. Your freedom ends where it starts taking mine away. Nudists frequently demand their right to walk naked on the streets. They cannot be allowed to walk around completely naked so as to protect other members of society.

In the same way, a person covered from head to toe is a security risk. You do not know what lies underneath. It has become a dangerous world. You cannot let your kids play in a park where people sit completely covered from head to toe.

Besides, what right do Muslims have to ask France not to ban the niqab when a western woman cannot walk around freely in a Muslim country wearing shorts? You expect them to respect your culture when they come to your country; you should respect their culture too when you move to theirs.

(Dr Shazia Nawaz, a Pakistan-born physician, practises medicine in the USA. This article was posted on the website Let Us Build Pakistan on April 15, 2011.)

Courtesy: http://criticalppp.com


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