On 07/09/2011 04:02, Nathan wrote: > > > Since we know that the gender gap exists in many cultures, and not > just the U.S. or Europe, being aware of and sensitive to specific > cultural biases takes on special merit here. Far more "gratuitous" > nudity is not terribly uncommon throughout Western Europe, for > example, in everything from general interest magazines and newspapers > to street ads, movies, other media and even in personal interaction > (see [[Love parade]]).
Yes nudity in Western Europe has become so frequent that it is devoid of any significance now. Showing sexual intercourse can provoke a debate about proper and improper, but Western Europeans will hardly notice an ad with a naked woman. However, there is a new element. That is the pressure from Islamic immigration. Some radical Muslims want the sharia immediately applied to all populations, even non Muslims, because sharia is the law from God, and God is far superior to any parliament or constitution. Some Muslims are more tolerant for other populations, but for their own family it is still the law, the law as in not a personal choice. Some other Muslims would like to get rid of Islam, but they are not helped by the prevailing multicultural policies, which tend to accept community leaders as the true representatives of what they wish. In the past, xenophobia was restricted to extreme-right political groups. However recently there has been a change, and the liberal lobbies have turned against Islam, which creates a new situation as it is the immigrant population which is now perceived as culturally backwards and threatening for civic rights. The majority of native European populations now perceive immigration as civilization threatening, and in this context Islam is perceived as particularly incompatible with Western civilization. Gender issues have become a major landmark for that in public debate. Gay groups, feminist groups, secular groups, now perceive the right to show female nudity, the right to celibate autonomous life, the right to gender orientation as gains of modern civilization, to defend actively and specifically against Islam. In the past it was against the local conservative right, now it is explicitly against Islam. As far as medical treatment of women is concerned, the sharia explicitly states that : - A woman patient cannot be seen naked, or even touched, by a male doctor. When the doctor is female that is not an issue, and fortunately many doctors are female. However, for specialized or emergency treatment, we now have a record of of life threatening situations or severe lasting damages, because the husband, the father or even the brother did not allow treatment. This also includes severe damages to the baby in obstetrics, when a complication occurred and the intervention of a male specialist was refused by the "man in charge". - A woman doctor cannot be alone in a room with a male patient. This obviously will in term prevent all Muslim women to work in the medical field. We find ourselves in more and more impractical situations. Like for instance a female nurse refusing to enter the room of a totally incapacitated man alone to give him his pills, or refusing to lift the head of an old guy to fix his pillow. For other fields of work it also prevents the educated yet intent Muslim woman to work properly (law, education...), but mentalities notably focus on the medical field, because of the obvious promiscuity that it entails. The simple fact of a male patient showing his naked back to his female doctor to check the evolution of his sciatica is considered horrendous and condemnable obscenity by the sharia. Sure there have been numerous ad hoc adaptations in the past, but Islamic pressure is growing and western patience is decreasing. The quantitative pressure of immigration, the qualitative risks of criminality, the geopolitical situation also don't help. If you want a North American image, you can try to imagine the Latino immigration in the US, with a less severe criminality than in Colorado but nevertheless very present, and a strong revendication from Latinos to apply a community medieval Catholic law, only more severe than medieval Catholic law. Then you imagine the feminist groups actively joining the crowd of the xenophobic right, and the xenophobic right changing to become the main defender of women's rights and secular scientific enlightenment. With traditional liberal multicultural thinkers slowly dwindling into irrelevance. If that makes sense to you... All this to explain to you that in Western Europe as it is now, the refusal to show nudity is becoming clearly identified with Islam, and feminists are turning clearly against Islam. If you have time you can have a look at the photos in pregnancy pages in Farsi and Arabic. You have the languages column in the left of the English page. The decency of those pages, which in North American feminism would be typically considered as protecting women, is now in Western Europe becoming associated with a threat to civic rights of women. The pages with the naked woman are the pages of countries with strong women rights. Urdu and Punjabi pages are not developed, but then they are seldom developed for anything, so it is not very relevant. Some European languages have very little population and contributors, so they are not very relevant either. The Dutch page is surprising, as it shows more nudity, and in Holland they both enjoy high standards of women's rights, and Islam has become widely considered as an equivalent for political murder and threats to civic rights. Arnaud _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
