Veiled
Sexuality
by Naomi Wolf
NEW YORKA woman swathed in black to her ankles, wearing a headscarf or a full
chador ,
walks down a European or North American street, surrounded by other women in
halter tops,
miniskirts and short shorts. She passes under immense billboards on which other
women swoon in sexual ecstasy, cavort in lingerie or simply stretch out
languorously, almost fully naked. Could this image be any more iconic of the
discomfort the West has with the social mores of Islam, and vice versa?
Ideological
battles are often waged with womens bodies as their emblems, and Western
Islamophobiais no exception. When Francebanned headscarves in schools, it used
the
hijab as a proxy for Western values in general, including the appropriate
status of women. When Americans were being prepared for the invasion of
Afghanistan, the Taliban were demonized for denying
cosmetics and hair color to women; when the Taliban were overthrown, Western
writers often noted that women had taken off their scarves.
But are we in the
West radically misinterpreting Muslim sexual mores, particularly the meaning to
many Muslim women of being veiled or wearing the chador ? And are we blind to
our own markers of the oppression and control of women?
The West
interprets veiling as repression of women and suppression of their sexuality.
But when I traveled in Muslim countries and was invited to join a discussion in
women-only settings within Muslim homes, I learned that Muslim attitudes toward
womens appearance and sexuality are not rooted in repression, but in a strong
sense of public versus private, of what is due to God and what is due to ones
husband. It is not that Islam suppresses sexuality, but that it embodies a
strongly developed sense of its appropriate channeling toward marriage, the
bonds that sustain family life, and the attachment that secures a home.
Outside the walls
of the typical Muslim households that I visited in Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt,
all was demureness and propriety. But
inside, women were as interested in allure, seduction, and pleasure as women
anywhere in the world.
At home, in the
context of marital intimacy, Victorias Secret, elegant fashion, and skin care
lotions abounded. The bridal videos that I was shown, with the sensuous dancing
that the bride learns as part of what makes her a wonderful wife, and which she
proudly displays for her bridegroom, suggested that sensuality was not alien to
Muslim women. Rather, pleasure and sexuality, both male and female, should not
be displayed promiscuously and possibly destructively for all to see.
Indeed, many
Muslim women I spoke with did not feel at all subjugated by the chador or the
headscarf. On the contrary, they felt liberated from what they experienced as
the intrusive, commodifying, basely sexualizing Western gaze. Many women said
something like this: When I wear Western clothes, men stare at me, objectify
me, or I am always measuring myself against the standards of models in
magazines, which are hard to live up to and even harder as you get older, not
to mention how tiring it can be to be on display all the time. When I wear my
headscarf or chador , people relate to me as an individual, not an object; I
feel respected. This may not be expressed in a traditional Western feminist
set of images, but it is a recognizably Western feminist set of feelings.
I experienced it
myself. I put on a shalwar kameez and a headscarf in Moroccofor a trip to the
bazaar. Yes, some of the
warmth I encountered was probably from the novelty of seeing a Westerner so
clothed;
but, as I moved about the market the curve of my breasts covered, the shape
of my legs obscured, my long hair not flying about me I felt a novel sense of
calm and serenity. I felt, yes, in certain ways, free.
Nor are Muslim
women alone. The Western Christian tradition portrays all sexuality, even
married sexuality, as sinful. Islam and Judaism never had that same kind of
mind-body split. So, in both cultures, sexuality channeled into marriage and
family life is seen as a source of great blessing, sanctioned by God.
This may explain
why both Muslim and orthodox Jewish women not only describe a sense of being
liberated by their modest clothing and covered hair, but also express much
higher levels of sensual joy in their married lives than is common in the West.
When sexuality is kept private and directed in ways seen as sacred and when
ones husband isnt seeing his wife (or other women) half-naked all day long
one can feel great power and intensity when the headscarf or the chador comes
off in the sanctity of the home.
Among healthy
young men in the West, who grow up on pornography and sexual imagery on every
street corner, reduced libido is a growing epidemic, so it is easy to imagine
the power that sexuality can still carry in a more modest culture. And it is
worth understanding the positive experiences that women and men can have in
cultures where sexuality is more conservatively directed.
I do not mean to
dismiss the many women leaders in the Muslim world who regard veiling as a
means of controlling women. Choice is everything. But Westerners should
recognize that when a woman in Franceor Britainchooses a veil, it is not
necessarily a
sign of her repression. And, more importantly, when you choose your own
miniskirt and halter top in a Western culture in which women are not so free
to age, to be respected as mothers, workers or spiritual beings, and to
disregard Madison Avenue its worth thinking in a more nuanced way about what
female freedom really means.
**
Naomi Wolf, the author, most recently, of The End of America: Letter of Warning
to a Young Patriot and the forthcoming Give me Liberty: How to Become an
American Revolutionary, is co-founder of the American Freedom Campaign, a US
democracy movement.
Copyright:
Project Syndicate, 2008. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/wolf3
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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