Women on Women

But less hot than you think...

As I was waiting for my organic peanut noodles to cool (mmmm smugly vegetarian today after an evening of beer-n-beef), I started browsing the Post for some lunchtime reading. I stumbled across this: Saudi Women Rise in Defense of the Veil. In short, the article explores what might be a large number of conservative Muslim women in Saudi who are deeply upset by the recent trend toward allowing women to drive, to go without complete veiling, and other madcap scenarios.

In the spirit of reasonable disclosure, I've always found veiling fascinating, especially the argument put forth by women that the veil is not to hide them, but to protect them, which reminds me of that line from The Gift of Fear: "Men worry that women might laugh at them; women worry that men might kill them." I think there's something to that, but it's not something I'm exploring this instant.

What clicked for me as I was reading the report--featuring arguments from female scientists, lecturers, and bloggers--were the similarities between their arguments and some of the rhetoric of the anti-suffragists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, or even the debates waged by anti-ERA ladies in the 1970s (e.g., Phyllis Schlafly, I believe?). Again you have women arguing against women on behalf of women. The anti-suffragists in particular rationalized their point of view with a belief in "domestic feminism," as Wikipedia describes it. In other words, women have complete freedom in the domestic sphere, so there is no need for such liberties elsewhere. Women are, above all, a helpmeet for men, and to compete in the same arena (like voting, working) would be a failure of duty. Of course, there's the idea that women are not as experienced or clever as men, and therefore should not have the vote. The cartoon above (if it doesn't work, it's here) from Harpers lampoons this agenda.

The article asserts that the conservative Saudi women are far from silent women who hide behind their veils in fear. Rather, the articles portrays several hugely outspoken and often professionally accomplished women who desire no outside influence on the expression and responsibilities of their faith, i.e., veiling, driving, politics, etc. Can the quasi-secular arguments of suffragism, and really feminism overall, be compared to the state of Muslim women? Saudi seems to have a unique place in this debate: Muslim women in the other major Islamic nations have far fewer problems with women in leadership positions, women driving, and going without the full niqab.

My dilemma (apart from being stuck in italics--sorry) is one that has bothered me since I got my minor in Women's Studies. How do you argue with women who are in a situation that they are better off out of it? It's so often the white Western feminists who dictate what liberty and libertation really are, and that has always troubled me. Yet, I will not accept the arguments of women in Northern Africa who speak on behalf of female genital mutiliation, for example. So I've got no moral high ground here, or even consistency. Only the sense that these Saudi women are either on to something, or they are horribly deluded about their lives. I don't care for either option, quite honestly.

But, my noodles are cool now. . .