Targeting Muslim dress latest front in oppression of women
Women shout and hold placards reading messages such as "Too covered or not enough, it is up to women to decide" as they march towards the French embassy in Athens on August 30, 2016 during a protest condemning the decision by some French mayors to ban the Islamic burkini swimsuit on their beaches. PHOTO | AFP
What you need to know:
- Thierry Mogoule explained that women who wear burkinis to the beach reflect “an allegiance to terrorist movements”.
- One woman who was lying on a beach in Cannes was ordered by police officers to take off her burkini.
- Critics of the ban argue that instead of tackling the root causes of terrorism, Western countries are trying to find fault in soft targets, such as Muslim women and their clothing, and are unfairly stigmatising Muslims.
- In the Western mindset, a woman who is covered from head to toe is a symbol of oppression.
Last month, the mayor of Cannes in France banned women from wearing burkinis (usually a loose fitting nylon version of a wetsuit) on beaches, apparently because they do not adhere to French customs and secularism.
Thierry Mogoule, the head of municipal services in Cannes, explained that women who wear burkinis to the beach reflect “an allegiance to terrorist movements which are at war with us”.
One woman who was lying on a beach in Cannes and whose image went viral on the internet was even ordered by police officers to take off her burkini.
She was also fined for “not wearing an outfit respecting good morals and secularism”. Several other French towns have since also banned the burkini despite the fact that France’s highest administrative court has suspended the ban on the grounds that it breaches civil liberties and individual freedom.
Critics of the ban argue that instead of tackling the root causes of terrorism, Western countries are trying to find fault in soft targets, such as Muslim women and their clothing, and are unfairly stigmatising Muslims.
As Huda Jawad, a community coordinator at Standing Together against Domestic Violence, asked in an online article, since when did wearing a burkini become an act of allegiance to terrorist movements? Jawad argues that this new obsession with Muslim women’s mode of dress curtails the most basic of human rights — that of self-determination and freedom of expression.
By condoning the violation of these human rights, French authorities are making a mockery of their own democracy and of the French values of liberté, egalité, and fraternité.
Some say that France’s policies, which have tended to isolate and marginalise the country’s Muslims, most of whom are of North African origin, have failed to integrate Muslims into French society, which has resulted in alienation and Islamophobia.
The burkini ban in France reflects the cultural values that get lost in translation when the West tries to analyse the Muslim world. Perhaps in the Western mindset, a woman who is covered from head to toe is a symbol of oppression. However, conservative Muslims would probably view a scantily-clad woman as oppressed — a woman who is hungry for male attention and approval.
GROWING ISLAMOPHOBIA
These opposing views have been captured in a cartoon doing the rounds on social media of a woman in a bikini and dark sunglasses passing a woman clad in a burka (or what in Kenya we call bui bui) on a street. The woman in the bikini pities the woman in the burka and says something like, “Poor woman, she can’t expose any part of her body except her eyes.” The woman in the burka is thinking, “Poor woman, she is only allowed to cover her eyes.”
It is unfortunate that Muslim women are becoming the casualties of growing Islamophobia in the West. The problem with Islamophobia is that it can also become a propaganda tool used by terrorists to perpetuate their anti-West propaganda and to gain recruits.
So, when US presidential candidate Donald Trump says that he will bar Muslims from entering the United States and will make immigrants undergo “extreme vetting”, he is lighting the very flame he claims he wants to extinguish — that of radicalisation fuelled by alienation. This is not how to solve the growing threat of terrorism in the world.
Personally, I do not think anybody should dictate to women what they can or cannot wear. Since time immemorial men have decided what attire is acceptable for women and how women should look.
In order to please male-dominated societies, women have had to wear all kinds of contraptions, some of which are downright damaging to women’s health. The female corset, for instance, dug into women’s rib cages and hurt their inner organs. Stiletto heels are known to distort women’s spines and feet.
Ironically, in today’s world, women are being encouraged to take off their clothes. Many are willingly turning themselves into porn stars by putting up photos of their naked on near-naked bodies on the internet.
Yet, none of these women view themselves as slaves to a male-dominated culture that fetishises women’s body parts and thinks nothing of turning women into commodities.
The French authorities that instituted the burkini ban must understand that the over-sexualisation and commodification of women is also a form of oppression that must be resisted.
