To veil or not to veil
Saturday, 9 October 2010
The High Court has decreed that none in Bangladesh can be forced to wear the burqa, nor can anyone be forced NOT to wear it. Both positions have their basis on the constitution of the country which has been restored (almost) to its original secular form. Much can be said about the Quranic commendation of the veil/decency [in its spirit doesn't it mean the same in Islam's holy book ?] and the context in which it was prescribed, for both male and female, mark you. But that is not the purpose of this column. This scribe simply wishes to celebrate the landmark ruling which is meant to restore the individual female's freedom, the right to choose or not to choose - as it should be under an avowedly democratic constitution. Begum Rokeya Shakawat Hossain, the pioneer of women's emancipation in this part of the world, would have been pleased!
Many people, men specially, had much to resent about developments during the early waves of Western women's liberation movement, but there was no dearth of cerebrally and spiritually-endowed males across the world who began to see the merits of the revolution as it matured into the all-encompassing, holistic, humanistic philosophy of ecofeminism in recent decades. Nordic men were perhaps the first to appreciate the expanded vision, and some of them formed groups to advance the case for a more humane and egalitarian gender relationship, fair to both men and women.
The International Association for Studies of Men (IASOM), for example, which came into being sometime towards the end of the 20th century, looked for ways to influence more men to support women's full political, economic and social equality. It fought spousal abuse; focused on active fatherhood and domestic work-sharing strategies to facilitate women's full enjoyment of their rights and participation in the public arena - in other words to mend the flawed relationships between men and women.
Women's problems cannot be solved by women alone, or men's problems by men alone, as both are victims of the predominant patriarchal system and its entrenched stereotypes. These groups of 'new' men and women have been chipping away at this decadent system in order to replace it with a caring, sharing and understanding relationship between individual men and women, as well as institute the culture of empathy and sympathy all across the planet. [A very lofty idea indeed!] The poet Adrienne Rich expressed this same poignant sentiment in the early 1970s. She said, '…… at moments I can conceive of a women's movement that will show the way to humanising technology and fusing dreams and skills and visions and reason to begin the healing of the human race … we have … western women, Third World women, all women ... known and felt the pain of the human condition most consistently. But in the end it can't be women alone.'
Adrienne Rich belonged to the first wave of western feminism, when the movement and women's creativity itself was charged with rage. It was the time when poet Sylvia Plath lived - and died. It was the time Diane Wakoski wrote that she hated her face because it had served her ill, because it was the face that was supposed to be the woman! Creative women, women with thinking minds, found themselves imprisoned inside their bodies, shackled to traditions that often proved to be overwhelmingly oppressive. Sylvia Plath could not take it any more and chose to take her own life.
Women and men have undoubtedly come a long way from the angry encounters half a century ago, at least in societies where honest debate and discussions are encouraged and diversity and democracy between people are valued. Today ecofeminists, among whom are both males and females, are addressing virtually all the problems facing humanity, problems that are inextricably linked - such as widespread poverty and global hierarchy, with gender equity and human rights issues. But it would be untrue to say that misogyny is dead. It is alive and well in every nook and corner of the world. In Bangladesh evidence is screaming in the acid-burnt faces of women, in unreported suicides and dowry deaths, in the attitudes of obscurantists and insecure men who are as far away as possible from the Quranic advice: 'O mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord Who created you from a single soul ......'
Many people, men specially, had much to resent about developments during the early waves of Western women's liberation movement, but there was no dearth of cerebrally and spiritually-endowed males across the world who began to see the merits of the revolution as it matured into the all-encompassing, holistic, humanistic philosophy of ecofeminism in recent decades. Nordic men were perhaps the first to appreciate the expanded vision, and some of them formed groups to advance the case for a more humane and egalitarian gender relationship, fair to both men and women.
The International Association for Studies of Men (IASOM), for example, which came into being sometime towards the end of the 20th century, looked for ways to influence more men to support women's full political, economic and social equality. It fought spousal abuse; focused on active fatherhood and domestic work-sharing strategies to facilitate women's full enjoyment of their rights and participation in the public arena - in other words to mend the flawed relationships between men and women.
Women's problems cannot be solved by women alone, or men's problems by men alone, as both are victims of the predominant patriarchal system and its entrenched stereotypes. These groups of 'new' men and women have been chipping away at this decadent system in order to replace it with a caring, sharing and understanding relationship between individual men and women, as well as institute the culture of empathy and sympathy all across the planet. [A very lofty idea indeed!] The poet Adrienne Rich expressed this same poignant sentiment in the early 1970s. She said, '…… at moments I can conceive of a women's movement that will show the way to humanising technology and fusing dreams and skills and visions and reason to begin the healing of the human race … we have … western women, Third World women, all women ... known and felt the pain of the human condition most consistently. But in the end it can't be women alone.'
Adrienne Rich belonged to the first wave of western feminism, when the movement and women's creativity itself was charged with rage. It was the time when poet Sylvia Plath lived - and died. It was the time Diane Wakoski wrote that she hated her face because it had served her ill, because it was the face that was supposed to be the woman! Creative women, women with thinking minds, found themselves imprisoned inside their bodies, shackled to traditions that often proved to be overwhelmingly oppressive. Sylvia Plath could not take it any more and chose to take her own life.
Women and men have undoubtedly come a long way from the angry encounters half a century ago, at least in societies where honest debate and discussions are encouraged and diversity and democracy between people are valued. Today ecofeminists, among whom are both males and females, are addressing virtually all the problems facing humanity, problems that are inextricably linked - such as widespread poverty and global hierarchy, with gender equity and human rights issues. But it would be untrue to say that misogyny is dead. It is alive and well in every nook and corner of the world. In Bangladesh evidence is screaming in the acid-burnt faces of women, in unreported suicides and dowry deaths, in the attitudes of obscurantists and insecure men who are as far away as possible from the Quranic advice: 'O mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord Who created you from a single soul ......'