Do you have any evidence that women are raped for not wearing the hijab? And is that happening any more than in the "enlightened Christian" countries, such as the US where people are also raped and murdered for the who they are?

http://www.rrsonline.org/?page_id=944

eg

>> Most studies reveal that approximately 50% of transgender people experience sexual violence at some point in their lifetime.48

>> The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs reports that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer people were three times more likely to report sexual violence and/or harassment compared to heterosexual people who reported to NCAVP in 2010.49

Surveys regularly show that people think the victims of violent sexual crime are partly to blame if they didn't fight back, or if they were in "the wrong place", or if they were intoxicated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guidance_Patrol

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/20/influx-of-mora...

In the less-developed regions it's usually gangs policing with which do apply violence and these have been growing in the west also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia_patrols

You can search youtube for the results, it's way to vile and NSFW to post it on HN.

Entirely different. If I take a big risk, I might be partly to blame for a negative outcome. If I do something immoral, I might be blamed for the negative consequence. But these are not the same semantics for blame; One says I should have been more diligent in avoiding harm; The other says I actually deserve harm. Conflating the two, or willingly ignoring the nuance is a liberal trick.

There are, despite liberal perception, few people that say someone intoxicated actually deserves to be assaulted, this is usually something put in peoples mouths. Meanwhile, this is very much the opinion wrt the Hijab - that the women are immodest and deserve punishment.

Show me a westerner that believes assault is a reasonable punishment for intoxication, and I'll show you crowd of westerners that despises them.

> If I take a big risk, I might be partly to blame for a negative outcome. If I do something immoral, I might be blamed for the negative consequence.

I think you are right about risks and outcomes, but not how it applies.

First, just in terms of your theory, what's the difference between a woman in London who doesn't cover up her skirt late at night, takes a risk, and gets assaulted, and a woman in Tehran who doesn't cover up her skirt with a hajib, takes a risk, and gets assaulted? (Bear with me ...)

* Note that many in the U.S. will say, 'she asked for it', and not just to their buddies. There are endless reports of law enforcement taking this attitude when rape victims report the crime and harassing them, to the degree that rape victims often don't report it. It's an official, if unwritten rule, to a meaningful degree.

* In Iran it's a written rule (I assume). Some in Iran will say she deserved it, as you noted for religious reasons. But I read that in Egypt, at least, a basis for that rule (I don't know how common, or if this is somehow religiously-based) is that women who don't cover up are tempting men, who can't be expected to resist. That's pretty similar to 'she asked for it'.

I think to a great degree it may be the same thinking, just rationalized and implemented in different ways in a secular and in a religious society. Either way, she violated social norms - men's rules about what she can do with her body - and deserves what she gets.

So people don't really fit into this label, yet you can still say they "aren't trying to trick anyone". You can either speak about "liberals", or you can't. I said it was a "liberal trick", maybe 'leftist' is a better term.

> what's the difference between

It's hard to tell, you need to know what the relevant aspects are. Is not wearing a hijab in Tehran dangerous because of the perception that the crime is deserved? This confounds the situation where risk is both known to the degree that it is a precedent, but that the fact that it is a precedent is because of the public perception that victims deserve their treatment.

If someone lost their house betting on the stock-market, we might find them to blame for their foolishness, yet still not care to tell them to their face, due to the magnitude of the situation, unless you knew them and their situation well.

I would advise a woman in Tehran to wear the hijab if there was a risk not doing so might put them at risk. I would say they put themselves at unreasonable risk if they did otherwise - I wouldn't say 'blame' out of respect for the ambiguity of the word in such a serious context. None of this means I agree with the fact that this risk exists, or that anyone deserves to be assaulted.

> Note that many in the U.S. will say, 'she asked for it' ... There are endless reports of law enforcement taking this attitude

Who? And in what context? The US is big place, are you telling me the precedent in Tehran, and the 'unwritten rule' in the US are of the same magnitude and veracity? I'm not so sure.

In any case, if this where true, then it's bad when the US do it too - this has no bearing on Tehran, and is only if it's true.

> women who don't cover up are tempting men, who can't be expected to resist

It is religiously based, in a place where that religious has real, unanimous, legal authority.

> the same thinking, just rationalized and implemented in different ways in a secular and in a religious society

Maybe so, except this thinking has no were near the same influence in the two cases.

Yes, it is much, much worse than in places like the US, it is carried out by state agencies like the morality police and by pseudo-state entities like the "Basij". As others pointed out, when you.move outside the cities things often get less 'civilised'

I understand that people don't want to fall into the trap of prejudice, but things are materially worse in places like Iran, and drawing parallels with how women are treated in the west is not helpful. We have problems, we don't have the morality police or relgious militias, at least here in the UK

I would request a different cite than FrontPage Mag, which appears to put a large banner at the top of every page saying 'Inside every liberal is a totalitarian screaming to get out'.

https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=preacher%20gay%2...

There are wackos everywhere, in every religion and town and country. When it's in our world, we have the cultural knowledge to know how much threat they really represent. When we see "Iranian Imam says ...", is that the equivalent of the Pope? Some fringe but powerful archbishop? A broad consensus? The strip mall preacher?

And not just fringe people but American leaders say hateful things, from mayors to governors to a guy who has a serious chance of being elected president.

I don't have much love for the pope either, but I feel that he at least has some political restrictions in west.

> American leaders say hateful things, from mayors to governors to a guy who has a serious chance of being elected president

Trump seems to be a little different from past candidates though, and "American leaders say hateful things" lacks magnitude - what percentage of leaders, and how was this perceived? For most, even the impression of racism is a career ender, and they are under a great deal of scrutiny.

Something you said, not me. It's a pretty inflammatory statement, so could you be specific about who does that and how often?

Certainly women are assaulted - mostly by men - in many countries for violating social norms about their bodies. A big part of the women's rights revolution in the U.S. was taking control of that: Women decide what they can wear (bikinis), when to have sex (birth control and sexual assault laws), when to get pregnant (birth control), when not to (abortion), when they can be touched and commented on (sexual harassment). Before, it was a bunch of men telling women what they could or couldn't do with their own bodies.

IMO, the faster that principle of basic self-determination (applied in whatever ways the local women want) spreads around the world the better, including Iran but many other countries and cultures too, and the U.S. and Europe have a ways to go themselves. As one example, some online communities in those countries (not HN but known here) encourage the abuse of women.

Besides the fact that, in the US, there certainly are churches or places of worship in which you're allowed to wear whatever the hell you want.

Again, I didn't say that, you did. Perhaps quote something I did say. Regarding your statement, I'll repeat what I said above: It's a pretty inflammatory statement, so could you be specific about who does that and how often?

How about Iran (the country in question) arresting women for showing hair (the problem in question) on Instagram.

The problem with trying to quote you directly is that you actually aren't saying anything of substance. You're simply being an apologist who apparently can't muster up the courage to even take a stance on way or the other. You're just offering some good old PR hedging for an oppressive regime and trying to neuter the discussion with vague allusions to moral relativism.

I'll ask again, what exactly are you trying to say? As it stands now, you're bogging down an important conversation that needs to happen with half-baked apologism.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...

This and prior insults make me think that talking to you really isn't valuable or worth more time. Enjoy your day.

I would like to say that if your point is simply that the hijab is an article of clothing, then yes, you're right, and no one here disagrees with you. The question here is about the legal code which requires that women wear said article of clothing. The western war against the hijab is not against cloth, it is against this legal and cultural structure. This should actually be self evident in your own posts: the west has been waging an internal war against abuse of women for decades, yet at no point was this war centered around the hijab. Obviously the war is not, never has been, and never will be about the hijab.

It has always centered around the structural problem of abuse of women. However, speaking in vague references like your own about the structural problem has proven to be unproductive. The way you eliminate structural abuse is by eliminating specific instances of abuse. One after the other after the other. For this reason, the war against abuse is endless, both in the west and abroad, as mentioned in my own comment.

There are few people who would declare that this war is won anywhere. Yet everyone can agree that tackling the specific problem of suffrage was a massive blow against the structural problem of abuse. The specific problem of abortion was a massive blow against the structural problem of abuse. The specific problem of the hijab will be a massive blow against the structural problem of abuse.

Reverting the discussion back to a philosophical one is not actually helpful, and many people find it insulting when it's done in response to a person showing enormous courage in tackling a real, practical problem. I hope that explains the knee jerk reactions you've received here.

http://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/isis-stones-five-women-dea...

This isn't in Iran, but doesn't hackuser's lame moral relativism argument also apply to ISIS? Isn't stoning women to death for not wearing the hijab simply part of their moral code? After all, the US doesn't allow women to show their breasts in public.

Edit: If your issue is specifically that someone implied that specifically rape/murder happens to women specifically in Iran specifically for wearing a hijab, here's a glimpse at what it means to be arrested in Iran: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/world-jan-june11-iranianwomen...

You can see that women get arrested for not wearing the hijab here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iranian-...

So no, for some reason I can't seem to find an official press release from Khomeini that a specific woman was raped/murdered for not wearing a hijab. I can only point to mountains of evidence of systematic oppression and abuse, which undoubtedly includes arrest/rape/murder, and which undoubtedly includes the violation of simply not wearing a hijab.

In my family my mother in law is wearing hijab and if I really need to point out an oppressed in my family I would say it's my father in law ;-)

Edit: I can't respond to the post below, for whatever reason. Minorities in question would be Assyrians and Armenians, for example, who are Christians and who absolutely have to cover their heads everywhere they go: http://forum.hyeclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2144

I don't doubt there is widespread oppression in Iran, but there are so many ugly rumors that go around that I want to make sure I know what I'm talking about.

Also, the hajib symbolizes all of Islam to many Western people, so I try to be careful about conflating one government's brutality with prejudice against a world-wide religion.

We all agree that forcing by law women to wear a hijab is wrong. That's currently happening in Iran, and it's easy to find many stories from reputable sources to say this is happening.

We can disagree about how to fight that. This chess champion thinks boycotting the championship if she's forced to wear a hijab is one way. Other human rights campaigners say that a boycott is wrong.

But other people have made a further claim. They've said that women in Iran are raped, beaten, or murdered for not wearing the hijab. It's those claims that you want a source for.

> They've said that women in Iran are raped, beaten, or murdered for not wearing the hijab. It's those claims that you want a source for.

That wasn't the GGP's claim. Again, just trying to get some specific, real knowledge into the discussion (and for my own benefit).

EDIT: But I agree the GGP's claim isn't the main issue, and this discussion is becoming convoluted.

You're creating a strawman, and then demanding sources for it.

Not that you represent everyone in Tunisia or every Muslim in the world, but do you feel there's social pressure to wear one? Would they be looked down upon or criticized for not wearing one?

I have the freedom to wear a NASA spacesuit or a bearskin tomorrow, but the social repercussions are a big deterrent.

> The issue I'm having with that kind of discussion is that instead of pointing out an opression problem somewhere in the world it stigmatize an entire community

For what it's worth from one person on the Internet, I agree completely. It's one of my biggest worries. It's going to cause more oppression and is entirely unnecessary.

It's not.

I would be interested in what you think about my actual words.

If you didn't make the allusion, then you didn't say anything relevant to the topic at hand.

You are seeing (or hearing) dog whistles in your head, but they're not in mine or my words. What if someone wasn't interested in ideology (or actually disliked it) and just wanted to talk about the issue intelligently? What if the hajib is not an ideological statement but just an article of clothing?

All that extra baggage and meaning many attach to the hajib, and that you attach to my words, is in the eye of the beholder. It's the same thing, I think, that leads to abuse of makes innocent people (not that you are doing that, but I think one leads to another); they aren't people, they are ideological symbols of Islam, Judaism, Black, immigration, etc. We forget: They are just people, trying to go through their days.

EDIT: Edited out response to edited comment in parent. Thanks for your consideration.

That's not true. Don't speak for other people.

I agree that many people in the West have made it a symbol (that was a major point of what I wrote). And I strongly agree that women should wear what they want.

But I think that by making it a symbol, we create more problems:

* It's become part of the narrative used by hateful and scared people to promote the dangerous, oppressive prejudice against Muslim people. Inflaming that evil is dangerous and leads directly to harm for a very large number of people.

* Many people feel so strongly about the symbol that now they impose their view of the hajib on the same women, forcing them not to wear it (which is law now in some places in the West). That's no better than forcing them to wear it.

Everyone needs to stop telling women what to wear. Hyping up this symbol isn't helping, it's doing more harm.

> Yes, it happens in the West too, albeit to a much lesser degree, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't call it out when it happens elsewhere.

I agree on all points.

Is it acceptable to ban hijabs?

> Don't you think that's part of the reason the West is averse to the hijab?

Some of the West. Other parts of the west are fine with it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02vk6bj/high-street-hi...

A month ago, I went to Europe and my date had to wrap a scarf around her waist to visit a church (she was wearing shorts). That is totally cool. It's private property and they can set the rules as they please. But in public, women are free to wear what they want.

On a side note: I am from India and I don't know where you got this idea that women has to cover themselves from neck to wrists to ankles (not even the villages, see: https://www.google.com/search?q=indian+village+women&source=...). Yes, certain Muslim population do wear hijab/niqab.

My experience of visiting a Greek orthodox church was that bare legs weren't tolerated on either sex.

In many places it is now state-enforced law that women cannot cover their heads, faces, and/or wear hajibs/etc.

But despite that serious problem, I agree there is far more freedom in Europe. My point is that people see the clothing as threatening; they are obsessed with what it symbolizes. I agree that the serious question is not clothing but women's freedom to wear generally what they want (among many other freedoms).

> I am from India and I don't know where you got this idea that women has to cover themselves from neck to wrists to ankles

That's very interesting to me. I certainly don't have your experience and knowledge, but I've been to India. Before going we were told that was the social norm, and when we were there, mostly cities in northern India including Delhi, that's what we observed. When we'd see a western woman in a tank top and shorts, she would stand out dramatically.

Honest question: How did I misunderstand what I saw?

Here's what you will find Indian women wearing in day to day life:

1. Educated, middle class: Salwaar Kameez, Jeans/Top, Skirt/Top. 2. Older or more conservative women: Sari. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sari Even Sari exposes a women's midriff and her hands.

Do you have any photo of the outfit that you are talking about?

> 1. Educated, middle class: Salwaar Kameez, Jeans/Top, Skirt/Top. 2. Older or more conservative women: Sari. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sari Even Sari exposes a women's midriff and her hands.

I'm not talking about a specific outfit; we saw plenty of what you describe, though not midriff-baring saris without something underneath.

The photos of the saris looks familiar so perhaps I should have said elbows and not wrists. But did we see bare calfs, much less thighs; midriffs; shoulders; chest below the collarbone much less cleavage (somehow, this is a little odd to list out)? Very rarely other than a few westerners and in mass media.

Obviously you know far more than I do about it. But while I may be forgetting some subtleties, we remarked on it at the time and I know what I saw. I wonder how to make sense of it.

Is this for the same reasons as above though? When a courier delivers to a bank, they must remove their helmets, for example. That clothing can indeed, pose a threat.

It's also been enforced by police who've forced women to remove clothing: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/24/french-police-...

There's been other violence against women for what they wear:

>> A Corsican mayor has also banned burkinis, amid tensions on the island and violent clashes between villagers and three Muslim families. Skirmishes at a beach in the commune of Sisco earlier this month left four people injured and resulted in riot police being brought in to stop a crowd of 200 Corsicans marching into a housing estate with a high population of people of North African origin, shouting “this is our home”.

(etc, there are many attacks on women who wear hijabs or niqabs)

Is that example entirely a result of the clothing, or are there other factors at play? i.e. is causality established.

and there is a reason for that.

Anyway, we're making very broad, baseless statements about the opinions of hundreds of millions of people. People in my own family don't even agree on these issues.

There's this massive myth that Europe is all one culture, and it's not (you may even have heard about a sizable war in the past century that was predicated on cultural differences).

But I don't see any purpose to that. You also can unite people and get great things done together, as 13 very different colonies did in 1789. Why choose fighting with that alternative?

> you may even have heard about a sizable war in the past century that was predicated on cultural differences

I disagree. The cause of the war was one country trying to conquer the other ones. And each side was composed of countries of different cultures and languages. Germany, Japan and Italy; and the U.S., Russia, France, China, etc. on the other side.

And in fact, the EU was created to prevent another war; togetherness has succeeded: The idea of war inside the EU is now absurd.

Saudi Aramco is the largest oil company in the world. It's base of operations is in Dhahran, a city in the eastern region of KSA. Aramco employs a ton of foreigners and of course want their employees to be as comfortable as possible. But this is difficult to do given KSA's strict culture. So what do they do? They build their employees an American-style suburban town outside of Dhahran proper, with its own schools, supermarkets, theatres, and so on. Women are allowed to drive within the town, and can wear whatever they want. The town is basically outside the jurisdiction of the Saudi religious police.

This is just one example. Go to Dubai and you'll see similar things. Foreigners are sometimes respected at the expense of other Arabs or Asians, and it can become discriminatory in some instances.

So next time you throw around such accusations, please think about it first.

The media loves to portray Gulf countries as haters of the West, when in fact they're the biggest ass kissers out there.

The media loves to portray Gulf countries as haters of the West, when in fact they're the biggest ass kissers out there.

I don't know what media you're referring to, but I'd say that around here, Gulf countries are more likely to be represented as lackeys of US imperialism, and also as a place where our soccer players and managers go to make money (for example, the new manager of Al-Fujairah is my compatriot).

Well, I sometimes browse through the headlines and comments on /r/worldnews, which I think gives a good idea of what Americans think of current world issues.

Hah, Fujairah is a nice little town. Long time since I passed by as it's kind of out of the way of everything else.

In the UAE for example, there is an "unspoken" pay ladder that depends on your nationality. Keep in mind that each of these gets a different salary for the exact same position.

1. UAE citizen

2. Western national

3. Western passport holder, but Arab

4. Same, but SE Asian

5. Arab

6. Southeast Asian

Source: lived in the UAE for 14 years.

> Women are allowed to drive within the town

picking out an exception to show tolerance is quite disingenuous, isn't it?

> Foreigners are sometimes respected at the expense of other Arabs or Asians, and it can become discriminatory in some instances.

yes and that's because of a culture promoting conformism to one standard instead of tolerance of all. you're not bringing forward an example of tolerance, but extreme conformism, which kinda gets back to the original point: they manage to be intolerant even in their mimicry of western style of life.

again, it's not about how one dresses, that's just extremely superficial to think. it's how you demand conformism, and it doesn't matter it's the hijab or the bikini, the crucial point is in the demand itself.

Your argument is that non-Western countries don't respect Western tradition and culture, while the West does. I provided two counterexamples that demonstrate non-Western countries who are willing to accept Western values, and I can provide more if you like.

Back to the hijab. No one is demanding that Westerners wear the hijab or whatever. All Muslim women are demanding is freedom to wear the hijab without being discriminated against. No one needs to build a Sharia city in America LOL

The rich may drink and carouse in ways that would shame a frat boy.

Not true at all.

Maybe. Maybe people dislike it due to fear, fear of terrorism, and the alien, unknown religion.

But it's also a sign of oppression. I don't fear the religion that oppresses women (I'm not oppressed myself), but that doesn't i don't care. It it "alien"? yes, sort of, but also no - women were oppressed in the west too.

Does this matter? Unless by "alien" you mean either, I reject Islam only because I am not familiar with it, or if I was familiar with it I may tolerate it more I'd have to disagree; Are victims of abuse more tolerant of abuse?

> Women in the west must cover their breasts

Not true, there are places in the west this isn't the case, and if it's changing it can be in either direction. Also the reasoning is usually different, which is why mixed nude beaches still exit even in places you cannot be nude in public, i.e. you can do it with other consenting adults, just not in public where we cannot assume to have the consent of everyone - Does Islam allow this? No.

> ...other serious places women must cover more of their bodies...

And in a nightclub, you might have to dress smart and wear clothes, and why would you wear a bikini in a church?; These aren't public spaces. And since when were religions the voices of reason? You can opt out of any religion in the west, big differences.

> In India

that once (as still) has a strong caste system, acid attacks and terrible sexual violence against women (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape among others)

> And in the West, every woman's clothing is apparently fair game for everyone else's opinions

Uh, yes, freedom of speech/expression; You are also free to ignore those opinions, and have you own. Where is the problem?

> Note how everyone likes to tell women what they can wear.

By everyone, you mean the handful of examples above, most of which are contextual, not restricted to clothing, and not restricted to women. Wearing a mankini to church may also be "frowned upon".

It's a sign to you of oppression, but some women prefer to wear it. I see women in the U.S. wearing it. If women are forced to wear it, that's a problem; that is oppression. It's not the clothing, it's the freedom that matters.

When you bring up exceptions and complexities in social norms in the West, realize that other cultures are just as complex in their rules. We're just not there to see it.

Now implement practical laws.

Some women prefer the hijab, some are forced to wear it. Many of those that are forced to do that also forced to hide the influence, even claim to be freely choosing it. How do we tell the difference? We're not there to see this either, especially when it's purposely hidden.

How do we solve Islamic "Stockholme Syndrome"?

What other explanation could there be for doing something you disagree with? What's the point of freedom if it only applies to things you support?

There is no factual basis. There is no presumption of innocence, due process; it's just your suspicions and speculation.

Yes, you will want freedom and liberty, no choice there; when did 'free country' mean otherwise? A "free country" allows people to be free; when people enter that society still bearing the shackles of their non-free origins they are not yet free.

> If they desire otherwise they must have been forced

must? I didn't say this, I said 'some'. If you want to talk about the issue don't misrepresent my words.

> What's the point of freedom if it only applies to things you support?

When you say you are you talking about me or society?

Again, total tolerance will tolerate intolerance. A free society still has rules and enforced motives. The difference is freedom is the goal, not religiously-defined piety.

> There is no factual basis. There is no presumption of innocence, due process; it's just your suspicions and speculation.

What statement(s) are you referring to here? factual basis for which claim?

Weird reaction to an article about a non-Muslim woman who does not want to subject herself to medieval oppressive practices (let's not kid ourselves what Hijabs and Burqas really are) in order to participate in an international sports competition.

I grew up with a lesbian single mother during the tail end of first-wave feminism and the start of the second, so I've seen a lot of the struggles up close. It really bothers me that in the attempt to be inclusive people of muslim backgrounds, the modern progressive tends to ignore the rampant sexism in Islam.

Yes, there is still a mismatch in the west between the genders, but it's much less extreme - for example, nowhere in the western world is there anything like official morality police. Women in the western world have considerably more freedom to wear whatever they like, and while bikinis are frowned on in the workplace (so are speedos, by the way), women can still wear bikinis elsewhere, out in public. The government doesn't penalise them for wearing a bikini down Main Street, and droves of women do just that, weather permitting. In some places in the west, it's legal to go topless in public as well - like NYC. Whereas before first-wave feminism, it was considered shameful to be seen in public if you were pregnant.

The west is getting better and better at getting rid of these taboos. The islamic world is not - check out photos of Iran before the revolution, and there's plenty of muslim women without head coverings. To suggest that the issue boils down to simply where you draw the line on clothing is really disingenuous.

I gather that is big news.

Wikipedia has a great overview over the headscarf in Iran: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijab_by_country#Iran

In this case it is not a social norm it is a law. For breaking law you can be prosecuted and/or imprisoned, for breaking social norms you cannot. Social norms and laws are two different things, your comparison is extremely misleading.

To make it completely clear why your comparison is misleading look at following example:

In some Muslim countries you can be executed for leaving Islam and it is not a social norm, it is a law and part of criminal code they have.

Now imagine someone from conservative Christian family (let's say in US) changing their religion. They most probably will be judged by their families and some peers, but no one can prosecute them for that.

Enforcing by law certain group or minorities wear certain clothing is a definition of oppression. If there is no choice left, that is an oppression, there is nothing to discuss here really.

Isn't the problem that some people like to tell women what they can't wear?

You have Iran saying they have to wear the Hijab, and France saying they can't wear the Burqa/Niqab.

How about both governments and religions let women make their own damned choices?