Re:The American chess champion challenging Iran’s hijab fetish
by vacri on Thursday October 06, 2016 @05:18PM
(#12656189)
If you're going to be that disingenuous, men are told what to wear as well. No boardroom meetings wearing only jogging shorts, no funerals wearing flip-flops.
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 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.