From: lking@athena.mit.edu (Loren King)
Subject: Re: Repression of women has been escalated in Iran
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 18:26:17 GMT

In article <nabeel.716102601@oracle.sce.carleton.ca>, Nabeel_Ghuzlaan (Nabeel) writes:
|> oueichek@ngulu (Ibaa Oueichek) writes:
|> 
|> > WHAT KIND OF OFFENSE ?. You mean that not wearing the chador is considered
|> >an offense in your beloved so-called Islamic revolutionary country ?. Why
|> >the hell can't you and other apoligists understand that we are living in
|> >the 20th century, and not in the midages ?. BTW, those "only 20 people" who
|> >were arrested (and we are speaking about women here), what GREAT OFFENSE did
|> >they commit ? putting makeup, maybe !!!. 
|> > 
|> 
|>    I do not support Irani government, etc., I am not an Iranian, I do not think
|> think that Iranians are Arabs, but anyway:
|> 
|>    It is obvious knowledge that every country decides what is a personal right
|> and what is not, everywhere. Don't you know that? E.g. this and last years in
|> Canada women were arrested and tried for baring their tits while somewhere
|> else in the world it is considered a personal right. Most countries consider
|> dealing with drugs an offense. Who decides? The government of the country,
|> not foreigners or citizens living abroad. As long as "personal" rights are
|> restricted everywhere, it is difficult to criticize saying this is a right
|> and that is a wrong. Mostly people in the same culture decide whether
|> something is offensive to them or not.



  I get nervous with this sort of appeal to the moral status-quo.  I wonder if
there aren't some values which we could make a strong argument in favour of, even
across cultural differences.

  The Canadian case you mention provides a good example.  The woman who fronted
this summer's `topless' movement was Gwen Jacob, a University of Guelph student
who was charged two summers ago with going topless on a *very* hot summer day (I
was in Canada that summer -- it was really hot!)
  The point was this: 1) men can take of their shirts on sweltering days; 2) the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms gives everyone equality of basic rights
without discrimination because of gender, belief, or cultural association.  So,
why is something practical, i.e. not broiling on a summer day, denied to women?
  The encouraging thing is that Ms. Jacob should win her case before the supreme
court, and have the right to go topless.  Could this happen under an Islamic 
(or for that matter, a Christian, or Judaic) regime?  I don't think so.
  Keep in mind that the important point is that women will soon have THE RIGHT to
do go topless in Canada, as men do now.  This doesn't mean that everyone
will; just that another discriminatory, patriarchical aspect of Canadian law will
have been overcome.  Again, religious regimes have historically found this sort
of change a very difficult thing to accomodate.

  My point?  Well, religious dogma makes for a very rigid, static society,
regardless of how wonderful the religion may be in theory.  Just look at medieval
society, its treatment of women and free-thinkers; and look at Marxism-Leninism
in practice -- great ideas, bad in practice.
  Basing social life upon an unchanging, dogmatic set of assertions about what is
right and good invariably stifles the one thing that makes social life
fascinating: change.  Changes in ideas, changes in values.  And I wonder if this
sort of argument -- the separation of dogmatic belief from social organization,
i.e. government -- isn't compelling across cultural and religious divides.
  Compelling because there are so many examples of the cruelty and oppression
suffered by fellow human beings under dogmatic regimes.  Why should half a
population suffer, just because "the community" decrees it?  Can communal
consensus really justify the oppression of people soley because of their sex?
  I don't buy it, and I think the world would be a pretty sad place if most
people did.


-----

Loren King
Massachusets Institute of Technology
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian