From: lking@athena.mit.edu (Loren King)
Subject: Re: Modest Dress
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 18:56:05 GMT

In article <1992Sep21.181121.26375@sarah.albany.edu>, ys3359@thor.albany.edu
(Yazmasterj) writes:

|> In article <18SEP199216025603@utrcv1> ali@utrcv1 (ALI BABA) writes:
|> >Dear peter;
|> >  First of all women don't have to wear chadors in Iran.  Secondly believe it 
|> >or not today women in Iran have more freedom and respect than the women in here.. 
|> >Despite all the talk of women's liberation in the west, women are still viewed
|> >by many western men as mere objects for sexual gratification.
|> 
|> I don't understand what your concept of viewing women only for sexual 
|> gratification is.  In Iran if a woman is not completely covered she is
|> asked for proof that she is not a prostitute.  Is this the way she is 
|> respected and free?  A woman is told to cover up completely or others
|> will mistake her for a whore.  Is this how she is NOT thought of in terms
|> of sexual gratification.  Now I will be the first to admit that the women
|> in the West have not achieved the equality they seek however NO ONE has EVER
|> mistaken me or any other woman I know for a prostitute just because we don't
|> wear veils or cover our hair.  Women and men go to school, go to work and 
|> generally go about their business without anyone implying that any contact
|> will result in a sexual liason.  This to me sounds like women are NOT viewed
|> only as sources for sexual gratification.


  Good call!  It's interesting that, if somewhat treats you like a
prostitute in Canada, say, you can have that person arrested.  In Iran,
if someone treats you as a prostitute, *you* get arrested!!

  The crucial point, in my mind, is this: quote scripture all
you want, but the fact remains that in Iran, as in many other Islamic
nations, the objectification and oppression of women is institutionalized,
*both* legally and culturally.  It is true that in Canada and the U.S., for
example, there is still culturally embedded sexism and bigotry; but legal
institutions ensure that change is possible.  The recent case of Gwen Jacob
in Guelph, Canada, is an excellent example: she will likely win the right to
go topless, as men can, even though a sexist judge charged her with public
indecency and contempt of court.  Could this happen in Iran?

  I've said it before and I'll say it again here: religion, no matter how
beautiful or appealing, makes for lousy government, precisely because it
defines what is good and proper.  Institutions which are based upon a pre-
conceived notion of what is good and what is bad tend to alienate and oppress
a significant portion of their society.  They also stifle social change,
by decreeing a moral absolute which cannot legally (or morally) be questioned.

  The moral here?  The role of the state can be to provisionally define
and enforce communal norms that are in everyone's interest, but they
should respect individuality while doing this.  That is, if someone's ideas
or behaviour do not conform to the "norm," but that person is not actively
interfering with the capacities of others to live their lives, then the
state should ensure that the different individual is allowed to be different,
to be an individual.

  I have a friend who argues that `uncovered' women do interfere with
mens autonomy, by spurring their lust.  Well, so what?  The role of the
state is not then to hide away the women, but to punish men who interfere
with a person's autonomy just because she happens to be female.

  I mean, the logic really is flawed, because if you concede this, then
you'd have to argue that, if I get mugged going home today because some thugs
like my watch, it is *my* fault, because I interfered with the thugs' autonomy.
I forced them to mug me, because I spurred their greed!

  Now this isn't saying that I shouldn't be careful walking home, but it would
be strange, and intuitively disturbing, if I went to the police and they charged
me!  Or refused to charge the criminals whom I had `egged on' by wearing a watch
and walking out of doors.  Worse still if a police cruiser picked me up and held
me for a few hours in detention, because I was walking down the street with my
watch on! The logic of the `lust' argument really leads to silly conclusions.

  So, if there's one lesson to be learned from Galileo, Thomas Hobbes, the former
Soviet Union; from Salmon Rushdie, and also, although not directly related, from
feminist legal scholars writing on the inequities and ineffectiveness of rape
laws all over the world, it is this:

the church and the state cannot be one and the same.  They must be separated.

___________

Loren King
Massachusetts Institute of Technology