Week 6 Reading

In this blogpost, what I am mostly concerned about is how different women perceive or practice wearing the veil in different context/under specific political regimes or cultural contexts. Louise Cainkar's in her book's chapter titled, Gendered Nativism, Boundary Setting, and Cultural Snipping: Women as Embodiments of the Perceived Cultural Threats of Islam, argues that in post 9/11 the veil was perceived as a symbol of degenerating Americanisation or as a non or anti American symbol. The attack on Muslim people, especially veiled women, in public emerged not from the perception that Arab Muslims Americans are terrorists but from the state of post national threat (9/11) within which a conformist or nationalist perceptions of what is American masculinity and femininity are re-inforced. Perhaps, such re-inforcement of such ideology is this reassurance of what America, as well as, a method to identify perceived outsiders i.e. non-conformists (Arab Muslims). What seemed very interesting though is the contradiction that is present within the perception of Americans towards the veil, especially in the perception of it (the veil) as being a sign of woman oppressed by man, as well as a sign of subordination and consent to disagree with democracy and individualism; it is the ultimate sign of fundamentalism. Nevertheless, most of the women surveyed or interviewed for Cainkar's book were born in the United States and have never lived in Middle Eastern countries (which are perceived by the US as being fundamentalist and conservative as well as lacking democracy). Most of those interviewed have expressed that they chose to wear the veil (regardless of the reasons behind it, whether modesty, or religion and so forth). Therefore, there is the notion of choice - women who chose to wear the veil - that lies at the core of individuality, in contrast with American opposition to the veil and what they perceive it entails - it, being anti-American, fundamentalist, and so forth. This of course caused women to rethink of whether to wear the hijab, since they were attacked in the streets i.e. their safety and sanctity became jeopardised on a social level. Some women held onto the veil and some chose to take it off. A interesting theme is the culture of fear and the social policing of people and their clothing.

On the other hand, in Marjane Satrapi's book, Persepolis, she provides a complete different context of the enforcement of the veil during a political revolutionary regime shift from a Shah dictatorship to a fundamentalist Islamic republic. On page 74, Satrapi shows the incident of her mother running towards them after being attacked by two fundamentalists, who called her names and threatened to rape her and kill her because she wasn't wearing the veil. Her mother says 'I should wear the veil." Later on, it was announced that all women are to wear veils in the republic. When the family went to demonstrate, they were attacked and ran away with fear while the father says "Everyman for himself." Moreover, Satrapi shows two different women and their difference in how they wear the veil on p 75. The context springs from a more political higher agenda where women must wear the veil under an Islamic fundamentalist regime. It is that culture of fear, that idea that one is being surveilled and could be attacked at any moment creates a policing of subjects and bodies, thus building up a culture of fear, a sense of self surveillance.

What I found interesting in both texts is this discussion or presentation of a dichotomy between liberal and fundamentalist. In the US context of us vs. them (Muslim) and in Satrapi's context of liberal intellectuals vs. the ignorant fundamentalists. Such dichotomies are problematic in the sense that they eliminate any groups that reside in the middle or live in a balanced life style between both. This results in eliminating such people's voices from the conversations that are put forth in these texts.