Fascinating: The Hijab As A Tool Of Female Intrasexual Competition
Often, it's other women, not men, who work to keep women down. As I wrote in a column:
Social psychologists Roy Baumeister and Jean Twenge report that it's widely believed that men drive the "cultural suppression of female sexuality" -- which could include shaming women for how they dress. However, in reviewing the research, they make a persuasive case that it's primarily women (often without awareness of their motives) who work to "stifle each other's sexuality."
A few quotes from their paper from 2002:
The view that men suppress female sexuality received hardly any support and is flatly contradicted by some findings. Instead, the evidence favors the view that women have worked to stifle each other's sexuality because sex is a limited resource that women use to negotiate with men, and scarcity gives women an advantage....We did find that men have exerted pressure on their wives to be sexually faithful. This does not seem remarkable, nor does it differ much from women's wishes that their husbands re- main faithful. Crucially, it does not seem to carry over into suppressing female sexuality altogether. Men seem to want their wives to have sexual desire and pleasure, just to have them with their husbands rather than with other men.
This view -- on hijab-wearing and female intrasexual competition -- from a chapter by Nayereh Tohidi, "Modernity, Islamization, and women in Iran."
She notes that "contrary to a widely held assumption about women as mere victims or passive followers of Islamic fundamentalism, certain strata of women actually played an important rule in the ... articulation of the 'model of Islamic women'..."
And take this all the way -- from the hijab to the burka. Basically, mate competition becomes easier if the women who are prettier than you have to go around in the same black tablecloth you do. So, support for Islamic fundamentalism is a helpful way for a woman to disappear the competition behind a black curtain while presenting oneself as a better kind of Muslim.
Here's a passage on this from Tohidi's book:
Why many women in islamic countries support mandatory hijab, the answer is intrasexual competition https://t.co/j5WsB94h6T pic.twitter.com/2RGs1Fl5Jt
— Yeyo (@YeyoZa) February 14, 2017
via @YeyoZa
Cosh had a good exchange about this in his timeline the other day, which see.
Things being equal, I tentatively agree with his tentative conclusion.
Crid at February 16, 2017 10:56 PM
Personally I think its silly people look at gender first to explain cultural attitudes that are historically driven by environmental pressures.
There are huge differences in gender relations and attitudes toward sex between rain forest hunter gatherers and desert dwelling nomads.
Women don't try to suppress each other looks so much as they make sure it is acceptable expression of looks. I think a large part of those rules are driven by their own safety. Being a black cladden non-existant entity keeps you safe from men that are pretty ok with sexual assault.
Ppen at February 17, 2017 1:41 AM
Dunno about that... Women are at risk all over the globe. It's difficult to accept that hajib is protecting women's safety when its baseline presumption is that men's aggressive nature can't be contained ("pretty ok with sexual assault"), and that brothers and sons and fathers and husbands must respond to intrusions with tremendous and instantaneous violence. (And that's how the social contract works, right?)
Let's teach 'em to read, license them to drive, wait five years and see what happens.
Crid at February 17, 2017 2:07 AM
I think one of the things I have the most problem with is that the hijab covers the ears and neck. Like the nun's wimple, covering the ears and neck seems to me to depersonalize a woman and remove her from the world. It repulses me viscerally in a way I can't explain.
While I have issues with the ultra-orthodox judaism tradition of requiring head-scarves or wigs only for married women (seems to be a saying of "don't be attractive for other men"), I can see the justification of creating a physical space only shared by a husband and wife. And in recent years, wigs worn by ultra-orthodox women have become more attractive and realistic. But I don't feel the same way that their headcoverings separate me from them in the way that covering the neck and ears does. It's depersonalizing and de-feminizing in a way that I associate of removing women from the world around them - that all of their flesh is considered sexualized and therefore hidden.
And I prefer long ankle length skirts for myself (agnostic) and not super tight clothing, so it really is the ear and neck thing for me. Maybe because i associate it too much with nuns.
Janie4 at February 17, 2017 5:00 AM
" I think a large part of those rules are driven by their own safety."
I agree. I would not want to be judged by men that consider being stoned to death is one of the optional punishments.
Bob in Texas at February 17, 2017 5:47 AM
I admit to not being an expert historian, but one thing that seems apparent to me is that in the history of Western civilization, at least since the Middle Ages, the sexual mores of Victorian England and mid-20th-century America are outliers. Nearly all discussion of the topic today assumes that the sexual repression of those eras has been the norm throughout Western history, but that is simply not true.
Cousin Dave at February 17, 2017 6:12 AM
Many places in the muslim world is also a polygamous world. No point in letting some fecund little hussy advertise her goods to one's husband.
While it is good to be the first wife, it is better to be the only wife.
I R A Darth Aggie at February 17, 2017 7:51 AM
In western countries, if a woman is dressed too sexy, it is other women who give her the stink-eye or make comments. Men just get big eyes and walk into posts. It is wives who elbow their husbands when they walk into a post.
In Iran after the revolution, many of the revolutionary guards who assaulted women in the street who were dressed too western were in fact women. So much for the "patriarchy".
cc at February 17, 2017 10:34 AM
From what I've heard more than once, before the 19th century or so, it was actually worse; women were not even seen as the guardians of virtue - they were regarded as Satan's instrument, with regard to sex. So women living in Victorian times may well have considered themselves relatively lucky. But...they often didn't even get taught what would happen on their wedding nights - or if they were, they were taught that decent women shouldn't enjoy sex, even after marriage - it was just a "wife's duty" and happiness was supposed to come from motherhood. (The former practice of keeping young women highly ignorant lingered into the 1930s, especially in the U.K. - I think Bertrand Russell commented on it. The latter teaching explains why Susan B. Anthony, at least, didn't like the idea of birth control for women, since bc would mean that women would not have an excuse to say no to sex with their husbands, which they supposedly never wanted to have anyway.)
And any reporter in Egypt will tell you that it doesn't matter how modestly a woman is dressed there - if she isn't with a male relative, she's fair game for harassment.
Finally, what Tohidi said reminds me of something by Warren Farrell. Can't find it right now, but it was along the lines of "if you were a man living under Islam and you were not allowed to know what your fiancee looked like until your wedding night, would you think you were living in a patriarchy?"
I assume Amy doesn't sympathize with that one, very much.
lenona at February 18, 2017 11:35 AM
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