The Great Hijab Debate

On Saturday I went to The Great Hijab Debate, more formally known as “Politics and Clothing: The Hijab,” held at the Art Institute of Chicago; it was part of the Chicago Humanities Festival under its rubric of “fashion.” (See my pre-debate post here.) Below is the announcement, which is now gone from the Web (the Festival ended), and I’ve added links to the principals:

When Italian designers Dolce & Gabbana announced its first hijab collection, it wasn’t just the fashion world that took notice. In many ways, hijab is becoming part of mainstream Western culture, worn by characters on television series, Olympic athletes, even a new Barbie doll. Still the wearing of hijab continues to spark other responses, from attacks on women in Paris, to calls from some Muslim women to end what they view as an oppressive form of dress. CHF convenes a conversation to discuss the complex and sometimes contradictory responses to hijab, including Asra Nomani, journalist and author of Standing Alone in Mecca and Hoda Katebi, activist and author of Tehran Street Style, moderated by Duaa Eldeib of the Chicago Tribune.

Katebi, a senior at my own university, also has a fashion-and-politics blog at JooJoo Azad. From looking at her blog, and also knowing Asra’s views and writings, I knew that this was going to be a rather heated exchange. Nomani is a liberal Muslim and her work is largely involved in giving Muslim women equal rights, and, while favoring giving women the choice to wear a hijab, she’s opposed to mandatory wearing of the headscarf as in Iran, seeing it as a tool of female oppression. (See her article with Hala Arafa on “Hijab Day” in last December’s Washington Post, “As Muslim women, we actually ask you not to wear the hijab as a sign of interfaith solidarity,”).

Katebi wears a hijab, and has written about her reasons for so doing on her website. The first reason is that “it’s sexually liberating,” which is a bit puzzling to me, even after she explained it.

The moderator, a writer for the Chicago Tribune, also wears the hijab; here are the three of them; left to right, Nomani, Eldeib, and Katebi (all photos below by Orli Peter except where noted).

I have to admit that I’m not completely unbiased here; I’ve long admired Asra’s work as a feminist and reformer, have written about her several times on my website, and in fact was on MSNBC with her on once in a short segment (we were in different studios) discussing whether ISIS represents “real” or “true” Islam (see here; the video is no longer up). Asra reminded me of that: I’d long since forgotten.

Here’s Asra before the debate doing her homework, i.e. reading the Qur’an:

Below is a friendly shot before the discussion.

As I expected, things pretty quickly became less friendly when the discussion commenced. I believe Hoda wanted this to be a conflagration, for she tweeted “Shit’s goin’ down!” the days before the talk. She later removed the tw**t after Asra pointed out that it was uncivil and had also been copied to people who harassed her (Asra) previously. Hoda also characterized herself as a “#Muslimmeangirl”, which of course refers to the movie “Mean Girls,” in which high school students conspire to bully others.

Asra maintained that the hijab, while it should remain a personal choice, was mandatory in several Middle Eastern countries, and that its maintenance was fueled by a hijab “industry”, which promotes “Wear a Hijab Day” and whose aim is to continue and extend the subjugation of women. She tried at all times to keep the focus on those women who have no choice, and on the forces that prevent them from acquiring one.

In contrast, from the outset Hoda spoke on a more personal level, repeatedly noting how she had been mocked or reviled for wearing the hijab. In my opinion, this was more of a victimhood narrative than a political narrative, and one that led, as one person noted in the Q&A, to both speakers talking past each other. Here we had a classic conflict: an older Leftist feminist concerned with the plight of Muslims worldwide, versus a younger Authoritarian Leftist feminist far more concerned with her own identity and vilification (I am not saying here, of course, that Hoda is oblivious to the plight of her Muslim sisters elsewhere, but it didn’t seem nearly as much a priority for her as it was for Asra). In other words, it was a confrontation between Global Politics and Identity Politics.

To show this, here’s a backstory. Asra asked for some security at the event, for as a liberal reformist Muslim she is of course threatened and demonized far more (for an odious example, go here). It’s a shame that any liberal Muslim speaking in public almost requires security these days–and for obvious reasons. Hoda, however, didn’t want security, as she said that some of her black friends would be attending the event, that they have been “under surveillance” by the police, and therefore those friends didn’t want security at the event. The Chicago Humanities Festival, however, did finally hire plainclothes security. I would think that for any empathic person the security of a speaker would take precedence over unfounded worries about “surveillance” of friends.

I don’t want to make this too long, and there will be a complete video up soon (I’ll add it here if it’s up today), but a few more points:

• Hoda constantly noted that Muslims are a diverse group, and do not even agree as a majority on any issues. Her point seemed to be that many women put on the hijab as a choice, while others have it forced upon them. I of course agree on the diversity of Muslim views, but on the issue of subjugation of women there is pretty much agreement in the Muslim community worldwide. I’ve shown the figure below from the 2013 Pew Report on the world’s Muslims, and will show it again:

It would be even worse if Iran and Saudi Arabia were included, and I’d say that this is evidence that throughout the Muslim world, or at least in Muslim-majority countries, women are pretty much second-class citizens. (That, of course, is mandated by sharia law, also widely—but not as strongly—favored in these countries.)

• And let me add this as well for those who claim that Muslims are very diverse in their opinions. Remember that countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iran weren’t surveyed—for obvious reasons.
  
• Both speakers, then, agreed that the hijab should be a matter of choice. But the question remains, “How can you determine who wears the hijab by “choice”, without external compulsion?” (I’m not going to get into free will here.) Asra noted that girls as young as 5 or 6 in American Muslim schools are forced to wear the hijab, and thus to internalize the view that women are vessels of honor and sexuality, carrying the responsibility to not inflame men by showing their bodies (including hair). And if you’re brought up as a Muslim to wear the hijab, how do we know that you’d wear the hijab without compulsion? The evidence is that many women wouldn’t: there wouldn’t be a need for morality police to enforce its wearing in Iran, or for the #mystealthyfreedom Facebook page in which Iranian women bravely remove their hijabs. And, of course, women were not nearly as veiled in countries like Iran and Afghanistan before they came under Muslim theocracy. These fact clearly mean that many women in those countries would dispense with the hijab were they not forced to wear it. And how many women in the U.S. or England, for example, would also remove it if they didn’t fear being seen by Muslim Mean Girls as “bad Muslims” if they did? Sadly, the concept of “choice” was not touched on at all in the discussion.

• To Hoda’s credit, she said that she “denounced” the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia for making hijabs and other coverings compulsory, as well as the government of France for prohibiting it, and that her denunciations have appeared in her fashion book Tehran Streetstyle.

• Relevant to this, Asra told me before the debate that she thought it was the responsibility of women who did have a choice (like Hoda) to help extend the same choice to women under compulsion—that is, to make Islam a more woman-friendly and woman-tolerant faith. I thought that statement summed up her own position (and actions) very well, but, sadly, she didn’t say that in her presentation. That statement sums up my own view on the issue.

• Hoda blamed things like the mistreatment of women under Islam on “Western imperialism.”  My own view is that this is a misguided statement, and if you believe that, then you can pin anything bad done in any Islamist country on imperialism. That kind of blaming has its limits.

• Finally, in the Q&A, the last question came from a woman wearing a hijab. She asked Asra, after reciting a litany of Asra’s liberal views, “Why are you still a Muslim?” (Believe me, she does consider herself a Muslim, as I questioned her closely about that at dinner!). It was a question that was pretty rude, but it was also a softball, and Asra hit it out of the park. (You can guess what her answer was.) But I’ll leave the answer for the video, which I’ll post either here or separately when it’s available. Just let me say that there was loud applause after her answer.

Anyway, it was a pretty heated exchange, but one that provided a lot of food for thought, and the audience lingered a long time afterwards talking to the speakers and to each other. They finally had to be shooed out of the Art Institute.  Several of us then repaired for dinner and postmortem at Russian Tea Time, a restaurant across the street.

Here is Asra and one of her BFF’s, Dr. Orli Peter, a psychologist from Los Angeles. Orli flew all the way across the country to support her friend.

In the Green Room before the debate, Asra and I exchanged books. She brought her son Shibli along; he’s a budding scientist and so he’s holding WEIT. I’m holding my autographed copy of Asra’s book, Standing Alone in Mecca: An  American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam. 

And here’s dinner afterwards, with big glasses of tea and the Tower O’ Treats (my name), an offering of both sweet and savory pastries to accompany tea. We talked for several hours before we had to repair home in the cold Chicago rain—without head coverings.