Violence against women isn't cultural

One of the things that's so distressing about the death of Aqsa Parvez (and there's plenty to be distressed about) is the way it's being interpreted in the media. Reading the stories, listening to the radio, you'd think this was all about culture -- speficially, Muslim/immigrant/'other' culture.

It's not. This is about violence and control.

Muhammed Parvez didn't kill his daughter because she wouldn't wear a hijab; he killed her because, for whatever reason, he felt he could. That's not a characteristic of Muslim culture. That's a characteristic of all patriarchies. There are plenty of white, 'western' men who've killed or hurt women because they felt they could.

It would be nice to talk about the fact that Aqsa felt threatened by her family, that she said she was being beaten, that she had to flee her home more than once. It would be nice to talk about the background and how we can stop this from happening again.

Instead, all the stories lead with this idea of a cultural clash.

This isn't about a hijab. This is about patriarchy and violence.

Reasonable

The debate on 'reasonable accomodation' in Quebec is breaking my heart. It seems to be bringing out all kinds of barely-suppressed racism and paranoia about Those Scary Muslims. It may perhaps be too easy to point the finger at Hérouxville and their "code of conduct" -- it's becoming increasingly clear that there are plenty of people (and not just in Quebec) who would rather newcomers just start speaking French/English, wearing jeans, and eating Mickey D's like the "rest of us".

I'm a child of the Trudeau era. I believe in multiculturalism, and that our country is strengthened, not weakened, by a variety of people with a variety of backgrounds. And if sometimes that means I have to see someone wearing an outfit that's aesthetically unpleasant to me, well, I deal with it. Whether it's a leather micro-mini or a hijab*. And if what someone chooses to eat doesn't appeal to me, well, I just eat my own dinner, and let them do their own thing. I mean, seriously:

Regardless of the shape of the animal or its hooves, regardless of the shape of the fish, be it covered by scales or a shell, we will enjoy eating its flesh if it is prepared properly and presented tastefully.

Is Hérouxville banning rebellious teenagers from taking up vegetarianism? (Probably)

And given that we have laws against killing and hurting people in general, it seems unnecessary to specifically ban stoning.

Every time I hear about this apparent problem with multiculturalism, I feel as though I'm mising something. What, exactly, is wrong with people speaking their own language, wearing their own clothes, eating their own food? I suppose the fear is that if people aren't assimiliated into the dominant culture, they'll suddenly turn into EVIL TERRORISTS or something. But it seems to me that the greater problem would be the people we're not accepting because they haven't assimilated "perfectly" (whatever that would mean).

When you tell someone they have to change, completely and utterly, in order to be accepted, they're just going to get stubborn and determined not to change AT ALL -- not even those things they were thinking of changing themselves. We'd get a lot further as a society if we just accepted people as they were and let exposure to the wider culture expose them to new ideas and ways of doing things. That way, each and every one of us could, with time, pick the things that work and discard the things that don't, without feeling like we're betraying our entire history and ancestry.

But I'm just a crazy idealist, right?

* not that a hijab is aesthetically unpleasant -- I've seen some truly beautiful ones. But you get the idea.

A mile in her shoes... or a month in her veil

Sian Reid teaches sociology at Carleton University here in Ottawa. She started teaching this semester fully veiled, wearing a niqab, hijab, and abaya. After three weeks, she went back to the clothes she ordinarily wears.

It sounds to me like a fascinating experiment. It's easy to talk about women who choose to wear hijab, or to go fully veiled, but it must be a very different experience to actually be a veiled woman. I'm not surprised to hear that she had some unpleasant experiences interacting with the world at large, although I am disappointed in my fellow Ottawa residents.

What's perhaps most interesting is that this is an article about an issue intimately associated with immigrants, with Muslim women, with "foreigners". And yet it's an article that could only be written about a white woman whose "milky skin" and "long red hair" are repeatedly pointed out in the article. This is an experience countless women live every day -- I would have loved for the journalist to have interviewed a few of them.

The article mentions that some of her students were concerned that the experiment might be seen as disrespectful to Muslim women. It doesn't strike me as particularly disrespectful -- but I'd love to know what several Muslim women thought.

It's a shame that this kind of "immigrant experience" can seemingly only be communicated to the rest of us through someone taking on a temporary identity that isn't hers.

Denial

What's depressing about this news story is not that the mother thinks her son is innocent of sexual assault. We all tend to assume that the people we know and love are innocent, unless we have irrefutable proof otherwise. It's a natural human instint to think the best of the people in our inner circle. So it doesn't bother me that the mother is coming up with reasons why her son must, surely, be innocent.

What's depressing is that this is an actual news story. We don't generally get news stories about all the relatives of the accused insisting that the accused is innocent. Oh sure, they'll often get a line or two in stories about particularly dramatic murders. But for what other crime can you imagine a news story about how the mother of the defendant is sure the crime never happened?

This kind of thing only happens in sexual assault cases. And that's depressing.

It's also pretty depressing that the victim's religion is considered an important fact. I suppose it's supposed to make the crime seem worse, somehow. Because sexually assaulting a "regular" girl... well, that's just normal behaviour. But when it's a girl who's been marked as unavailable... that's just heinous.

Ghetto Dude

Good lord.

Well, at least Mr. McGuinty apologized.

It's a horrifying thing to have happened. What's more horrifying, though, is the comments to the Globe article. There's something about Internet comment forums that sometimes seems to bring out the very worst in people. How do you go from a story like this to a rant about how affirmative action is a horrible thing? And the number of people excusing the staffer because 'she didn't mean for him to see it' or 'she was just trying to be humourous'...

Some days, my hope for the human race is rather strained.

Multiculturalism and women's rights

So the Star wants to have "a conversation about multiculturalism" and whether or not it's working. They're starting with women's rights.

The lead-in story is about a man who killed his wife, and then claimed he'd done so for his "honour" and his religion. So the entire discussion is framed by the idea that multiculturalism is a shelter for those who want to abuse or oppress women. In other words, "ethnic" women are oppressed by their culture and society in comparison to the women of white, western, mainstream Canadian society.

The problem with this contruction is that it leads directly to the idea of the ignorant, backwards savages, just waiting for Western society to ride in on a white horse and civilize them. It's the same narrative that claims we invaded Afghanistan in order to "free" Afghan women.

The thing of it is, white Western "civilization" is not really all that kind to women. Oh sure, we have technical equality. But how many women are Members of Parliament? Heads of major corporations? In decision-making positions generally? We don't stone women for adultery, but how many women are beaten, abused, or murdered by the men in their lives? We don't legislate burkas, but are we really free to wear clothes that make us comfortable and to look the way we want? What's more oppressive, a hijab or breast implants? How are our cultural imperatives really superior to those of other cultures?

We want to immigrants to assimilate into Canadian society, we say. But when we prevent girls from playing sports because we don't like their headwear, or give a woman a hard time for wanting to swim in something insufficiently sexy, are we really liberating anyone?

No woman should have to suffer for being a women. And religion or culture is no defense. But that's just as true of "Canadian" culture as it is of any other.

Perhaps, instead of judging newcomers to Canada for not being "Canadian" enough as regards women's rights, we should examine the beam in our own eye. We are not such paragons, we white westerners, that we can tell anyone that our way of living is the only appropriate one.