Modesty Of Women Research Articles

CHALLENGING THE INTERPRETATION OF THE VERSE ON HIJAB BY M. QURAISH SHIHAB: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS REVIEW

There is a variety of interpretations regarding the verse on the hijab in the Qur'an. Some commentaries demonstrate strong arguments, while others appear to be subjective and ambiguous. This article examines the thoughts of Quraish Shihab on the hijab verse and critically analyzes them. The research falls under the category of library research, utilizing a descriptive analysis method to explain research findings based on the study's focus with a critical analysis to produce objective results. The approach employed is content analysis. The primary sources for this research are the Tafsir Al-Mishbah and Jilbab Pakaian Wanita Muslimah. The research findings indicate: First, Quraish Shihab argues that wearing the hijab is not obligatory but merely a recommendation and is applicable only in the time of Prophet Muhammad. Scholars also do not agree on the limits of women's modesty, and the rules of the hijab are considered part of Arab cultural traditions, not applicable to other nations that do not wear the hijab. Second, Quraish Shihab's interpretation of the hijab verse lacks strong arguments in the context of Islamic studies. The wording of the command in the hijab verse is still regarded as an obligation and cannot be transformed into a recommendation due to the lack of supporting evidence. Scholars have unanimously agreed on the limits of women's modesty, from the top of the head to the tips of the toes, excluding the face and the palms of the hands. The law of the hijab remains in effect until the end of time, even though it was revealed under specific conditions and in specific regions, as Islam is considered a universal religion.

Issues and challenges with changing perspectives of outraging the modesty of women in India

The number of women's rights violations is steadily rising. This has taken a toll on women's life, causing mental and physical suffering. In Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the concept of outraging women's modesty is thoroughly defined. The use of violence or illegal force with the goal to dishonor a person without any grave provocation is covered by Section 355. Furthermore, section 509 makes outraging modesty a crime. It is common knowledge that features of assault and unlawful force demand extensive explanation. It's difficult to deny that these offences have been on the rise in society. However, it has been noted that the abuse of these specialized and important legislation is widespread. Additional provisions appear to have been added as a result of the code modifications. This study seeks to examine the legal interpretations of Sections 354 and 509, as well as the current situation and the continued misuse of the laws. This Paper also attempts to analyze the interpretations made by courts in various situations and proposes modifications to strengthen the laws in light of changing circumstances, with a particular focus on the in-depth meaning of assault, criminal force, and other key phrases in that respect.

Administrative data deficiencies plague understanding of the magnitude of rape-related crimes in Indian women and girls

BackgroundThis paper investigates trends in rape-related crimes against women and girls reported in the Indian administrative data from 2001 to 2018 to assess the burden of crime, describe sub-national variations, and highlight data gaps to address sexual violence effectively in India.MethodsData on five rape-related crimes were extracted from the annual reports of National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB), and included assault with the intent to outrage modesty of woman, rape, insult to the modesty of women, attempt to commit rape, and murder with rape/gang-rape. Rates for all categories combined, and for each crime were estimated for women and girls for India and its states. Trends for type of offender for rape, mean number of people arrested, and legal status of the cases was also assessed.ResultsThe rate of all rape-related crime increased from 11.6 in 2001 to 19.8 in 2018 per 100,000 women and girls. Most of the 70.7% increase in rate between 2001 and 2018 was post 2012 following a gang-rape and murder case in India’s capital. The largest proportion of crimes was recorded as assault with the intent to outrage modesty of the woman, followed by rape. The cited offender in rape cases was for the majority a close known person (44·3%) or other known person (43·1%). By the end of 2018, only 9·6% of the cases had completed trials, with acquittals in 73% cases.ConclusionsThe wide variations in the yearly crime rates at state-level highlighted significant issues in data quality including under-reporting, non-comparability, possible bias in data reporting in NCRB, definition of rape-related crime in India, and access in reporting of crimes. Addressing barriers to reporting, improving quality and scope of administrative data recorded on sexual violence is urgently needed for India to meet SDG targets of eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls.

Women in Pulavar Kulanthai’s Ravana Kaviyam

‘Porul Thodarnilai Ceyyul’ was the name given to epic before the word kāppiyam came into existence. Tamil lexicon refers ‘kāppiyam’ as Sanskrit term. Kāvyam is the word used by Sanskrit scholars for ‘kāviyam’. Ravana Kāviyam written by Pulavar Kulanthai consists of 56 padalams (Chapters) of 2828 Viruttangal i.e., poems. He adopts the story of Ramayana as it is. He is a person who follows Periyar’s ideology of self-respect, feminism etc. His passion for Tamil makes him write many of his creative writings. Periyar advised women to learn all arts, particularly the art of self-defence. Kambar had depicted Sita as Rama’s wife in his epic. The relationship of Rama and Sita varies in various Ramayanas available in India. Ravana kāviyam doesn’t deviate from the parameters of epic. It stands within its grammar. Pulavar Kulanthai portraits women characters with dignity modesty of women.

الإختلاط في التعليم وانعاكسه السلبي على العملية التربوية

Islam provides a comprehensive guideline to educate the humankinds, to cultivate a generation, to build a nation and civilization. It also bestows dignity for the whole mankind men and women alike. All Islamic scholars agree that there is no difference between man and woman when it comes to acquiring knowledge as a religious obligation. Muslim women had made tremendous headway in the realm of education and culture under the shadow of Islam throughout the history. However, Islam puts considerable emphasis on the importance of women's modesty and on the prevention of free mixing. The idea has been reinforced by the scholars of Islam such as Imam Al-Qabisi and Ibn Sahnun. They contend that in order to maintain women's dignity and honor and to prevent extramarital affairs, female education should be segregated from male.

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar's View on Gender Equality and Women Emancipation

Dr. Ambedkar was not only the father of Indian Constitution; he was a great political leader, freedom fighter, thinker, philosopher, economist, editor, writer and the Social reformer. The first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru said; ―Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar was a symbol of revolt against all oppressive features of the Hindu Society‖. Dr. Ambedkar argued for extensive economic and social rights for women. He stated that women should be given all round development importantly social education, their well being and socio-cultural right. He emphasized that each and every section of Indian women be given their due share and it is a must to maintain and protect dignity and modesty of women. Dr. Ambedkar tried an adequate inclusion of women‘s right in the political vocabulary and constitution of India. And his deep concern and feelings for all round development of women is expressed from his each sentence and word. Hence, my paper will be concentrating on Ambedkar‘s views on Women‘s empowerment and Gender equality.

Women and Modesty in Late Antiquity by Kate Wilkinson

Reviewed by: Women and Modesty in Late Antiquity by Kate Wilkinson Kristi Upson-Saia Women and Modesty in Late Antiquity Kate Wilkinson Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 186. ISBN 978-1-107-03027-5. Wilkinson's new monograph holds up the women of the Anicii family as a case study through which to query the nature of modesty in the late antique Roman world. Throughout her study, Wilkinson stresses the performative nature of modesty (rather than modesty conceived as an internal state). Specifically, in chapters 2–4 she focuses readers' attention on the myriad ways in which late ancient women's modesty was constructed and interpreted in their dress, their voice, their comportment, and their relation to and movement through certain spaces. This focus on performativity enables Wilkinson to highlight the self-conscious and strategic calculations women made on a day-to-day basis, stressing their agency in defining the contours of modesty in antiquity. Wilkinson acknowledges that our sources are limited in that they provide us scant access into these day-to-day choices. She aims to fill these gaps with the help of comparative ethnographic material. Ethnographic intertexts, she asserts, provide insight into how often and in what ways Roman women were actively engaged in rich yet subtle acts of self-expression, self-formation, and self-conscious performances of modesty. Thick descriptions of women's dress in other contexts, for instance, alert us to the wearer's choices regarding how to arrange their garments, as well as choices regarding the decoration, color, and pattern of clothing. Further, ethnographic sources attune scholars to the varied audiences women keep in mind as they craft their appearance and, in turn, construct their public personae. With this comparative material in mind, we return to late ancient sources able to see the similar choices available to Roman women (at least, to aristocratic women like the Aniciae). For instance, extant material evidence suggests that Romans could change out the decorative hems of their tunics, and women were continually making choices about how to hold, fold, drape, pin or belt the cloth of their mantles (a particularly unwieldy garment). We also read anew ancient men's voluminous advice and urgent recommendations regarding modesty as no longer mere constraints put upon women, but also as revealing the degree of choice women had with respect to complying, negotiating, or rejecting their male mentors' wishes and the significance of their decisions. Throughout these chapters, Wilkinson insists that we attribute agency to women when they chose to conform to the conventions of modesty determined by men, as much as we attribute agency to women who resist or subvert patriarchal social norms. Following Saba Mahmood—whose analytical insights reverberate throughout the [End Page 522] book—Wilkinson argues that "living into" traditional modesty norms, even those norms that may seem to contemporary readers to be antithetical to the exertion of free will and agency, nonetheless were opportunities for ancient women's active self-formation and self-representation. As such, Wilkinson joins a cadre of scholars who want to correct the impression that women's historical agency can only be revealed in cases when women are "shown to represent a counter-discourse or an undercurrent of resistance to patriarchy" (90). In Chapter 5, perhaps the most provocative in the book, Wilkinson surveys early Christian discussions that pit internal modesty (that is, modest motivations, disposition, desires) against external displays of modesty (the performances discussed in previous chapters). She finds that early Christians worried about "false" modesty—namely, pious external appearances or displays that obfuscated an impious interiority—even while they remained confident in the ultimate reliability of appearances. No matter how competent individuals were at performing modesty, they concluded, without a truly modest nature, their immodesty would eventually surface in externalities. Previous scholars who have commented on these sources highlight the manner in which (male) early Christian leaders claimed authority and expertise to interpret appearances rightly and to distinguish authentic from inauthentic piety. Wilkinson, on the contrary, wishes to shift our reading. To her, these discussions illuminate how internal modesty collapses into external performances of modesty, further demonstrating the stakes of performativity and thus the "rigorous exercise of attention...

Taste as Emotion: The Synesthetic Body in Monique Truong’s Bitter in the Mouth

An' they chased him 'n' never could catch him 'cause they didn't know what he looked like, an' Atticus, when they finally saw him he was real nice ... His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me. Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them. --Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird My genius from a boy, Has like a bird within my heart; But could not thus confined her employ, Impatient to depart. --George Moses Horton, Moses Horton, Myself George Moses Horton, the self-described Colored Bard of North Carolina, was born into slavery in Northampton County, North Carolina at the turn of the nineteenth century. Denied a formal education, Horton taught himself to read through the illicit study of cast-off schoolbooks and by listening in on the spelling lessons of local white children. As described in his eponymous poem, his genius fluttered from a young age, but a black man living in the Antebellum South, he was physically and emotionally confined by the laws and stereotypes of his time. The biological justification of Horton's captivity relied on a racialization of bodies that distinguished and categorized individuals along lines of subordination and domination. Rarely were the emotions of slaves considered, their temperament, like intelligence, was often regarded childlike, and therefore not capable of complexity or nuance. Horton's use of the feminine to portray the powers of his genius--his poetry--is telling, he, himself, relies on familiar tropes, writing of his poetic yearning, she like a restless bird, would spread her wing. As a racially marked subject, Horton divorces himself from the creative impulse, referring to his genius she, and endowing his poetry with associations of feminine, white beauty. In doing so, he draws attention to parallels between poetry and femininity that see them delicate and gentle, but also trapped and disenfranchised through these connotations. These characterizations also extend to emotions, where historical binaries categorizing the relationship of gender to reason have posited femininity with whiteness, and women squarely on the side of sentiment. (1) As 'leaky' subjects held sway by tides of tears and menstrual blood, white women, through their associations with emotion, have been devalued in comparison to stereotypically masculine traits of intellect and objectivity. The consequences of this structuring work alongside similar lines of mind-body dualism, privileging those emotions connected with knowledge and the faculties of the mind against passion, feelings, and other baser affective qualities associated with the physical body. With regards to race, this structuring mirrors the disturbing ease with which emotional qualities slide into corporeal qualities in the case of racialized subjects, reinforcing the notion of race itself truth located, quite naturally, in the always obvious, highly visible body (Ngai 573). Given white femininity's adherence to a code of piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity--virtues believed to be inherent in feminine nature [...] African American women's lives and labors in the antebellum South contrasted sharply with this iconic womanhood (Harris-Perry 55). As a result, false notions of hypersexualized black femininity were created as a way of reconciling the forced public exposure and commoditization of black women's bodies with the Victorian ideals of women's modesty and fragility (Harris-Perry 55). Horton's notion of freedom and the use of the feminine pronoun in his poetry, then, draws attention to the ways in which race and gender, and the divisions within and between these identities, are not only sites where social hierarchies are enforced, but also where their similarities are made visible. …

The Self-Defeating Nature of “Modesty”— Based Gender Segregation

The Self-defeating Nature of "Modesty"— Based Gender Segregation Zvi Triger (bio) Introduction This part of our roundtable argues that gender segregation in Israel is a form of sexual harassment under Israeli Law, as well as a self-defeating policy from the perspective of Orthodox religious principles. Analyzing the case of gender segregation in public transportation in certain cities in Israel, I shall demonstrate that gender-segregated seating arrangements in Israeli buses constitute "an intimidating or humiliating reference directed towards"1 women's sex or their sexuality. Therefore, such segregation constitutes prohibited sexual harassment pursuant to Section 3(5)(a) of the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Law, 5758-1998. I also argue that the current wave of Jewish religious fundamentalism, with its relatively new demands concerning women's modesty, is self-defeating. While its motivation is to "clean" the public sphere from any manifestation, real or perceived, of female sexuality, by being so preoccupied with women's "modesty" it in fact puts their sexuality at the center of attention. A Brief Overview of Gender Segregation in Israel Gender-based segregation in Israel enjoys a growing presence. In addition to segregated public transportation, there are segregated post office and kupat holim (HMO) branches, segregated funerals (despite court rulings that forbid it), and even segregated ice-cream parlors and sidewalks.2 In the same vein, women's images have been erased from ads published on billboards and on buses.3 Most instances occur in predominantly ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods and towns. However, many of the segregated establishments serve the secular population as well. [End Page 19] Most current forms of segregation in Israel are relatively new. For example, gender segregation in buses started only in the early 1990s.4 Another famous site of gender segregation, slightly older than the one on public transportation, is at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. There, following the 1967 war, an orthodox synagogue was established, separating men and women, despite the more relaxed approach to mixed prayer at the site during the pre-state years. Women of the Wall, who do not challenge gender segregation at the site, but want to wear traditionally male prayer shawls and read aloud from the Torah (which is forbidden under ultra-Orthodoxy), cannot do so because of the area being declared an Orthodox synagogue.5 The first gender-segregated bus lines, in Jerusalem and in Bnei-Brak (a predominantly ultra-Orthodox city, located east of Tel Aviv), were introduced in the late 1990s. In those buses men enter (and get off the bus) through the front door and sit in the front of the bus, while women enter through the back door and sit at the back. In addition, women are required to dress modestly. Those buses are called by their operator, Egged (the largest transit bus company in Israel, a cooperative owned by its members, and substantially subsidized by the government) and by members of the ultra-Orthodox public "kavey mehadrin" (or "mehadrin lines"). Borrowed from the terminology of Jewish dietary laws (kashrut), the term "mehadrin", which means "embellished", alludes to and signifies a stringent interpretation of Jewish law, and therefore a higher level of dedication and commitment to religious commandments. Women who do not go to the back of the bus or are not dressed modestly according to ultra-Orthodox standards, whether because they did not notice they were boarding a "mehadrin" bus or because they refuse to adhere to its rules, are often verbally and physically abused.6 Today there are dozens of segregated bus lines that travel across Israel.7 Initially, the Israel Ministry of Transportation held the position that segregation is legitimate, because it is "voluntary". However, as mentioned, women who try to resist the segregation are often attacked (with the bus drivers either ignoring the assaults or actively participating in them); in many cases there are no alternative non-segregated buses on specific routes; and, finally, the rides on many of the segregated buses are cheaper than those on their counterpart non-segregated buses that run along the same route. In 2007, the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, petitioned the Supreme Court against the Ministry of Transportation's refusal...

Intersecting identities and global climate change

This article explores the place of race, class, gender, sexual and national identities and cultures in global climate change. Research on gendered vulnerabilities to disasters suggests that women are more vulnerable than men to many meteorological disasters related to climate change, specifically flooding and drought. This is because of their relative poverty, economic activities (especially subsistence agriculture) and the moral economies governing women's modesty in many cultures. Research on historical and contemporary links between masculinity and the military in environmental politics, polar research and large-scale strategies for managing risk, including from climate change, suggests that men and their perspectives have more influence over climate change policies because of their historical domination of science and government. I expect that masculinist identities, cultures and militarised institutions will tend to favour large-scale remedies, such as geoengineering, minimise mitigation strategies, such as reducing energy use, and emphasise ‘security’ problems of global climate change.

Islam, Women and Violence

Islam is a religion of vast dimensions which has inspired great civilizations and today offers many men and women comfort and ethical guidance. In this paper I suggest that the tension between the Qur'an accepted as the perfect timeless word of God and the encultured dynamic Islam of nearly a quarter of the world's population results in contending perspectives of women's role and rights. The Qur'an gives men and women spiritual parity, but there are verses in the Qur'an that some feminists find difficult to reconcile with the modern rights of women. Most Islamic feminists make a clear distinction between cultural practices (what actually happens to embodied women) and the pure word of God. 1 There are profound differences in the status of women within and between predominantly Muslim countries. In some countries it is illegal for women to drive a car, or to move freely outside the home, in others women have become heads of state. The decision to wear the veil, often a sign of empowerment in Europe, is in parts of the Islamic world obligatory. Voices representing an exclusivist, literalist understanding of Islam have entered the mainstream of Muslim lives due in part to the fact that Wahhabism imposes a narrow, sectarian view of Islam, and the Saudi government with its massive oil wealth propagates this puritanical form of Islam across the world. Some traditionalist maulanas and maulvis are concerned above all with women's modesty and enforce customs that refine, purify and protect their chastity. They, like some Islamic feminists, position Islamic rights and roles for women with regard to the exoticized and eroticized `other' — in this case Western civilization, Western imperialism and the rise of Western feminism. `The West' becomes for traditional interpreters a kind of contemporary jahilya. There are also many progressive Muslim scholars who seek to articulate a historically accurate, non-idealized, now challenged, now challenging, view of Islam with an uncompromising emphasis on social justice, equality and pluralism (Safi 2008: 215). This paper argues that the ongoing, postcolonial battle against Western `imperialism' demands epistemological humility. Nevertheless, women are fighting for basic human rights and freedoms in parts of the Islamic world where the State, religious authorities (the ulema) and the patriarchal family assume the right of legal and moral surveillance. In considering the nature of violence to Muslim women in Pakistan and the UK, I hope to show that accusations of orientalism should not deter us from recognizing the courage of women activists who themselves risk imprisonment and of the struggle of women victims of rape and domestic violence to overcome feelings of shame and dishonour. I argue that both the private and public spheres need to be made safe for all Muslim women, and not just a professional elite. This can only be achieved by a fuller recognition of women's rights encapsulated in law and all aspects of public life.

The Muslim Veil in North America. Issues and Debates

More Than Clothing: Veiling As an Adaptive Strategy Coding Dress: Gender and the Articulation of Identity in a Canadian Muslim School Banners of Faith and Identities in Construct: The hijab in Canada Voices of Muslim Women Perceptions of the hijab in Canada Muslim Women and Islamic Religious Tradition: A Historical Overview and Contemporary Issues Women 's Modesty in Qur 'anic Commentaries: The Founding Discourse Hijab According to the Hadith: Text and Interpretation.

The Muslim Veil in North America: Issues and Debates

More Than Clothing: Veiling As an Adaptive Strategy Coding Dress: Gender and the Articulation of Identity in a Canadian Muslim School Banners of Faith and Identities in Construct: The hijab in Canada Voices of Muslim Women Perceptions of the hijab in Canada Muslim Women and Islamic Religious Tradition: A Historical Overview and Contemporary Issues Women 's Modesty in Qur 'anic Commentaries: The Founding Discourse Hijab According to the Hadith: Text and Interpretation.

A Permissive Zone for Prostitution in the Middle Atlas of Morocco

Muslim women are said to live in a male-dominated society with rigid sexual stratification: the seclusion and control of the sexual practices of a woman increase a man's status and power. This view has become more relevant with the process of Islamization in Morocco, as elsewhere. In reality, among the Berber people of the Middle Atlas, many divorced and widowed women see no economic alternative to becoming a prostitute. Cultural and global conditions have made the area a permissive zone for prostitution because of the local tradition of ritual dances that act as a marriage market, the absence of a focus on virginity, and because retired prostitutes can regain the respect of their community. Since the 1960s, Moroccan migrants returning temporarily home and male tourists from neighboring countries have given the Middle Atlas the reputation of a permissive zone for prostitution. (Berber, Morocco, prostitution, globalization) ********** A common perception is that honor is a critical theme for explaining status, power, and gender in Middle Eastern and North African society. Women especially feel the consequences of this as their reputation is of the utmost importance in upholding family honor. Virginity and chastity are central elements of this honor, so women's behavior is strictly controlled by having them married off early, veiled, and prevented from playing a role in the public domain. The theory is that women have a symbolic function for groups that strive for honor and superiority (Haddad 1998; Abu Lughod 1989; Peristiany 1968, 1966), so the behavior of women is used as an ideological instrument in the concern for status. The seclusion and control of their sexual practices increases a man's prestige: the crucial factor is women's modesty. Women who break the norms for their gender are subjected to social reprobation and occupy a marginal position in society. Women who cross the boundaries by working, remaining single, or entering the public sphere are stigmatized. Sex outside of marriage is condemned because unchecked instincts may lead to fitna (chaos) (Obermeyer 2000:241). This traditional cultural explanation has become more relevant with the process of Islamization in North African societies as elsewhere in the Muslim world. Over the last few decades, many people have adopted a lifestyle based on a more strict and orthodox interpretation of Islam, and women's sexuality is controlled in order to pressure them to become the bearers of constructed group identities (Ilkkaracan 2000:764, 765; Esposito 1998:xvi). The veil is undergoing a remarkable resurgence among Moroccan urban-dwellers (particularly among rich and middle-class families) and political parties have adopted the Sharia as the basis of moral order. Some Muslim populations have a more liberal view of religious praxis. The Berbers of the countryside are virtually pagans, say the orthodox and Arab people of the urban centers in Morocco (NRC Handelsblad 2002; Venema and Bakker 1994:8-10). But stricter practices have even become more common among rural populations. For example, the female dancers and singers among the Berber-speaking Chaouias in Algeria used to be hired by farmers to perform at harvest festivals. Their performance consisted of religious songs interchanged with bawdy love songs that contained suggestive proposals to which the harvesters replied gleefully. The women performed only on a temporary basis and their work was not perceived as indecent. However, since the spread of a more rigid and orthodox version of Islam in Algeria, these groups are no longer able to perform (Encyclopedie Berbere 1991:1223, 1224). The honor/shame complex places men and women in an opposition which may end up as a harem theory, argues Abu Lughod (1989). In this perspective there is a high degree of gender segregation, with women having a world of their own, and being idle, submissive, and veiled. According to Abu Lughod (1989), this prospect derives from the sexual dichotomies applied to Middle Eastern and North African societies, and such dichotomies as nature/culture and public/private fail to acknowledge the complex mixing that happens in practice. …

The Return of Sara Baartman

Return of Sara Baartman. Film by Zola Maseko. New York: First Run Icarus Films, 2003. 53 min., color. $248 purchase, $75.00 rental. Zola Maseko's film focuses on people who engineered return of Sara Baartman's physical remains from Paris to South Africa for burial. In life Baartman was the hottentot Venus in London and Paris in 1800s and 1810s, a famous exhibit. She died young, in France, and French pickled her vagina, and stored her bones in a box. These remains are golden briefcase in this film-the focus of everyone's attention-even though no one can figure out exactly what remains signify. South Africans like to resolve such matters in meetings, and movie is largely a recording of such committee work and of what people were thinking and feeling during hand-over. Maseko's first film, The Life and Times of Sara is excerpted in this one; there are brief monologues, and then scenes of Baartman's burial in Hankey, a nondescript town in Eastern Cape, where President Mbeki gave a suitable speech. movie lasts 53 minutes and is uninspired and often dull: don't expect it to win any Indie cinema award. voice-over begins on a wrong note, by mispronouncing with a non-explosive palatal fricative, g, as goegoe, instead of in usual way, perhaps in order to make a (spurious) claim to specialist knowledge. Khoikhoi were slaughtered in colonial hunting raids and decimated by smallpox, their lands stolen, a fair summation: but it is not clear that Baartman identified herself as a Khoikhoi, or a Christian, or some other ethnic or political name, or, more likely, as a daughter. By time she was born, in 1789, Boers had been acquiring loan farms on far side of Gamtoos River for twenty years. Like so many, she was a resident worker· on such a farm. She happened to have a large and protuberant posterior, for a Khoikhoi or a European, and she caught eye of a lewd impresario. Persuaded to go to Europe (how?), she was displayed in flesh on stage and paid a very small wage. There were always whispered rumors about the hottentot's body, her mythical anatomy and genitalia. Maseko's film, and narration (written and spoken by one Gail Smith), do not explain reference any further. It is to elongated labia minora within folds of a Khoikhoi woman's vagina. A debate still simmers among anthropologists and historians about whether there was such a physical difference, whether it was common, induced by customary practices (pulling), perhaps in some form of masturbation, whether it exists today, etc. Burying Baartman won't stop such talk about different bodies and sexual fetishism. Nineteenth-century audiences had not been shamed into silence and elaborated various discourses around Baartman before and after her death. George Cuvier measured her for anthropometric science, and compared her anatomy to that of apes and dogs. (Discordant music makes it hard to concentrate on what Cuvier was saying. music in this film is awful.) Cuvier made a cast of her after she died, and this model was exhibited at Musee de l'Homme, a veritable part of French history and culture for over 150 years, until 1974. Baartman, narrator Gail Smith tells, us became a symbol of black women's sexuality, which is what Sander oilman has argued.1 This was not case in 1810, when she was considered more of an oddity, but it is certainly true today. No doubt many of people in Maseko's film view Baartman as a symbol of black women's sexuality. Several of her modern partisans, having gained possession of her body in material form, want to use it to proclaim black women's repossession of their own bodies in a transformed South Africa today. Sadly, incidence of rape among black people in South Africa has remained high or even increased in townships since demise of apartheid. For others, Baartman's bones must be buried for spiritual reasons, to repair a trespass on Coloured women's modesty, to assert a form of ownership of her memory, to replace racial typology and exploitation with domestic containment and repose. …

Islam Is the Solution: Jordanian Islamists and the Dilemma of the 'Modern Woman'

During the past decade, the issue of gender relations and women's conduct and dress has been occupying an increasingly prominent place in the discourse of Islamist movements. This article attempts to situate Arab Islamists' preoccupation with women within the legacy of colonialism and social transformations relating to gender and class. With regard to Jordan, the author links the urgency of the issue with social transformations at the level of gender and class during recent decades, and points out that the key to understanding the prominence of the 'woman question' in Islamist thinking is the fact that the social groups which comprise the traditional constituency of the Islamists are finally experiencing for themselves the socially disruptive implications of new patterns in women's work, education and visibility. In short, the issue of women's modesty and conduct, which was more abstract as recent as one generation ago (when only upper middle and upper class women were visible in the public domain), acquires concreteness and urgency in the rapidly changing social environment. The article also tries to show how the Islamists' framing of the issue in cultural terms has a primal appeal, especially to those social groups most alienated from the insular world of the westernized elite and in search of 'authentic' ways of living in the modern world.

"On the Modesty of Women in Arab Muslim Villages": A Reply

It is methodologically misleading to try to understand the code of modesty in illiterate Arab Muslim villages by dubious interpretation of Quranic verses or archaic literary Arabic words. It is also dangerous to generalize about the modesty of Arab Muslim women on the basis of the analysis of idioms peculiar to a particular Arab community. The code of modesty of Arab Muslim women in a certain community could not be understood independently of the values and the images prevalent in this community.

On the Modesty of Women in Arab Muslim Villages: A Study in the Accommodation of Traditions1

The modesty code constitutes a fundamental pattern in Middle Eastern culture, found at the level of both its great tradition (Islamic law and Quranic ethics) and its little tradition (village custom and belief). The peculiar conditions of peasant life, however, make conformity to the code difficult and require accommodation at the level of both action and thought. It is the accommodation at the two analytically separate levels of thought and action and the interrelationship between these accommodations, rather than the search for the historical origins of discrete cultural traits, that should constitute the focus for studies relating the great and little traditions. This study demonstrates that accommodation in thought (Redfield's “social organization of tradition”) is intimately related to the success of achieving accommodation in action between particular groups in critical situations (Firth's “social organization” at large). It also demonstrates that the persistence and the pervasiveness of the modesty code in Middle Eastern culture can be explained only by a combination of structural, psychological, and historical factors.